(Nordregio EP 2001:2) NORDREGIO - NORDIC CENTRE FOR SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT Box 1658 SE-111 86 Stockholm Tel. +46-8-4635434- Fax +46-8-4635401 E-mail: [email protected] DORA - DYNAMICS OF RURAL AREAS National Report – Sweden Lars Olof Persson, project leader Vânia A Ceccato With the financial support of the European Commission (FAIR6-CT98-4162) Stockholm Oct, 2001 2 Acknowledgements Without the co-operation of the inhabitants of our study areas in Sweden this research would never have been completed. Thanks to all those who spent their time during the interviewing process between March and May 2000. A special thanks to Åsa Petterson and Mats Brandt, who helped us directly with the interviews. Also thanks to several students involved on the transcription of interviews and to Kay Swenseid for her work on the translation of part of the interviews from Swedish to English and some editing language work of the final report. Special thanks go to the team-coordinator of the DORA project at the Arkleton Centre headed by Prof. John Bryden and his team composed of Anja Timm, Jane Atterton, Paul Courtney, Keith Hart and Gilian Munro. Also to others research partners, in Germany, Helmut Schrader, Gerd Hachmöller, Birgit Koch and Lars Masurek and in Greece, Sofia Efstratoglou, Emmanouela Kourossi and Angelos Efstratoglou. The Swedish DORA team would like to thank the members of the National Steering Group who actively contributed with valuable comments during the development of this project: Birgit Wiberg, Ulla Herlitz, Harry Leiman, Ola Rörling, Maria Gustafsson, Wolfgang Pitcher and Lennart Linqvist. Thanks also to Miriam Stephan, a visiting student to Nordregio from Aalborg University, Denmark that directly contributed to the section on ‘investments’ for the Swedish study areas. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................ 10 1.1 Aim and objectives.................................................................................................................. 10 1.2 The concept of differential economic performance................................................................. 11 1.3 Methodology........................................................................................................................... 11 2. CONTEXT ................................................................................................................................... 14 2.1 The national and European context........................................................................................ 14 - Local decision-making ............................................................................................... 15 - Welfare State country................................................................................................. 17 - The sparsely populated and remote rural areas........................................................... 18 2.2 Regional context and study areas in North Sweden................................................................ 19 2.3 Regional context and study areas in Southeast Sweden ........................................................ 22 3. NORTH SWEDEN ............................................................................................................................ 25 3.1. Analysis of Factors ................................................................................................................ 25 3.1.1. Natural resources ........................................................................................................25 - Availability of natural resources................................................................................. 25 - Land ownership structure and price............................................................................ 25 - Environmental legislation and planning restriction.................................................... 26 4.1.2. Human resources ........................................................................................................ 28 - Demographic structure and evolution......................................................................... 28 - Labour force structure and participation rates ............................................................ 30 - Human capital............................................................................................................. 33 3.1.3. Infrastructure............................................................................................................... 36 - Transport infrastructure.............................................................................................. 36 - Business-related infrastructure ................................................................................... 38 - Consumer-oriented infrastructure............................................................................... 39 - Tourism infrastructure................................................................................................ 41 - Regional policy and decision making......................................................................... 41 3.1.4 Investments.................................................................................................................. 43 - EU structural funds..................................................................................................... 44 - EU agricultural spending............................................................................................ 45 - National spending including transfers to municipalities............................................. 46 - Spending of county councils and municipalities ........................................................ 48 - Available resources from Regional Growth Agreements - RGA ............................... 49 3.1.5. Economic structure and organisation.......................................................................... 50 - Structure and evolution of employment by sectors of economic activities ................ 50 - The mix of branches and linkages in the local economy........................................... 52 - Social formation of production................................................................................... 54 3.1.6. Institutions .................................................................................................................. 54 - Institutions autonomy ................................................................................................. 54 - Institutional co-operation............................................................................................ 56 - Institutional responsiveness and efficiency ................................................................ 57 3.1.7. Market performance.................................................................................................... 58 - The capital market performance................................................................................. 58 - Natural resources market performance....................................................................... 59 - Market of good and services....................................................................................... 59 3.1.8. Networks..................................................................................................................... 60 - Local embeddedness................................................................................................... 60 - Global communications.............................................................................................. 63 - Information technology and innovation...................................................................... 64 3.1.9. Community ................................................................................................................. 65 - Forms of community and identity .............................................................................. 65 - Religion ......................................................................................................................66 - Values, beliefs and attitudes ....................................................................................... 66 3.1.10. Quality of life............................................................................................................ 69 - Living standard and safety.......................................................................................... 69 - Environment quality and recreation ........................................................................... 71 - Multiculturality........................................................................................................... 71 3.2 Themes and Dynamics............................................................................................................ 73 4 3.2.1. Natural resources, traditional economic structure and links of dependence ............... 75 3.2.2. Remoteness, chronic demographic unbalances and cultural and economic isolation . 76 3.2.3. History, values and self identity and entrepreneurship ............................................... 77 3.3 Conclusions for North Sweden ...............................................................................................79 4. SOUTHEAST SWEDEN..................................................................................................................... 81 4.1. Analysis of Factors ...............................................................................................................