Pathways to Demographic Adaptation: Perspectives on Policy and Planning in Depopulating Areas in Northern Europe (SpringerBriefs in Geography) 3030340457, 9783030340452

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SPRINGER BRIEFS IN GEOGRAPHY

Josefina Syssner

Pathways to Demographic Adaptation Perspectives on Policy and Planning in Depopulating Areas in Northern Europe 123

SpringerBriefs in Geography

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Josefina Syssner

Pathways to Demographic Adaptation Perspectives on Policy and Planning in Depopulating Areas in Northern Europe

Josefina Syssner Department of Culture and Society Linköping University Norrkoping, Sweden

ISSN 2211-4165     ISSN 2211-4173 (electronic) SpringerBriefs in Geography ISBN 978-3-030-34045-2    ISBN 978-3-030-34046-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34046-9 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

This book is based on years of field studies in rural parts of the Nordic countries. The areas included in my studies have all experienced depopulation and shrinkage. They have faced decades of negative migration nets, of low fertility rates and of an increasing proportion of elder people. During my field visits, I have met a large number of local government representatives who continue to dream of growth and development. Many of them still present policies for growth and development, even if all of them have a completely different reality to deal with. My experience is that the dream of growth makes it difficult for local government representatives to talk about shrinkage and population decline. Many seem to lack a language for describing what shrinkage is. Many of them are uncomfortable with talking about the decisions that are taken as a consequence of depopulation. The main argument in this book is that local governments in shrinking areas should try to develop a local adaptation policy. To my understanding, this is a policy for how to adapt to new and demanding conditions. To develop a local adaptation policy is not about giving up the idea of growth ​​ or about passively accepting the fading away of an entire community. Rather, it is about transparency and responsibility and about finding new ways of providing service to the citizens, despite them being fewer and elder. The book is the result of years of teamwork. Albin Olausson and Marlies Meijer have coauthored several of the studies on which the book is based. The same goes for Conrad Siebert and Robert Jonsson. Thank you for all the work and commitment you have invested over the years! Thanks also to the colleagues at the Centre for Municipal Studies at Linköping University; I have greatly appreciated the cooperation and friendship with all of you. Östergården, Nedre Yxnö, September 2019 Norrköping, Sweden

Josefina Syssner

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Acknowledgement

“The research for this book was financially supported by The Swedish Research Council Formas (Grant no 2014-708).”

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Contents

1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   1 The Perspective: Policy and Geography��������������������������������������������������������   2 Human Geography and Policy Analysis����������������������������������������������������   3 The Aim ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   5 The Methods��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   5 The Structure of the Book������������������������������������������������������������������������������   6 Literature��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   7 2 A Policy Perspective on Shrinkage ������������������������������������������������������������  11 Why Do Places Shrink? ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  12 Planning for Decline��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  13 A Policy Perspective on Shrinkage����������������������������������������������������������������  14 What Is Policy?������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  15 Distinctions in Policy Analysis������������������������������������������������������������������  15 Policies and Ideas��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  16 Understanding the Thought-Content of Policies��������������������������������������������  17 Analytical and Cognitive Paradigms����������������������������������������������������������  17 Normative Frameworks and Value Judgements ����������������������������������������  18 Prescriptions for Action ����������������������������������������������������������������������������  18 Policies in a Shrinking Context����������������������������������������������������������������������  19 Literature��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  20 3 Rural Shrinkage in a Nordic Welfare State����������������������������������������������  23 Rural Shrinkage ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  24 Rural Depopulation in Sweden������������������������������������������������������������������  25 Uneven Population Change������������������������������������������������������������������������  26 Context-Dependent Consequences of Shrinkage��������������������������������������  28 The Devolved Welfare State��������������������������������������������������������������������������  30 Local Governments in Focus ��������������������������������������������������������������������  31 Context Dependent Policy Implications��������������������������������������������������������  33 Literature��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  33

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Contents

4 Policy Implications of Rural Depopulation ����������������������������������������������  37 The Shrinking Community����������������������������������������������������������������������������  38 Shrinkage from a Public-Sector Perspective��������������������������������������������������  40 Implications for Welfare Supply����������������������������������������������������������������  41 Implications for Planning and Development ��������������������������������������������  45 Implications for the Municipal Organisation ��������������������������������������������  47 Implications for Politics and Democracy��������������������������������������������������  48 Context-Dependent Consequences����������������������������������������������������������������  48 Literature��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  50 5 Why Do They Fail?��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  53 Conditions for Failure������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  55 The Potential Benefits of Growth��������������������������������������������������������������  56 The Growth Norm��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  56 The Goal Dependency of Growth Policy ��������������������������������������������������  60 Stigma and Personal Sentiments����������������������������������������������������������������  61 A Lack of Professional Support����������������������������������������������������������������  62 A New Terminology Is Needed����������������������������������������������������������������������  63 Literature��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  65 6 Arguments for a Local Adaptation Policy ������������������������������������������������  69 Local Adaptation Policy: A Definition����������������������������������������������������������  71 Arguments for an Explicit Local Adaptation Policy��������������������������������������  71 Assessing Local Adaptation Policies ������������������������������������������������������������  75 Interest Groups as a Conflict Base ������������������������������������������������������������  75 Location as a Conflict Base������������������������������������������������������������������������  76 Values as a Conflict Base ��������������������������������������������������������������������������  77 Policy Tools of Local Adaptation������������������������������������������������������������������  79 Inter-municipal Cooperation����������������������������������������������������������������������  79 Civil Society Cooperation��������������������������������������������������������������������������  80 Raising Taxes ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  81 Demolishing Buildings������������������������������������������������������������������������������  82 Centralising Services ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  82 Where Are All the Policy Tools?��������������������������������������������������������������������  83 Literature��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  84 Literature������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  87 Index��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  91

Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract  This volume is part of an increasing scholarly interest in depopulating areas. It draws upon an interest in the implications of demographic decline for policy and planning, and an eagerness to understand how local governments respond to shrinkage, and why they respond in those ways. The book aims to provide a policy perspective on rural depopulation. With the support of theories and methods relating to policy analysis, the author elucidates how local governments in Sweden interpret the policy implications of shrinkage and depopulation. In this chapter and throughout the book, the author refers to several advantages of dealing with depopulation and shrinkage in a long-term and transparent way. The main argument, therefore, is that local governments in shrinking areas would benefit from developing explicit local adaptation policies. Keywords  Depopulation · Shrinkage · Rural · Sweden · Human geography · Policy

All over the globe, we find land areas inhabited by fewer and fewer people. These areas can stretch over regions, districts and counties or cover single urban environments or rural settlements. They can also be limited to parts of municipalities, to parts of cities or to single villages or neighbourhoods. This book is part of an increasing scholarly interest in such places. It draws upon an interest in the implications of demographic decline for policy and planning, and an eagerness to understand how local governments respond to shrinkage, and why they respond in those ways. During the last decades, the implications of demographic decline for policy and planning have gained a growing scholarly attention. In this field of research, there is a wide agreement that shrinkage comes with some rather pressing consequences that public authorities as well as business sectors and civil society need to handle. Shrinking areas are often framed as “less favoured areas” (Ribeiro and Marques 2002), where political agendas include demanding issues such as over-dimensioned infrastructure (Sousa and Pinho 2013; Wiechmann and Pallagst 2012), decreasing

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 J. Syssner, Pathways to Demographic Adaptation, SpringerBriefs in Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34046-9_1

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1 Introduction

labour-related tax revenues (Haase et al. 2012; Hollander 2011), rising per capita expenditures for social services and increasing tax rates and fees (Fjertorp 2013), as well as emerging pessimism among residents and a loss of trust in local government (Matthiesen 2005). In the literature on shrinkage, there is however also a wide agreement that since growth is such a dominant contemporary norm, demographic decline has for long been disregarded in policy and planning (Bontje 2005; Wiechmann and Pallagst 2012; Martinez-Fernandez et  al. 2012; Sousa and Pinho 2013; Schatz 2017). Unrealistic ideas about growth and a negative framing of demographic decline (Martinez-Fernandez et al. 2012; Sousa and Pinho 2013; Schatz 2017) are understood to have prevented the evolvement of strategies for how to cope with decline (Lang 2012: 1748) or intensified the negative consequences of shrinkage, since “planning for shrinking cities does not work if it presupposes urban growth” (Wiechmann and Pallagst 2012: 261, 263). Even if recent studies (Pallagst et  al. 2017; Schatz 2017) indicate that growth-centred planning perspectives are, at least in part, accompanied by perspectives of degrowth, there is no sign of a shift of paradigms in policy or planning. As Schatz (2017: 43) states, many planners and politicians still employ growth-oriented policies even if they have to manage decline.

The Perspective: Policy and Geography In the chapters that follow, I approach the issue of depopulation and shrinkage as a human geographer with a profound interest in public policies enacted at the local level of government. Theoretically, the book builds upon an interest in the ideas, norms and values that underpin public policy. Normatively, it begins with the assertion that not all places can always grow, and that we need to better understand those policies that are designed to mitigate the consequences of population decline. Empirically, the book is based on several studies at the local level of government in those parts of Sweden that are experiencing long-term population decline. Sweden, it will be argued, is an instructive case when studying the policy implications of depopulation. Thus, the Swedish case displays two characteristics that are of relevance here: an extremely sparse population structure and an ambitious welfare structure that in many respects has been devolved to the local level of government. Several scholars before me have written about shrinkage with a declared interest in policy. However, many of them use the word “policy” without any further theoretical discussion. In these cases, empirical accounts are not accompanied by any theoretical discussion of what a policy is, how policies emerge, what their constitutive elements are or how they could be analysed, assessed or perhaps even evaluated. This book engages explicitly with these issues.

