Jenny Lindblad

PhD, Planning and Decision analysis, Urban and regional studies.

I work as a researcher and teacher at the division of Urban and Regional Studies, in the research platform Space Politics and Ecologies.

I am interested in how practices, expertise and materialities shape cities and urban life, specifically with regards to how environmental issues figure in urban planning and decision-making processes. I work with perspectives from anthropology, science and technology studies, planning studies, with a geographical focus on France and Sweden. I have been contributing editor for AnthroPod, the podcast of the Society for Cultural Anthropology. I am a board member of The Swedish Anthropological Association (SANT).

More on my ongoing research projects below, and under Portfolio to the right.

Feel free to get in touch about access to publications.

I am happy to hear from master students who wish to work on urban planning through qualitative methods with topics related to, for instance, planning practices, bureaucracy, and urban environmental justice and planning.

Ongoing projects

(more information under Portfolio in the right hand menu)

Muddy terrains of environmental expertise: Ethnographies of changing and competing knowledge of wetland restoration in times of climate change

Funded by the Swedish Research Council / Vetenskapsrådet 2025-2027

Freshwater is an increasingly acute issue for cities in the context of the multifaceted climate crisis. In response to this, restoration of freshwater urban ecosystems is gaining momentum. However, restoration is far from straightforward, as diverse ways of knowing, valuing and living with ecosystems are at stake in claims about imperatives for their remaking on the ground. By investigating the multiplicity, diversity and ordering of expertise that inform urban restoration, this project seeks to identify dominant knowledge regimes, value conflicts and local ecosystem understandings that underpin contemporary ecosystem restoration.

It does so by addressing the overall research question: How is dominant restoration expertise constructed and maintained? This overall research question is operationalized through the following questions:

• What different understandings about specific wetland sites are produced, and through what means, in the planning and performing of restoration interventions?
• What relations of consensus and competition exist across the identified wetland understandings and value frameworks?
• How are various understandings and value frameworks sorted in and out from restoration interventions, and on what grounds?

The project is situated within the critical scholarly work that explores the mechanisms of ecosystem restoration actions and other forms of environmental management through which unsustainabilities are sustained and hegemonic relationships cemented. The empirical entry-point for the project is urban wetland restoration in the region of Stockholm.

Assessing GeoAI methods' accuracy for wetland detection in the region of Stockholm

Funded by Region Stockholm, 2025

For decades, there has been growing momentum to protect and restore wetlands for the vital ecosystem services they provide, including habitat for endangered species, water purifica on, flood preven on, and carbon storage. However, wetlands continue to be lost, primarily due to urban development. Sweden’s national environmental goal, supported by a dedicated budget, aims to restore and protect wetlands, but recent data shows that losses from urbanization and infrastructure development outweigh restoration efforts. Thus, integrating urban development with wetland protection is critical.

This project responds to the urgent need for better knowledge about urban wetlands by evaluating the accuracy of existing AI-based wetland detection methods using geospatial data. It will assess the performance of Geospatial Foundation Models (GFMs) in the Stockholm region, using reference data from field-surveyed wetlands to ensure the accuracy of the methods, including their capacity to detect wetlands smaller than 10 hectares.

Project members: Andrea Nascetti, Ioannis Ioannidis och Lina Suleiman, Department of Urban Planning and Environment, KTH.

Completed projects

Humus Economicus : Soil Blindness and the value of "Dirt" in Urbanized landscapes.

Holmstedt, J., Lindblad, J., Fredengren, C., Åberg, C., Lobell, M., & Wegsjö, K. (in press spring 2025). Cultivating Ecosystem Conviviality Trough Soil Arts and Urban Gardening. In P. McElwee, M. Hsu, K. Allen, R. Gould & J. He (Eds). Routledge Handbook of Cultural Ecosystem Services. Routledge.

Holmstedt, J. & Lindblad, J. (2024). Elementär planering: Jordade städer och gemenskapande naturkulturer.PLAN, nr. 3-4.

Lobell, M. & Lindblad. J. (2023) Arwidsson Talk Podcast, Under Jord- om jordblindhet i staden https://arwidssonstiftelsen.se/podcast/under-jord/

Lindblad, J. (2021) Jordlager i lagar – ytvärden och djupvärden / Soil Layers and Laws – Surface Values and Deep Values of Soils in the City. Blog post on project webpage: https://humuseconomicus.se/sv/nyheter/jordlager-i-lagar-ytvarden-och-djupvarden/

Who develops the city of the future? Mapping the contested field of urban development expertise

Vad kan vi lära oss av 100-åringar? Värdeskapande kring långvariga småbutiker i stadskärnor​

Wiberg, S., Tamm Hallström, K., Lindblad, J. & Gustafsson Nordin, I. (2025).Kampen om stadsrummet. Äldre butiker som urbana och sociala gemenskaper. Stockholmia förlag.

Lindblad, J., Wiberg, S., Tamm Hallström, K., & Gustafsson Nordin, I. (2024). Maintaining the good store: lessons about caring practices from Swedish 100-year-old retail stores.The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/09593969.2024.2371460

Tamm Hallström, K., Wiberg, S., Gustafsson Nordin, I. & Lindblad, J., (2024). Detaljhandeln under pandemin - Hur gick det för 100-åringarna?Handelsrådet Forskningsrapport 2024:8.https://handelsradet.se/app/uploads/2025/01/Rapport-2024_84.pdf

Doctoral thesis

Planning Contexts: Bureaucracy and rule relations in French Urbanism

My doctoral thesis (2020) investigated the social life of a planning bureaucracy in Bordeaux, France, in a time of national reforms aimed at transforming bureaucratic procedures. By following the making and uses of a land-use plan, I explored what calls for flexibility and negotiation in reforms aimed at public administrations come to mean in the quotidian work of bureaucrats, planners and politicians.

Organizing sustainable cities: planning, strategy, governance, management
Project publications include:

Lindblad, J., & Anand, N. (2023). Cities after planning.Environment and Planning D,41(4), 606-614. https://doi.org/10.1177/02637758231202863

Lindblad, J. (2023). Planning context: Flexible plans and mayoral authority in French urban planning.Environment and Planning D: Society and Space,41(4), 615-636. https://doi.org/10.1177/02637758231196412

Metzger, J., & Lindblad, J. (Eds.). (2020). Dilemmas of sustainable urban development: A view from practice. Routledge.

Adolfsson, P., Lindblad, J., & Peacock, S. (2021). Translations of sustainability in urban planning documents—A longitudinal study of comprehensive plans in three European cities.Cities,119.103360. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2021.103360