Enhancing public value with co-creation in public land development: The role of municipalities

Municipalities in Sweden use public land development to engage public and private actors in collaborative urban experimentation and innovation to create public value. This points to a wider scope of potential and current utility for public land development than previously theorised. The aim of this paper is to investigate municipalities’ use of public land development to enable and structure public value co-creation, and to provide suggestions for enhancing public value. Findings are based on a multiple case study of five flagship urban development projects located in different municipalities in Sweden. We illustrate how municipalities co-design public value propositions with different public and private actors, which aretranslated into criteria for choosing developers to allocate land to and project-specific requirements for housing development. When co-designing public value propositions and subsequent requirements, the main role of the municipality is to form arenas where relevant actors can collaboratively find creative solutions to emerging problems rooted in value conflicts. Findings align with previous research on public value co-creation in other contexts, demonstrating an appropriate application of the theory and potential for further theoretical development across research fields. •A multiple case study of flagship developments is used to investigate public value co-creation in public land development.•Municipal land allocations are interpreted as co-design processes with property developers.•Public land development is used to organise and structure public value co-creation in flagship developments.•Municipalities form arenas for collaborative and creative value conflict resolution, and platforms for knowledge transfer.