The Perspective: Policy and Geography

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Human Geography and Policy Analysis That human geographers engage with or study public policy is not new (see Jones et al. 2004). In fact, there has been a long-standing discussion on the role of geographers and geography in policymaking. The question of whether human geographers should contribute more actively to policy – and why and how we should do it – has been addressed many times before. In the 1970s, and in a critical reflection on the commitment of geography to public policy, David Harvey (1974: 18) asked whether geographers at all can “contribute successfully, meaningfully and effectively to the formulation of public policy”. The colonial experience of the discipline, the tradition of serving powers and the ethnocentric and paternalistic tendencies of traditional geographic literature made him handle the question with care (Harvey 1974: 22; for some other contributions, see Coppock 1974; Hoggart 1996). In later decades, geographers – mostly in a UK context – have debated on the influence exerted by human geographers on public policy (Massey 2004, 2006). Martin (2001: 191) expressed his concerns about the limited impact of human geography on public policy (Martin 2001: 191), whereas Thrift (2002: 290) interpreted geography’s increased intervention in public policy as a “success”. Dorling and Shaw (2002: 630) claimed that parts of the discipline had “turned its back on public policy” and called for scholars who to a greater extent than today take part in debates outside geography (for a response on this, see Massey 2002). There has also been a debate on what role the human geographer may have in the making of public policy. The examples given are the role of the public intellectual, activists, policymakers, experts, providers of expert knowledge or evaluators (Pain 2006; Ward 2007a, b). A classic task for the human geographer, Martin (2001: 190) suggests, is to “evaluate existing policies [and] to reveal their limitations, biases and effects”. The relation between applied policy research (often financed by the external partners) and the prospects of keeping a critical stance within the discipline has been under debate at several occasions (Pain 2006; Woods and Gardner 2011; Bell 2011). But quite apart from reflecting on the role of the human geographer, we need to ask, as Martin (2001:199) suggests, what insights a geographical perspective in fact brings to the study of policy. While reflecting on that question, it becomes evident that due to the broad theoretical and methodological span of the discipline, the relationship between geography and public policy can take a wide variety of shapes (Woods and Gardner 2011: 200). First, human geography could contribute to the analysis in inherently “spatial” policy areas such as agriculture, housing, urban infrastructure and rural development (Hoggart 1996). Geographers could also “expose and explain” (Martin 2001: 190) spatial patterns of inequality, poverty, conflict and crime, as well as disparities in growth, employment, productivity or similar. A classic task for the geographer is to engage in thematic fields such as area studies, border studies, urban studies, rural studies and similar.

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Second, human geography could contribute to a deeper understanding of the spatial effects of policy. This could be done by showing that the same policy intervention can have dissimilar effects, depending on the geographical context. Thus, also allegedly “nonspatial” policies, as Martin (2001: 203) puts it, prove to have “varying consequences and implications” across space. It could also be done by showing how public policy contributes to forming and altering socio-spatial relations in society (Jones et al. 2004: 165). Third, human geography could pay an interest in the spatiality of the very policy process. That is, what socioeconomic groups and areas take part in the policymaking process, what geographies are represented and where are decisions taken that affect local communities? Fourth, human geography can contribute with a deeper understanding of the implications that place-specific local contexts may have for policy. Thus from a geographical perspective, it is evident that local context matters and that policy measures “need to respond to local conditions if they are to be effective” (Martin 2001: 193). Fifth, geographers can also contribute with demonstrating how “geographical imaginations” (Tuan 1990; Gregory 1994; Harvey 1974; Massey 2007) are put at work and thus allowed to guide policymakers in various policy areas (Ward 2007b: 1058). To my understanding and in this study, all aspects above are of importance. Depopulation and uneven demographic change are inherently “spatial” processes, and for a geographer, it is fascinating to follow areas in demographic transition. In studies of shrinkage, it is also evident that similar policy interventions can have dissimilar effects, depending on the local conditions. Decades of growth policy did not make growth happen in these areas, for example. Besides, the urge toward growth summarises the importance of geographical imaginations for policy. It is also evident that place-specific local contexts matter for policy. In the literature on shrinkage, several models have been presented, illustrating how politicians, planners or citizens conceptualise population decline. A common denominator in all these models is their propensity to describe perceptions of shrinkage as something that changes stepwise. When reaching the final step, most models suggest, people manage to understand shrinkage as an opportunity for development. At this very last stage, it is argued, shrinkage can be associated with positive attributes such as sustainability, life satisfaction and new opportunities for planning (Farke 2005; Hospers 2013; Hospers and Reverda 2015; Pallagst 2015; Pallagst et al. 2015a; Pallagst et al. 2017). The models referred to are clarifying. They illustrate, in an ideal-typical and well-structured way, different approaches to depopulation. And the argument that shrinkage comes with advantages is probably correct in many urban contexts. But if we take into account that place matters, that local conditions vary and that “policy interventions need to respond to local conditions” (Martin 2001: 193), it is easy to see that they are thought-out in a rather dense urban context. Thus for those who operate in remote and rural areas – extremely sparsely populated and hosting a very small population of taxpayers and potential workforce  – it is difficult to

The Methods

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e­ nvisage any advantages coming from further depopulation. The extra space per inhabitant that comes as a result of depopulation is not of any advantage in such areas. To me, the geographical perspective means that I understand policy as being sensitive to context. Whether a policy is “needed” or not, how it evolves during the policy process and how it can be designed, implemented and assessed all depend on the context in which all of this takes place. That is, policies are always politically, historically and geographically situated (see Mcfarlane 2011).

The Aim This book aims to provide a policy perspective on rural depopulation. With the support of theories and methods relating to policy analysis, I will (a) elucidate how local governments in Sweden interpret the policy implications of shrinkage and depopulation. Since the disinclination among local governments to purposely plan for further depopulation is very well documented, I will also (b) reflect upon the conditions that cause this disinclination. That is, I approach the incapacity to develop long-term policies for how to deal with depopulation as a phenomenon that in itself needs to be explained. By way of conclusion, I will (c) refer to the many advantages of dealing with depopulation and shrinkage in a long-term and transparent way and suggest that local governments in shrinking areas would benefit from developing explicit local adaptation policies.

The Methods This book is based on a series of studies that are documented in reports, in books and in peer-reviewed journals. These publications present my cases, and the methods I used more in detail. They clarify which municipalities were included in each study and how my informants have been selected. All the publications are included in the lists of literature provided in the chapters to come. In short, however, the arguments in this book are based on studies that include more than 30 depopulating municipalities in Sweden.1 The municipalities included in my studies can all be referred to as rural, sparsely populated areas. Many – but not all of them  – are located the north-western parts of the country. Most of the municipalities under study cover large land areas and host only a small number of inhabitants. The majority of them host less than three inhabitants per square kilometre. This could be compared to the capitol of Stockholm that hosts more than 5000 inhabitants per square kilometre. It is well known that municipalities with extremely

1  Some of the studies have been comparative to their nature and have included cases also from Germany or the Netherlands.

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sparse population structures have great difficulties in offering welfare services in a cost-effective way. Large areas with long distances make it difficult to rationalize operations, and this affects the ability to adapt to new demographic conditions. The methods employed include ethnographic case studies, on-site observations, focus group interviews, semi-structured face-to-face interviews as well as conversational interviews with local government representatives. Data also consist of documentary sources such as local development programmes, municipal budgets, comprehensive plans and annual reports. Apart from this, observations at numerous informal and formal meetings, seminars and conferences constitute an important basis for the analysis. Most of the data collection took place between 2014 and 2018. I am inspired by a qualitative and interpretive tradition (Yanow 2000) and host an interest in how informants understand and conceptualise depopulation, shrinkage and related issues. My ambition has often been to identify the analytical and normative frameworks that underpin local government action in relation to shrinkage – by examining how shrinkage is explained; how its consequences are conceptualised and assessed and with what policy initiatives depopulation is met.

The Structure of the Book The book is organised into six chapters, all of which deal with relations between depopulation and policy at the local level of government in a rural, Swedish context. In the course of the analysis, I will link up to a broad and sometimes diverse literature on public policy and policy analysis. I will refer to theories of the thought-­ content of policies, to theories of policy failure as well as to methods for policy analysis. By doing so, I hope to contribute to an emerging field of policy studies that focuses on the policy implications of shrinkage for the local level of government. Chapter 2 is introduced with a brief overview of research devoted to understanding why some places grow while others shrink. This overview gives at hand that demographic decline is the result of structural conditions and changes, which makes me conclude that there is a need for policies for how to address the local consequences of depopulation. Subsequently, I account for the policy concept and suggest that policies consist of ideas – in terms of norms and values but also in terms of cognitive paradigms and analytical frameworks. In Chap. 3, I explicate the context of the Swedish case under study. The main argument in this chapter is that the rural character of shrinking areas in Sweden – together with the ambitions of the Swedish welfare state – are important contextual conditions when we try to understand how local governments understand and respond to shrinkage and why they respond in the ways they do. In Chap. 4, I elucidate how local government representatives in Sweden understand shrinkage. Here, I will identify and interpret patterns in how local governments in Sweden understand the policy implications of shrinkage and depopulation. One argument made in this chapter is that the implications of shrinkage are context dependent. That is, whether shrinkage constitutes a problem or not depends not only

Literature

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upon the interpretations of those in power but also upon various central political, economic and geographic conditions. This implies that the Swedish case under study can illustrate the consequences that depopulation is understood to have in remote and rural parts of a Nordic welfare state. In Chap. 5, I reflect upon why local governments tend to deal with shrinkage and depopulation in such a disorganised manner. Thus, even though depopulation is understood by local governments as a troublesome planning condition, they do not develop any explicit policies for how to handle this condition. Here, I try to understand why this is the case. In this chapter, the disinclination of policymakers to design policies for how to adapt to decline is thus referred to as a policy failure that needs to be further elucidated. In Chap. 6, I refer to the many advantages of explicit and transparent policies. Here, I lay out what is probably the most central statement of this book: that local governments in shrinking areas ought to develop local adaptation policies. These policies need to cover not only the field of physical or strategic planning but also all aspects of the public sector where depopulation is significant – especially welfare-­ related issues such as pre-school, primary education, elder care and social welfare. But, despite the many arguments for making adaptation policies more explicit, these policies also need to be subjected to critical assessment. In this chapter, therefore, I introduce a model for how local adaptation policy priorities could be assessed in a more structured manner. By responding to the issues above, I hope to stimulate a broader discussion on how to think about development and adaptation in a context of rurality, depopulation and – in some cases – economic decline.

Literature Bell, D. (2011). Grey area. Dialogues in Human Geography, 1(2), 215–218. https://doi. org/10.1177/2043820611404489. Bontje, M. (2005). Facing the challenge of shrinking cities in East Germany: The case of Leipzig. GeoJournal, 61(1), 13–21. Coppock, J. T. (1974). Geography and public policy: Challenges, opportunities and implications. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, (63), 1. https://doi.org/10.2307/621525. Dorling, D., & Shaw, M. (2002). Geographies of the agenda: Public policy, the discipline and its (re)’turns’. Progress in Human Geography, 26(5), 629–646. https://doi.org/10.1191/03091325 02ph390oa. Farke, A. (2005). Salzgitter will und wird nicht schrumpfen  – Wahrnehmungs- und Akzeptanzprobleme im Umgang mit Schrumpfung exemplarisch erläutert an einer Pilotstadt des Stadtumbau West. In C.  Weiske, K.  Sigrun, & C.  Hannemann (Eds.), Kommunikative Steuerung des Stadtumbaus. Interessengegensätze, Koalitionen und Entscheidungsstrukturen in schrumpfenden Städten (pp.  185–205). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. FÜRST. Fjertorp, J. (2013). Hur påverkas kommunernas ekonomi av befolkningsförändringar? NatKom/ Kfi Rapport 17, Göteborg. Gregory, D. (1994). Geographical imaginations. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

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Haase, A., Hospers, G.  J., Pekelsma, S., & Rink, D. (2012). Shrinking areas: Front-runners in innovative citizen participation. The Hague: European Urban Knowledge Network. Harvey, D. (1974). What kind of geography for what kind of public policy? Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 63, 18. https://doi.org/10.2307/621527. Hoggart, K. (1996). All washed up and nowhere to go? Public policy and geographical research. Progress in Human Geography, 20(1), 110–122. https://doi.org/10.1177/030913259602000108. Hollander, J. B. (2011). Can a city successfully shrink? Evidence from survey data on neighborhood quality. Urban Affairs Review, 47(129), 129–141. https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087410379099. Hospers, G.-J. (2013). Policy responses to urban shrinkage: From growth thinking to civic engagement. European Planning Studies, 22(7), 1507–1523. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2013 .793655. Hospers, G., & Reverda, N. (2015). Managing population decline in Europe’s urban and rural areas. Cham: Springer International. Jones, M., Jones, R., & Woods, M. (2004). An introduction to political geography: Space, place and politics. London: Routledge. Lang, T. (2012). Shrinkage, metropolization and peripheralization in East Germany. European Planning Studies, 20(10), 1747–1754. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2012.713336. Martin, R. (2001). Geography and public policy: The case of the missing agenda. Progress in Human Geography, 25(2), 189–210. https://doi.org/10.1191/030913201678580476. Martinez-Fernandez, C., Audirac, I., Fol, S., & Cunningham-Sabot, E. (2012). Shrinking cities: Urban challenges of globalization. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 36(2), 213–225. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01092.x. Massey, D. (2002). Geography, policy and politics: A response to Dorling and Shaw. Progress in Human Geography, 26(5), 645–646. https://doi.org/10.1177/030913250202600507. Massey, D. (2004). Geographies of responsibility. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 86(1), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0435-3684.2004.00150.x. Massey, D. (2006). Space, time, and political responsibility in the midst of global inequality. Erdkunde. Massey, D. (2007). World cities. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Matthiesen, U. (2005). Gone: Human capital in Eastern Germany. In P. Oswalt (Ed.), Shrinking cities (Vol. 1, pp. 172–173). Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz. Mcfarlane, C. (2011). On context on context assemblage, political economy and structure. On Context, City, 15, 375–388. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2011.595111. Pain, R. (2006). Social geography: Seven deadly myths in policy research. Progress in Human Geography, 30(2), 250–259. https://doi.org/10.1191/0309132506ph605pr. Pallagst, K. (2015). The interdependence of shrinking and growing: Processes of urban transformation in the USA in the rust belt and beyond. In K. Pallagst, T. Wiechmann, & C. Martinez-­ Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications. London/ New York: Routledge. Pallagst, K., Martinez-Fernandez, C., & Wiechmann, T. (2015a). Introduction. In K.  Pallagst, T. Wiechmann, & C. Martinez-Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications. London/New York: Routledge. Pallagst, K., Fleschurz, R., & Said, S. (2017). What drives planning in a shrinking city? Tales from two German and two American cases. Town Planning Review, 88(1), 15–28. https://doi. org/10.3828/tpr.2017.3. Ribeiro, M., & Marques, C. (2002). Rural tourism and the development of less favoured areas: Between rhetoric and practice. International Journal of Tourism Research, 4(3), 211–220. https://doi.org/10.1002/jtr.377 Schatz, L. (2017). Going for growth and managing decline: The complex mix of planning strategies in Broken Hill, NSW, Australia. Town Planning Review, 88(1), 43–57. https://doi.org/10.3828/ tpr.2017.5. Sousa, S., & Pinho, P. (2013). Planning for shrinkage: Paradox or paradigm. European Planning Studies, 23(1), 12–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2013.820082.

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Thrift, N. (2002). The future of geography. Geoforum.https://doi.org/10.1016/ S0016-7185(02)00019-2. Tuan, Y. (1990[1974]). Topophilia: A study of environmental perception, attitudes, and values (Morningside ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. Ward, K. (2007a). Geography and public policy: Activist, participatory, and policy geographies. Progress in Human Geography, 31(5), 695–705. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132507078955. Ward, K. (2007b). ‘Public intellectuals’, geography, its representations and its publics. Geoforum, 38(6), 1058–1064. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2006.11.021. Wiechmann, T., & Pallagst, K. M. (2012). Urban shrinkage in Germany and the USA: A comparison of transformation patterns and local strategies. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 36(2), 261–280. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01095.x. Woods, M., & Gardner, G. (2011). Applied policy research and critical human geography: Some reflections on swimming in murky waters. Dialogues in Human Geography. SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820611404488. Yanow, D. (2000). Conducting interpretive policy analysis. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Chapter 2

A Policy Perspective on Shrinkage

Abstract  Research devoted to explain why some places grow while others shrink tend to suggest that demographic decline is the result of structural conditions and changes that to a large extent are out of control for the local governments in the shrinking areas. This chapter suggests that this indicates a need for policies for how to address the local consequences of depopulation. In this chapter, the author accounts for the policy concept and suggests that policies consist of ideas – in terms of norms and values, but also in terms of cognitive paradigms and analytical frameworks. Altogether, the author seeks to contribute to the field of shrinkage-related studies by building upon a theoretical and empirical interest in public policy. Keywords  Policy · Policy analysis · Policy theory · Stipulations · Norms · Prescriptions · Depopulation · Shrinkage

This book focuses on depopulating, rural areas and on local governments’ responses to demographic decline. It draws upon a policy perspective and harbours no ambition to explain the drivers of urbanisation or demographic and economic transition in detail. Still, it is imperative also from a policy perspective to have a basic knowledge of these processes and how they have been described in previous research. This chapter, therefore, starts out with an overview of parts of the research that has been devoted to understanding why some places grow while others shrink. An extremely brief summary of this extensive literature would be that it suggests that demographic decline is the result of structural conditions and changes. It also seems to suggest that the pattern of uneven demographic change is very likely to persist into the future. This leads me to conclude that there is a need for policies for how to address the local consequences of depopulation. In the next sections, I highlight that planning research has been pioneering and thus very important for the understanding of shrinkage. Subsequently, I however clarify that in this book, I build upon a theoretical and empirical interest in public policy. In my account of the policy concept, I suggest that policies consist of webs of ideas – in terms of norms and values, but also in terms of cognitive paradigms and

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 J. Syssner, Pathways to Demographic Adaptation, SpringerBriefs in Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34046-9_2

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analytical frameworks. In this book, these ideas, norms and values are the centre of attention. That is, I am primarily interested in the thought-content of those policies that are developed in order to address depopulation and shrinkage.

Why Do Places Shrink? In the literature on shrinkage, the trends of growth and decline are often understood to constitute a common, broader trend of uneven demographic development. There is no single all-encompassing explanation as to why some places shrink while others grow (Pallagst et al. 2015a; Hollander 2018). Many have stressed that the drivers of depopulation are many and interlinked. Processes such as economic restructuring and transformation, deindustrialisation, globalisation, increased mobility and political change have all been suggested as possible explanations for why some places shrink whereas others grow (Hollander and Nemeth 2011; Reckien and Martinez-­ Fernandez 2011; Haase et al. 2012; Kotilainen et al. 2013; Hospers 2013; Wiechmann and Bontje 2015; Hospers and Reverda 2015; Leetmaa et al. 2015). In addition to this, researchers have added changes at the meso level, such as urban sprawl or suburbanisation, to explain why the cores of some cities shrink (Cunningham-Sabot et  al. 2015; Audirac 2015; Albecker and Fol 2015). Changes at the micro level (including changing preferences and behaviour among the population) have also been added to the factors that may explain demographic decline (Reckien and Martinez-Fernandez 2011). Hospers (2013: 1510) refers to Myrdal’s concept of cumulative causation, suggesting that both success and failure have cumulative effects, leading to virtuous circles for some and vicious circles for others (Fujita 2007). Many scholars have contributed to clarifying the point that, although outmigration is one originator of shrinkage (as the summary above may imply), large parts of the decline can also be explained by low fertility rates (see Wiechmann and Bontje 2015; Hospers and Reverda 2015). Low fertility rates, however, can also be understood as a consequence of selective outward migration. If net migration is negative among the young (i.e. the future adults), this will affect fertility rates in the longer run. As stated by Hospers and Reverda (2015: 9), this effect is strengthened in every generation: “in a society with fewer children, the number of potential mothers also recedes – children who are not born cannot produce their own children”. A common argument in the literature is that the causes of depopulation and shrinkage vary from place to place. Shrinkage can thus be conceptualised as a “local manifestation” (Hospers 2013: 1508) of a multitude of interrelated and place-­ specific conditions. Cities that are very dependent on single industries have been identified as more vulnerable to deindustrialisation (Cunningham-Sabot et al. 2015: 15). Remote and rural areas have, in turn, been described as sensitive to changes in the local labour market and to the dynamic effects of net out-migration (Niedomysl and Amcoff 2011).

Planning for Decline

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In some cases, the fact that some cities shrink while others grow has been interpreted as the result of interdependent processes of peripheralisation and centralisation (Lang 2012). Shrinking cities and areas are thus not regarded as a negative side effect of globalisation or urbanisation but rather as a “vivid illustration” thereof (Cunningham-Sabot et al. 2015: 23). This perspective suggests that spatial centralisation does in fact “determine the peripheralization of other spaces” (Lang 2012: 1750), since the attraction of resources to some central places is to the disadvantage of other places, which lose their economic base (Cunningham-Sabot et al. 2015). A similar perspective is suggested by Martinez-Fernandez et al. (2012: 213), who state that the new global economic order has benefited some localities, whereas others are experiencing an “outflow of capital and human resources” and suffer from low levels of entrepreneurship and innovation. Shrinking cities, as suggested by Audirac (2015: 43), could thus be understood as the spatial manifestation of global processes, leading to a macro-spatial division of capital, labour and power. The summary above suggests that demographic decline is caused by structural conditions and changes at macro, meso and micro levels. It also suggests that urbanisation and patterns of uneven population development are very likely to persist into the future. One of the conclusions I draw from this is that there is a need for ideas, policies and strategies for how to address the consequences of depopulation in the places where it occurs.

Planning for Decline The studies referred to above explore potential causes of shrinkage. Many of them also map out the consequences of shrinkage. That is, they not only seek to explain why some places shrink but also to describe the consequences of depopulation for local governments or for civil society (Hospers 2013; see also Meijer and Syssner 2017; Meier 2018; Meijer and Ernste 2019). Several studies have concluded that, although depopulation is neither a rare phenomenon nor a new one, it has received remarkably little attention in either research or policy and planning. Shrinkage, as stated by Wiechmann and Pallagst (2012: 276), has “hardly ever appeared on the agenda of politicians and urban planners in the past”. Instead, growth has been the primary goal and the undisputed overarching value in urban and regional planning and policy (Bontje 2005; Martinez-Fernandez et al. 2012; Sousa and Pinho 2013). In recent years, a growing number of scholars have begun to question growth-­ oriented approaches to decline. Many of these have been critical of plans and policies that exclusively meet shrinkage with attempts to create growth. In the literature on shrinkage, there is broad support for a shift of paradigms in planning (for an overview, see, e.g. Wiechmann et  al. 2015; Pallagst 2015; Pallagst et  al. 2015a; Hollander 2018). There is wide agreement among planning theorists that shrinkage is a matter that cannot be understood through “conventional planning theories and practices” (Sousa and Pinho 2013: 15), that the planning principles that work in a

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situation of growth “are no longer applicable in times of decline” (Hospers and Reverda 2015: 27) and that the hegemony of growth-thinking in planning can in fact “intensify the problems of depopulation” (Hollander 2018: 8). In the literature on shrinkage, there is now a broad consensus that shrinking places should not be seen as deviant in the planning context. Instead, shrinkage should, as Sousa and Pinho (2013: 2) put it, “stand shoulder-to-shoulder with growth as a pattern of urban development”. Conventional growth-oriented planning theory and practice, it has been argued, should give way to planning perspectives that focus on how to shrink in a smart and sustainable way (Audirac 2015: 43; Cunningham-­ Sabot et al. 2015: 14; Wiechmann et al. 2015: 142; Hollander 2018: 20). Some studies have identified attempts made by planners and politicians to plan “for a future with fewer citizens” (Luescher and Shetty 2013: 3–4). The German Shrinking Cities Project – initiated in 2002 and led by architect Philip Oswalt – is one such example, often referred to as “very influential”, at least when it comes to raising awareness about the challenges following dramatic population loss (Luescher and Shetty 2013: 1). Yet, despite the identification of this particular problem, as well as constructive policy recommendations emanating from a growing body of research, many studies conclude that the willingness of politicians and planners to deal with the consequences of shrinkage has been low (Pallagst 2015: 60; Pallagst et  al. 2015a; Hollander 2018; Syssner 2016, 2018).

A Policy Perspective on Shrinkage Many of the studies referred to above approach depopulation from what I would call a planning perspective. In fact, planning research has been crucial in the shrinking cities literature. Planning researchers from various parts of the world have demonstrated that planning responses to shrinkage vary greatly from place to place (Luescher and Shetty 2013: 4) and that the ways in which shrinkage is perceived are significant for how it is met by both politicians and planners (Pallagst et  al. 2015a:6, b; Pallagst et al. 2017: 2). Housing, housing markets, physical restructuring, infrastructure and the like are issues that have received considerable scholarly attention. In this book, I seek to contribute to the field of shrinkage-related studies by building upon a theoretical and empirical interest in public policy. In several comparative studies – most of them carried out in remote and rural parts of Sweden – I have explored how local governments describe the policy implications of demographic decline and what policies they develop in their ambition to cope with the situation. These studies show that depopulation raises several policy-related questions. These questions include – and extend beyond – the traditional domain of planning. To understand how local governments in Sweden interpret the policy implications of shrinkage and depopulation, and to understand why they deal with shrinkage in the ways they do, I will link up to a broad and sometimes diverse literature on public policy and policy analysis. In the remainder of this chapter, I clarify my

A Policy Perspective on Shrinkage

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t­ heoretical orientation and my understanding of the concepts that I employ. In short, I understand policies as webs of interrelated and sometimes contradictory but yet action-related ideas. Some of these ideas could be described in terms of analytical and cognitive frameworks, others in terms of norms, values or normative frameworks. In this book, these ideas are in the centre of attention.

What Is Policy? Textbooks offer a broad array of definitions of the policy concept. In many cases, policies are referred to as courses of action. As such, they are understood to consist of a number of interrelated decisions made within a certain period of time. Policies thus consist of webs of decisions, rather than any singular decision or action (Heclo 1972: 85; Jenkins 1978: 15; Hill 2005: 7; Peters 2015: 4). To continue, policies are often understood to be action-oriented and to involve an ambition to alter society in some respect (Easton 1953: 130; Peters 2015: 1; Martin 2001: 206). Policies have been conceptualised as ideas in action or, as Edelmann (1988: 16) puts it, as “a set of shifting, diverse and contradictory responses to a spectrum of political interests”. Many definitions of policy concur, however, that both action and non-action can be part of a policy. Within this understanding, power is exercised also when decisions are not taken and when status quo is maintained. A policy could then consist of attempts to avoid addressing certain issues, to resist change or to defend the current allocation of resources (Hill 2005: 8). Accordingly, an analysis of policies and policy development could also examine why and how some issues are kept off the agenda and not considered to be policy problems at all (Peters 2015: 71). Lastly, most understandings of the policy concept suggest that the way in which society is understood is central to policies. Thus, policies tend to be designed to solve problems that are believed to constitute a problem for society (Peters 2015: 33). In policy analysis, therefore, it is vital to understand how “reality” and “problems” are represented. A policy analysis must therefore take account of what the analytical frameworks are that support a particular understanding of a “problem” (Bacchi 2012).

Distinctions in Policy Analysis For a long time, it was commonplace in policy analysis to distinguish studies with descriptive ambitions from studies with normative or prescriptive ones (Forester 1993; Hill 2005; Spicker 2006). Theorists from a North American context more often position themselves as proponents of a prescriptive perspective, by calling for policies informed by allegedly neutral research or by prompting researchers to

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p­ rovide decision-makers with evidence for how to act in any given policy area (Bletsas 2012: 42; Yanow 2000: 1). During the last few decades, however, a growing number of analysts have left the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive perspectives behind. Nowadays, most scholars tend to argue that the “distinction between factual and evaluative propositions” has lost much of its support (Forester 1993: 3). In critical policy analysis, it has become commonplace to argue that there is no such thing as simply describing a problem or an issue. Rather, any account or representation of a problem is in itself an analytical, normative and political act (Bacchi 2000, 2012; Bletsas and Beasley 2012: 5). Another distinction made in policy analysis is between process-oriented studies and studies with an evaluative ambition. In studies where the policy process forms the focus, the analyst is primarily interested in how policies emerge and in related patterns of negotiations, persuasion and argument (Forester 1993; John 1998; Hill 2005). In studies focusing on evaluation, policy analysis has often taken an interest in the costs and benefits of policies, from a variety of perspectives (Forester 1993: 11; John 1998: 154; see also Yanow 2000: viii). In this book, neither the genesis nor the costs or benefits of policy take the limelight. Rather, I display an interest in those ideas, norms and values that motivate and make up policies. That is to say, I am primarily interested in the “thought-content” of policies and in the inner structure of this content (Lindberg 2018: 277, 297, 326). However, I do have an interest in why shrinkage is kept off the agenda in so many places and why depopulation receives such limited attention from local governments. This of course indicates an interest in agenda setting and in elucidating why some ideas about problems and solutions are recognised in policy and others not.

Policies and Ideas My point of departure is that policies consist of ideas. Formal plans, decisions and allocated resources do form part of policies too (Danielsson 2018: 258). But plans, decisions and the allocation of resources all involve ideas – about what is important and what is not, about what is functioning and what is not. It should be emphasised that “ideas” in the context of policy theory do not include ideas in the sense of norms and values only. Norms, principles and values are central to policy because they “underpin all decisions”, as Kooiman and Jentoft (2009: 218ff) put it. But policies also include ideas in terms of cognitive paradigms (Campbell 2002), thoughts about what is true and what is not true, about what constitutes a problem (Bacchi 2000), about the best course of action (John 1998: 145) and about causalities and solutions (Peters 2015: 112). All of these ideas guide decision-makers in their verdicts “about how the world works and how to act in particular situations” (Kooiman and Jentoft 2009: 218).

Understanding the Thought-Content of Policies

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Understanding the Thought-Content of Policies Since ideas, norms and values are so central to policy, we need to get a more structured understanding of these features. When studying the “action-guiding thought-­ content” of policies (Lindberg 2018: 326), we can lean on a large number of models that have been advanced for analysing political ideas, belief systems and ideologies more generally (see, e.g. Rejai 1995; Larsson 1997; van Dijk 1997, 1998, 2004; Syssner 2006). A common denominator of these models is that they identify elements that tend to make up political belief systems. There is a rich variety of such models, each giving emphasis to different elements. Many of the models, however, include three basic interrelated elements in their analysis, namely, stipulations, norms and prescriptions. In the words of Tingsten (1942), any political ideology consists of value judgements, judgements of reality and practical proposals for action (Lindberg 2018: 297). Similarly, a policy could be understood to consist of a set of arguments about reality, aims and action – formulated in relation to each other (Danielsson 2018: 259).

Analytical and Cognitive Paradigms Many policy theorists have argued that we need to be aware of the “conceptual framework” of the people who create policies (see Yanow 2000: 4). Thus, every policy position draws upon certain “claims about knowledge and causation” (John 1998: 155), from a particular worldview, “opinion of reality” (Skovdahl 1992: 43), or “view of the present” (Baradat 1991: 9). Broader cognitive paradigms (Campbell 2002) provide policy actors with “an explanation of why social, political, and economic conditions are as they are” (Ball and Dagger 1999: 5) or with a conception of how the world works and why it works in that way (Funderburk and Thobaben 1989: 2). These broader paradigms also include geographical imaginations (Harvey 2005; Massey 2007; Gieseking 2017) or perceptions of or attitudes toward environment (Tuan 1990). These geographical imaginations or conceptualisations of space are imperative to policies that aim at altering places or spatial relations in any sense. Many such imaginations are implicit and pass by as being natural or “self-evident” (Massey 2007: 20, 23), even if they are value-loaded assumptions of “reality”. The relation between judgements of reality and policy proposals is essential in policy theory. Conventional policy theory may start out from the idea that policymaking begins with a set of issues or problems (Spicker 2006) and continues with policymakers trying to design interventions that can solve the problem at hand. Today, it is however generally accepted that there is “no single conception of a policy problem, and therefore no single conception of how to address the problem” (Peters 2015: 5). This is a position that was pushed further by Carol Bacchi who in the early 2000s made a strong argument for a constructionist perspective on policy problems.

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According to Bacchi, there are no pre-existing problems to be identified and solved (Bacchi 2000; Gill 2012; Bletsas 2012), and accordingly it is in fact “inappropriate to see governments as responding to ‘problems’ that exist ‘out there’” (Bacchi 2000: 48). Instead, “problems” are seen as being continuously and endlessly reconstituted. Accordingly, problems “are therefore never finished or fixed” (Bletsas 2012: 41). Numerous policy theorists have stressed that the ability to influence worldviews and conceptualisations of what is a problem is an important power resource in any policy processes. In this matter, Rothman (2011) uses the concept of analytical framing when he describes how policy actors try to win agreement for their description of society and for their particular understanding of a certain problem.

Normative Frameworks and Value Judgements According to most models of content-related policy analysis, policies tend to include norms regarding how things could or should be in an ideal world (van Dijk 1998; Funderburk and Thobaben 1989; Baradat 1991). These normative frameworks can be explicit and outspoken and include “value standards, ideals, goals or preferences” (Lindberg 2018: 298). However, they can also consist of “taken-for-­ granted assumptions about values, attitudes, identities” (Campbell 2002: 23). Different political philosophies build upon different normative foundations. Therefore, any analysis of policy ideas needs to ask which values are framed as significant and which are considered less important. In the context of depopulation and shrinkage, we may look for how shrinking places are conceptualised, understood and accounted for in policy text and policy talk. We could ask how the resources and assets of the depopulating area are construed or what position is taken by various norms, values or interests in the material. The analysis may also expound upon what various actors define and understand as “development” (Pike et al. 2007: 1260). It would also be of interest to investigate whether the rural is framed as a place of traditions or renewal, production or consumption, business development or conservation, privacy or accessibility, solitude or community. What are the core values being communicated, and what interests are brought out as the most important ones to defend (Rejai 1995: 6–9)?

Prescriptions for Action In policy analysis, there is a well-established notion that policies, political ideas and ideologies tend to be action oriented (Funderburk and Thobaben 1989: 4). That is, not only do political belief systems host a set of values, but they also link these values to action in a rather explicit way (Funderburk and Thobaben 1989; Skovdahl 1992; Baradat 1991; van Dijk 1998; Rejai 1995; Ball and Dagger 1999). Policy ideas thus include prescriptions, practical proposals and suggestions for action

Policies in a Shrinking Context

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(Lindberg 2018: 299). These prescriptions can appear in the form of explicit recommendations for action, imperative statements or a stubborn defence of the status quo (Lindberg 2018: 300). From the perspective of policy analysis, it is thus of interest to elucidate which measures and efforts form part of those policies that are developed to handle shrinkage in remote, rural and depopulating areas. With what measures do local governments meet those challenges that come with depopulation? How are these measures selected and motivated?

Policies in a Shrinking Context My analysis takes out from the assumption that ideas are central to political action. As indicated above, Rothman (2011) stresses that the ability to influence worldviews and norms is an important power resource in most policy processes. The concept of analytical framing is used to describe how policy actors try to win agreement for their description of society and for their particular understanding of a certain problem. Normative framing, on the other hand, concerns establishing ideas of the rights and wrongs in society. Such normative framing, Rothman points out (2011), could allude to people’s concepts of justice and morality, as well as to their feelings and intuition. In order to achieve policy change, both analytical and normative frameworks must be reconsidered and perhaps adjusted. How ideas influence policy action more in detail, is an issue for empirical investigation and analysis. To understand this link on a more general level, we can however use the concepts of “determinative” and “generative” causality (Smith 2003). Determinative causality occurs when one action inescapably leads to another. This form of causality is not very relevant here: there is no inexorable connection between ideas and political action. Generative causality, on the other hand, is when one action paves the way for another (Smith 2003: 47f). This kind of causality seems more relevant here; if certain analytical and normative frames become well established, these are more likely to have an influence on policy development and decision-­making (Bacchi 2000). In the coming chapters, I will try to understand how local governments in Sweden interpret the policy implications of shrinkage and depopulation and why they deal with shrinkage in the way they do. In this endeavour, I will link to various parts of a comprehensive literature on public policy. In the course of the analysis, I will however come back to the supposition that policies consist of ideas – in terms of analytical and cognitive frameworks, as well as in terms of normative judgements and in recommendations for action.

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Literature Albecker, M.-F., & Fol, S. (2015). The restructuring of declining suburbs in the Paris region. In K. Pallagst, T. Wiechmann, & C. Martinez-Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications, pp. 78–98. London/New York: Routledge. Audirac, I. (2015). Shrinking cities in the fourth urban revolution? In K. Pallagst, T. Wiechmann, & C. Martinez-Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications, pp. 42–58. London/New York: Routledge. Bacchi, C. (2000). Policy as discourse: What does it mean? Where does it get us? Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 21(1), 45–57. Bacchi, C. (2012). Introducing the “Whats the problem represented to be?” approach. In A. Bletsas & C.  Beasley (Eds.), Engaging with Carol Bacchi. Strategic interventions and exchanges. Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press. Ball, T., & Dagger, R. (1999). Political ideologies and the democratic ideal. New York: Longman. Baradat, L. P. (1991). Political ideologies: their origins and impact (4th ed.). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Bletsas, A. (2012). Spaces between: Elaborating the theoretical underpinnings of the WPR approach and its significance for contemporary scholarship. In A. Bletsas & C. Beasley (Eds.), Engaging with Carol Bacchi. Strategic interventions and exchanges. Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press. Bletsas, A., & Beasley, C. (2012). Introduction. In A. Bletsas & C. Beasley (Eds.), Engaging with Carol Bacchi. Strategic interventions and exchanges. Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press. Bontje, M. (2005). Facing the challenge of shrinking cities in East Germany: The case of Leipzig. GeoJournal, 61(1), 13–21. Campbell, J.  L. (2002). Ideas, politics, and public policy. Annual Review of Sociology, 28(1), 21–38. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.28.110601.141111. Cunningham-Sabot, E., Audirac, I., Fol, S., & Martinez-Fernandez, C. (2015). Theoretical approaches of “shrinking cities”. In K.  Pallagst, T.  Wiechmann, & C.  Martinez-Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications, pp. 14–32. London/New York: Routledge. Danielsson, M. (2018). Hjälp! Hur gör man? Idéer som förklaringar i analys av svensk politik. I Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift, 120(2). Easton, D. (1953). The political system. New York: Knopf. Edelman, M. (1988). Constructing the political spectacle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Forester, J. (1993). Critical theory, public policy, and planning practice: Toward a critical pragmatism. Albany: State University of New York Press. Fujita, N. (2007). Myrdal’s theory of cumulative causation. Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, 3(2), 275–284. Funderburk, C., & Thobaben, R. G. (1989/1994). Political ideologies: left, center, right (2nd ed.). New York: HarperCollins College Publishers. Gieseking, J. J. (2017). Geographical imagination. In International encyclopedia of geography: People, the earth, environment and technology (pp.  1–5). Oxford, UK: Wiley. https://doi. org/10.1002/9781118786352.wbieg1171. Gill, Z. (2012). Located subjects: The daily lives of policy workers. In A. Bletsas & C. Beasley (Eds.), Engaging with Carol Bacchi. Strategic interventions and exchanges. Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press. Haase, A., Hospers, G.  J., Pekelsma, S., & Rink, D. (2012). Shrinking areas: Front-runners in innovative citizen participation. The Hague: European Urban Knowledge Network. Harvey, D. (2005). The sociological and geographical imaginations. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 18(3–4), 211–255. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-006-9009-6. Heclo, H. (1972). Policy analysis. British Journal of Political Science, 2(1), 83–108. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/193311. Hill, M. J. (2005). The public policy process (4th ed.). Harlow: Pearson Longman.

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Hollander, J. B. (2018). A research agenda for shrinking cities. Cheltenham/Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Hollander, J. B., & Nemeth, J. (2011). The bounds of smart decline: A foundational theory for planning shrinking cities. Housing Policy Debate, 21(3), 349–367. Hospers, G.-J. (2013). Policy responses to urban shrinkage: From growth thinking to civic engagement. European Planning Studies, 22(7), 1507–1523. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2013 .793655. Hospers, G., & Reverda, N. (2015). Managing population decline in Europe’s urban and rural areas. Cham: Springer International. Jenkins, W. I. (1978). Policy analysis: A political and organisational perspective. London: Martin Robertson. John, P. (1998). Analysing public policy. London: Pinter. Kooiman, J., & Jentoft, S. (2009). Meta-governance: Values, norms and principles, and the making of hard choices. Public Administration, 87(4), 818–836. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2009.01780.x. Kotilainen, J., Eisto, I., & Vatanen, E. (2013). Uncovering mechanisms for resilience. Strategies to counter shrinkage in a peripheral city in Finland. European Planning Studies, 23(1), 53–68. Lang, T. (2012). Shrinkage, metropolization and peripheralization in East Germany. European Planning Studies, 20(10), 1747–1754. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2012.713336. Larsson, R. (1997). Politiska ideologier i vår tid. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Leetmaa, K., Kriszan, A., Nuga, M., & Burdack, J. (2015). Strategies to cope with shrinkage in the lower end of the urban hierarchy in Estonia and Central Germany. European Planning Studies, 23(1), 147–165. Lindberg, M. (2018). The VDP-triad in ideational analysis.  Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift, 120(2), 277–359. Luescher, A., & Shetty, S. (2013). An introductory review to the special issue: Shrinking cities and towns: Challenge and responses. Urban Design International, 18(1), 1–5. https://doi. org/10.1057/udi.2012.36. Martin, R. (2001). Geography and public policy: The case of the missing agenda. Progress in Human Geography, 25(2), 189–210. https://doi.org/10.1191/030913201678580476. Martinez-Fernandez, C., Audirac, I., Fol, S., & Cunningham-Sabot, E. (2012). Shrinking cities: Urban challenges of globalization. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 36(2), 213–225. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01092.x. Massey, D. (2007). World cities. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Meier, S. (2018). Social inclusion of migrants in European shrinking small towns. In G. J. Hospers & J. Syssner (Eds.), Dealing with urban and rural shrinkage: Formal and informal strategies. LIT Verlag: Berlin, Münster. Meijer, M., & Syssner, J. (2017). Getting ahead in depopulating areas: How linking social capital is used for informal planning practices in Sweden and the Netherlands. Journal of Rural Studies, 55(October), 59–70. Meijer, M., & Ernste, H. (2019). Broadening the Scope of Spatial Planning: Making a Case for Informality in the Netherlands. Journal of Planning Education and Research. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/0739456X19826211 Niedomysl, T., & Amcoff, J. (2011). Is there hidden potential for rural population growth in Sweden? Rural Sociology, 76(2), 257–279. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1549-0831.2010.00032.x. Pallagst, K. (2015). The interdependence of shrinking and growing: Processes of urban transformation in the USA in the rust belt and beyond. In K. Pallagst, T. Wiechmann, & C. Martinez-­ Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications. London/ New York: Routledge. Pallagst, K., Martinez-Fernandez, C., & Wiechmann, T. (2015a). Introduction. In K.  Pallagst, T. Wiechmann, & C. Martinez-Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications. London/New York: Routledge.

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Pallagst, K., Wiechmann, T., & Martinez-Fernandez, C. (Eds.). (2015b). Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications. London/New York: Routledge. Pallagst, K., Fleschurz, R., & Said, S. (2017). What drives planning in a shrinking city? Tales from two German and two American cases. Town Planning Review, 88(1), 15–28. https://doi. org/10.3828/tpr.2017.3. Peters, B. G. (2015). Advanced introduction to public policy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Pike, A., Rodríguez-Pose, A., & Tomaney, J. (2007). What kind of local and regional development and for whom? Regional Studies, 41, 1253–1269. Reckien, D., & Martinez-Fernandez, C. (2011). Why do cities shrink? European Planning Studies, 19(8), 1375–1397. Rejai, M. (1995). Political ideologies, a comparative approach. London/New York: M.E. Sharpe. Rothman, S.  B. (2011). Revising the soft power concept: What are the means and mechanisms of soft power? Journal of Political Power, 4(1), 49–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/21583 79X.2011.556346. Skovdahl, B. (1992). Tingsten, totalitarismen och ideologierna. Stockholm: Symposion. Sousa, S., & Pinho, P. (2013). Planning for shrinkage: Paradox or paradigm. European Planning Studies, 23(1), 12–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2013.820082. Smith, R. M. (2003). Stories of peoplehood: The politics and morals of political membership. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spicker, P. (2006). Policy analysis for practice: Applying social policy. Bristol: Policy. Syssner, J. (2006), What Kind of Regionalism? – Regionalism and Region Building in Northern European Peripheries. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Publ. (ISBN 3-631-55201-7). Syssner, J. (2016) Planning for shrinkage: Policy implications of demographic decline. Journal of Depopulation and Rural Development Studies, 20, 7–31, https://doi.org/10.4422/ager.2015.14. Syssner, J. (2018). Mindre många: om anpassning och utveckling i krympande kommuner. (Första upplagan). Årsta: Dokument Press. Tuan, Y. (1990[1974]). Topophilia: A study of environmental perception, attitudes, and values (Morningside ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. Tingsten, H. (1942). Idékritik. Stockholm: Bonnier van Dijk, T.  A. (1997). Discourse as interaction in society. In T.  A. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse as social interaction. Discourse studies: A multidisciplinary introduction (Vol. 2, pp. 1–38). London/Thousand Oaks: Sage. van Dijk, T. A. (1998). Ideology: A multidisciplinary approach. London: Sage. van Dijk, T. A. (2004). Politics, ideology and discourse. In R. Wodak (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. Universitat Pompeu Fabra: Barcelona. Wiechmann, T., & Bontje, M. (2015). Responding to tough times: Policy and planning strategies in shrinking cities. European Planning Studies, 23(1), 1–11. Wiechmann, T., & Pallagst, K. M. (2012). Urban shrinkage in Germany and the USA: A comparison of transformation patterns and local strategies. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 36(2), 261–280. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01095.x. Wiechmann, T., Volkmann, A., & Schmitz, S. (2015). Making places in increasingly empty spaces: Dealing with shrinkage in post-socialist cities: The example of East Germany. In K. Pallagst, T. Wiechmann, & C. Martinez-Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications. London/New York: Routledge. Yanow, D. (2000). Conducting interpretive policy analysis. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Chapter 3

Rural Shrinkage in a Nordic Welfare State

Abstract  Studies of how planners and policymakers at local levels relate to shrinkage have been carried out in many different contexts before. This chapter explicates the context of the Swedish case under study. The main argument of the chapter is that Sweden exhibit two characteristics that prove to be relevant when discussing the consequences and policy implications of demographic decline. The first characteristic is an extremely sparse population structure. The second is an ambitious welfare assignment that in many respects has been devolved to the local level of government. These features, it is argued, are of great significance for the policy implications of depopulation and shrinkage. Keywords  Depopulation · Shrinkage · Rural · Sweden · Nordic welfare state · Sparsity

Studies of how planners and policymakers at local levels relate to shrinkage have been carried out previously in many different contexts (see Großmann et al. 2013; Sousa and Pinho 2013; Wiechmann and Bontje 2015; Pallagst et al. 2015b; Hollander 2018). These studies tell us that, even if the experiences of shrinkage are rather similar, there are substantial contextual differences in how these processes are met by local governments (Kotilainen et al. 2013: 53). Local governments plan for their futures, as Luescher and Shetty (2013: 3) put it, “in very different policy environments”. Surprisingly, little has been written about shrinkage in a Swedish or Nordic context. Even though demographic decline has shaped and affected local communities in Sweden and its Nordic neighbours for decades, these countries are hardly ever mentioned in international research on shrinkage. This book, however, is based on several studies of shrinkage, performed in a Swedish context. It shows that the Swedish case exhibit two characteristics that prove to be relevant when discussing the consequences and policy implications of demographic decline. The first characteristic is an extremely sparse population structure. The second is an ambitious welfare assignment that in many respects has

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 J. Syssner, Pathways to Demographic Adaptation, SpringerBriefs in Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34046-9_3

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been devolved to the local level of government. These features are of great significance for the policy implications of depopulation and shrinkage. Hopefully, the Swedish and Nordic outlook of this book can provide an additional perspective and help to advance theoretical thinking on shrinkage. In the following, I explain the context of the Swedish case in terms of its rural character and its ways of organising welfare provision. In what follows, I also acknowledge that policies can be developed at various levels of governance. Still, I emphasise that this book discusses policies designed at the local level. The argument for this is that the consequences of shrinkage and depopulation are most evident at the local level and that policies that are designed to meet these consequences are very sensitive to local contexts.

Rural Shrinkage Much of the international academic debate on shrinkage has revolved around cities – some of which, from a Swedish perspective, are quite large. Large parts of the literature deal with densely populated urban environments, large cities, parts of cities or metropolitan areas. The focus on urban settlements in the literature on shrinkage has been criticised before. Hospers and Reverda (2015: 3) conclude that urban shrinkage tends to attract the most scholarly attention, despite the fact that in many countries population decline is more prevalent in rural areas. Cunningham-Sabot et al. (2015: 100) stress that, in France, depopulation can mainly be observed in cities with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants. Niedomysl and Amcoff (2011: 257, 259–260) highlight the well-established fact that the world is undergoing rapid urbanisation and that rural areas in many sparsely populated countries tend to experience population decline. In fact, rural depopulation, as Niedomysl and Amcoff put it (2011: 275), is “a key concern” in many European countries. Hedberg and Haandrikman (2014: 128) note that population decline is a constant threat to rural areas all over Europe. In a study about rural-urban migration patterns, Rauhut and Littke (2016: 301) stress that many remote and rural areas in Sweden are suffering from an outmigration of young female adults. Due to this selective out-migration, and the resulting birth deficits, large parts of rural Europe are facing an ageing phase, whereby an ever-smaller proportion of the inhabitants are of working age (Amcoff and Westholm 2007: 365). This is highlighted also by Eurostat (2019): There are considerable differences in regional demographic developments across the European Union (EU), including (…) an urban-rural split — with the majority of urban regions continuing to report population growth, while the number of persons resident in many peripheral, rural and post-industrial regions decline

The need for studies of depopulation in rural areas is evident. Here, it needs to be emphasized that “rural” indeed is a delicate concept. Several attempts have been made to create order among all the definitions of rural and rurality provided by

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international organisations (for an overview, see Dijkstra and Poleman 2014; for a critical account in a Swedish context, see Hela Sverige ska leva 2018). These efforts to promote a uniform understanding of “the rural” may be commendable. Nevertheless, they often fail when confronted with conventional understandings of the concept in everyday political language. And even if we would accept a more intuitive understanding of what is rural and what is not, it is evident that standards of living vary dramatically across rural regions. Differences can be related to conditions such as the context of the country in which they are located, access to infrastructure, the local labour market, distances between the rural area and the closest urban agglomeration, etc. Differences can also manifest themselves in terms of inequalities and in varying and unjust access to wealth (Torre and Wallet 2016: 5–6).

Rural Depopulation in Sweden If we are interested in studying the policy implications of depopulation in rural areas, Sweden proves to be an instructive case. As stressed by Niedomysl and Amcoff (2011: 264), Swedish population density is among the lowest in Europe, and settlements in rural Sweden tend to be very dispersed. The country’s population is increasing, but the increase is very unevenly distributed. Thus, almost half of the 290 municipalities in Sweden have a smaller population today than they had in the mid-1970s (Statistics Sweden 2019), and more than a third have lost 5% or more of their inhabitants during the same time period. The diagram below presents an image of how many Swedish municipalities have experienced population decline during the last four decades. As we can see, the years around 1990 were years of population growth, just like the years around 2015. However, the typical situation during the period 1975–2019 is that one third of the municipalities or more reduced their population in relation to the previous year (Diagram 3.1). The diagram above does not say very much about the character of shrinking municipalities. It does not tell us how big they are, where they are located or how serious the population losses actually are. In general, however, shrinkage in Sweden is a concern primarily for remote and rural municipalities. Shrinking municipalities in Sweden tend to be small in terms of population numbers, and large in terms of land area. In short, these municipalities are sparsely populated places located far away from the growth regions. This may distinguish the Swedish case from other countries referred to in previous research. Thus, there are simply no big, shrinking cities in Sweden. We have no counterparts to Detroit or Pittsburgh. In fact, the largest depopulating municipality in Sweden – Kramfors – has fewer than 20,000 inhabitants spread over an area of more than 2800 square kilometres. The cities, metropolitan areas and university towns are growing, which is part of a long-standing and continuous process of urbanisation.

26

3  Rural Shrinkage in a Nordic Welfare State Number of municipalies in Sweden where the populaon decreased, compared to the previous year, 1975-2019.

250 210 200

183 150

150 104 100 101 50

2018

2016

2014

2012

2010

2008

2006

2004

2002

2000

1998

1996

19 1994

1992

1990

1988

1986

1984

1982

1980

1978

0

1976

34

Diagram 3.1  Number of shrinking municipalities in Sweden. (Source: Statistics Sweden 2019)

The situation is roughly the same in the Nordic neighbouring countries. Also in Norway, fewer and fewer people live in rural areas. Almost 50% of the Norwegian municipalities have less inhabitants today than they had in the 1970s, despite a general population increase. For decades, the Norwegian government has repeatedly pointed to the fact that the population structure has changed in Norway. More people have settled in cities and towns, which has meant that the smallest municipalities have become smaller, while the larger municipalities in Norway have grown (NOU 2004: 2; Prop. 96 S. 2016–2017). As demonstrated in the diagram below, large and medium-sized cities in Norway have grown since 1993, whereas the population base in rural areas has decreased. (Diagram 3.2).

Uneven Population Change In recent years, uneven demographic development and its consequences for policy has become a topical issue in Sweden, addressed in several state reports. Many of these reports begin with the observation that fewer and fewer people live in peripheral areas, while more and more inhabitants concentrate to large, urban growth regions. In general, municipalities in remote, rural and sparsely populated areas have been experiencing annual population reductions since the mid-1970s. This

Rural Shrinkage

27

130 125 120 115 110 105 100 95 90

Bigger cies

Medium sized cies Sparsely polulated areas

Minor city regions

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1993

80

1994

85

Rural regions

In total

Diagram 3.2  Population changes in Norwegian territories. (Source: Kommunal- og moderniseringsdepartementet (2014))

trend is widely expected to continue until 2040, although with a slower pace of change. The population of regions that are characterised as “peripheral” is expected to reduce in both relative and absolute numbers. In the inland parts of northern Sweden, for example, the number of inhabitants is expected to be only an estimated 55,000 by 2040. Thus, this region is expected to lose two thirds of its population between 1990 and 2040 (SOU 2015: 101, pp. 20, 31). The map below provides a historical account and a prediction of demographic development in Sweden.1 As we can see, the map shows a polarised demographic situation in which large parts of north-western Sweden and parts of the south-east are expected to experience a continued decline in population (ibid) (Map 3.1). If we concentrate on the more challenging cases, we can observe that 30 out of 290 municipalities in Sweden have lost more than a third of their inhabitants between 1975 and 2019. Every municipality on this list is located in a rural, sparsely populated and remote area. These are also the municipalities that have been included in most of the studies I refer to in the coming parts of this book (Table 3.1).

1  The map is based on the so-called functional regions in Sweden. These are considered to be regions within which people can live and work within reasonable commuting distance.

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3  Rural Shrinkage in a Nordic Welfare State

Map 3.1  Average annual population growth in Swedish regions 1990–2013 and projections for 2013–2040. (Source: SOU 2015: 101)

Context-Dependent Consequences of Shrinkage The geographical conditions of the Swedish case and of the other Nordic countries may imply that shrinkage has other implications here than in some other countries. Many have indeed emphasised that the consequences of shrinkage differ across contexts (see, for instance, Cunningham-Sabot et  al. 2015: 18). Nevertheless, many accounts of the consequences of shrinkage are reminiscent of each other. In the literature, we learn that shrinkage leads to doughnut patterns in urban environments. We learn that the hollowing out of inner cities and urban cores, mosaic patterns, urban perforation, suburbanisation and urban sprawl are the typical physical

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Table 3.1  Municipalities in Sweden with the highest percentage reduction in population, 1975–2019 Åsele Överkalix Sorsele Hällefors Hagfors Pajala Dorotea Laxå Jokkmokk Kramfors Strömsund Hofors Arjeplog Ljusnarsberg Bräcke Ånge Övertorneå Ragunda Munkfors Filipstad Gällivare Norsjö Bjurholm Storuman Malå Torsby Kiruna Sollefteå Vindeln Storfors

Inhabitants 1975 4895 5462 4060 11,219 18,597 9421 3966 8664 7598 27,892 17,758 14,456 4192 7209 9503 13,908 6526 7826 5483 15,513 25,406 5830 3486 8439 4347 16,072 31,194 26,210 7153 5274

Inhabitants 2019 2818 3317 2514 6964 11,651 6038 2555 5639 4973 18,353 11,699 9590 2801 4824 6374 9370 4401 5335 3769 10,749 17,637 4076 2441 5931 3112 11,706 23,068 19,417 5429 4037

Population decrease in percentage 42.4% 39.3% 38.1% 37.9% 37.4% 35.9% 35.6% 34.9% 34.5% 34.2% 34.1% 33.7% 33.2% 33.1% 32.9% 32.6% 32.6% 31.8% 31.3% 30.7% 30.6% 30.1% 30.0% 29.7% 28.4% 27.2% 26.0% 25.9% 24.1% 23.5%

Source: Statistics Sweden 2019

­ anifestations of shrinkage (Sousa and Pinho 2013; Cunningham-Sabot et al. 2015; m Pallagst 2015). Some suggest that shrinking cities lose their “traditional notion of urbanity” (Sousa and Pinho 2013: 4). Other descriptions draw upon the dramatic changes in urban environments in Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. None of the above features can be found in Sweden. Here, depopulation is a gradual process that can be observed exclusively in the rural parts of the country. In many cases, the county town is relatively unaffected by shrinkage. It is in the villages, the rural rimland and the periphery of the periphery that depopulation takes place.

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3  Rural Shrinkage in a Nordic Welfare State

Parts of the shrinking cities literature draw upon the notion that depopulation can bring benefits, if it is skilfully handled. Several models or typologies have been developed, aimed at discerning different ways of conceptualising or framing shrinkage (Farke 2005; Hospers 2013; Hospers and Reverda 2015; Pallagst et al. 2017). Most of these models suggest that, in the first stage, planners, consultants, architects and policymakers trivialise or deny the fact that population numbers are continually shrinking. The last stage in most of the models describes a situation in which these actors are capable of seeing shrinkage as an opportunity (Farke 2005; Hospers 2013; Hospers and Reverda 2015). When shrinkage is framed as an advantage, or as an opportunity that cannot be missed, certain features tend to be brought to the fore. Sousa and Pinho (2013: 6) conclude that fewer people mean significant traffic reductions, reduced lanes, less traffic in side streets and better parking options. Hospers and Reverda (2015: 44) stress that fewer people mean “less fuss, less air pollution, and more space”. Often, the shrinking cities literature tells us that, in shrinking urban environments, land previously used for car parks, roads or unattractive buildings can be converted into green areas (Pallagst et  al. 2015b). Old shopping centres could be converted (Audirac 2015), and a renewed zoning system could provide improved options for shrinking cities (Hollander 2018). In a rural Swedish context, it is difficult to see any advantages at all stemming from there being even fewer people. The advantages of a lower population density may be immense in an urban planning context, but in remote and rural areas, such advantages are completely invisible. Politicians, planners or citizens do not experience any lack of green areas. In fact, “greening the area” is not a planning measure that anyone in this part of the world would take seriously. Traffic reduction is not a positive trait either, in locations where the main traffic issues are long distances, poorly maintained roads and sparse public transport. This indicates that some theoretical thinking on shrinkage, based on studies of large industrial cities in Europe and the USA, might not be applicable in the Swedish case or in the more general Nordic case. Accordingly, this book and its references to rural Swedish circumstances could help us advance or at least complement our theoretical thinking about shrinking communities in different contexts.

The Devolved Welfare State Policies can be developed at various levels of governance, and “rural policies” have been developed at all of them (Torre and Wallet 2016). At the level of the Swedish state, there exist a number of policy areas in which rural areas are the target of political initiatives: growth policy, agricultural policy, tourism policy, innovation policy, digitalisation and so on. These policies are explicitly designed at the level of the central state to fit “rurality” or rural conditions. Such policies are not included in the analysis here. Rather, this book discusses policies that are

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designed at the local level of government, to meet shrinkage and depopulation in rural parts of Sweden. Some scholars have suggested that shrinkage should be regarded as a regional question and that we should search for policy responses to shrinkage primarily at the regional level of government (Luescher and Shetty 2013). Hollander (2018: 21) suggests a regional perspective in the sense that planners need to be aware of the dynamics between urban, suburban and rural areas. Hospers (2013: 1515) stresses the merits of a regional perspective, since shrinking cities are competing with cities, towns and villages in their surroundings. Many have stressed, however, that it is at the local level that the consequences of shrinkage and depopulation are most evident. The global mobility of human resources, capital and jobs causes uneven patterns of accumulation that local levels of government need to handle (Cunningham-Sabot et al. 2015; Cunningham-Sabot and Roth 2015). The many local manifestations of shrinkage thus imply that local strategies are most urgently needed. Previous studies also suggest that it is in fact local strategies that predominate (Pallagst et  al. 2015a: 11; Luescher and Shetty 2013: 3; Hollander 2018: 35). In the Swedish case, it is at the local level of government that strategies for how to deal with depopulation are most needed. Thus, it is at the local level that the consequences of depopulation are most visible. It is also the local level of government that represents the public sector and delivers most of the welfare services in these areas. These arguments will be further developed below.

Local Governments in Focus If we seek to understand the implications of shrinkage in a Swedish context, we need to consider the nature of the Swedish welfare state as well as the role of the local level of government. When doing so, it becomes evident that welfare-related issues, such as pre-school, primary education, elder care and social welfare, stand out as the most urgent challenges for local governments in depopulating parts of Sweden. Although Sweden is a unitary state, local government enjoys “a strong constitutional status, a rather high degree of policy-making autonomy and financial independence” (Erlingsson and Ödalen 2013: 29). The municipalities’ autonomy and their right to levy taxes is stipulated in the Swedish Constitution, and local governments thus have strong local fiscal capacities (Sellers and Lidström 2007). Swedish municipalities enjoy comprehensive budgetary autonomy (Erlingsson and Wänström 2015) and can in many respects organise their activities relatively autonomously. Swedish municipalities also constitute an example of “local parliamentarism” (Wollmann 2012: 63), whereby representatives to the City Council (kommunfullmäktige) are elected in public elections every fourth year. The City Council controls the budget for the municipality, sets local tax levels and elects an executive

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committee (kommunstyrelsen). This executive committee has the overall ­responsibility for implementing, monitoring and evaluating the decisions of the City Council. It also carries responsibility for the economy and for local development within the municipality. Every municipality in Sweden – no matter what its size – is responsible for a range of welfare services (Erlingsson and Wänström 2015). Municipalities are responsible for the provision of childcare and primary and secondary education, as well as care for the elderly and disabled. Municipalities also carry the responsibility for physical planning and infrastructure. Streets, roads, water and other technical support all belong to the municipality’s sphere of responsibility. This implies that the political responsibility for handling the consequences of demographic decline in many respects is devolved to the local level of government – even if many municipal responsibilities are regulated by state laws, such as the Education Act, the Planning and Building Act and the Social Services Act. Given their high degree of autonomy and the broad scope of their responsibilities, it is highly relevant to explore how local governments in Sweden handle the challenges brought about by shrinkage and demographic decline. Two remarks might however be pertinent here. The first remark would be that, even though the challenges stemming from depopulation are handled by local governments, these challenges do not follow administrative boundaries but transgress both spatial and organisational boundaries (Peters 2015: 18). Depopulation and its consequences takes place within a set of multifaceted geographies. These geographies are indeed governed by institutions and organisations that are formed by some very specific path dependencies. But at the same time, these institutions are also part of a constant flow of knowledge, ideas and resources – some of which is relatively insensitive to administrative boundaries. Here, we can link up to a broader geographical perspective and to the call for a relational perspective on space and place (Massey 2004). From a relational perspective, we agree that places are undergoing constant change and that they are the result of wider relations – some of which have a global reach (Massey 2004). The second remark would be that it is difficult to talk about local governments as homogeneous entities or as carriers of a uniform set of ideas (Hill 2005: 146). Thus, public authorities are “peopled” as Jones puts it (2008). This implies that local government organisations are constituted by individuals  – politicians and civil servants  – who may have different agendas and approaches (Woods and Gardner 2011). These remarks about place, space and actors imply that the policies under study must be understood as situated in time and space and influenced by flows that are relatively insensitive to borders and boundaries. The remarks also imply that the policies studied here should be seen as the changing and sometimes contradictory result of negotiations between a broad spectrum of interests and interpretations.

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Context Dependent Policy Implications The rural character of shrinking areas in Sweden – together with the ambitions of the Swedish welfare state  – are important contextual conditions when we try to understand how local governments respond to shrinkage and why they respond in those ways. In the chapter to come, I will explicate how local government representatives in Sweden understand the policy implications of shrinkage and depopulation. Here, it will be evident that the implications of shrinkage are context dependent. Thus, whether shrinkage is interpreted as a problem or not depends not only on the interpretations of those in power but also upon various central political, economic and geographic conditions.

Literature Amcoff, J., & Westholm, E. (2007). Understanding rural change: Demography as a key to the future. Futures, 39(4), 363–379. Audirac, I. (2015). Shrinking cities in the fourth urban revolution? In K. Pallagst, T. Wiechmann, & C. Martinez-Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications, pp. 42–58. London/New York: Routledge. Cunningham-Sabot, E., & Roth, H. (2015). Growth paradigm against urban shrinkage: A standardised fight? The cases of Glasgow (UK) and Saint-Etienne (France). In K.  Pallagst, T. Wiechmann, & C. Martinez-Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications, pp. 99–124. London/New York: Routledge. Cunningham-Sabot, E., Audirac, I., Fol, S., & Martinez-Fernandez, C. (2015). Theoretical approaches of “shrinking cities”. In K.  Pallagst, T.  Wiechmann, & C.  Martinez-Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications, pp. 14–28. London/New York: Routledge. Dijkstra, L., & Poleman, H. (2014). A harmonised definition of cities and rural areas: The new degree of urbanization. Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy, European Commission. Erlingsson, G., & Ödalen, J. (2013). How Should Local Government Be Organised? Reflections from a Swedish Perspective. Local Government Studies, 39(1), 22–46. https://doi.org/10.1080 /03003930.2012.744967. Erlingsson, G., & Wänström, J. (2015). Politik och förvaltning i svenska kommuner. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Eurostat. (2019). Population statistics at regional level.  https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ statistics-­explained/index.php/Population_statistics_at_regional_level#Population_change. Downloaded 2019-12-07. Farke, A. (2005). Salzgitter will und wird nicht schrumpfen  – Wahrnehmungs- und Akzeptanzprobleme im Umgang mit Schrumpfung exemplarisch erläutert an einer Pilotstadt des Stadtumbau West. In C.  Weiske, K.  Sigrun, & C.  Hannemann (Eds.), Kommunikative Steuerung des Stadtumbaus. Interessengegensätze, Koalitionen und Entscheidungsstrukturen in schrumpfenden Städten (pp.  185–205). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. FÜRST. Großmann, K., Bontje, M., Haase, A., & Mykhnenko, V. (2013). Shrinking cities: Notes for the further research agenda. Cities, 35, 221–225.

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Hedberg, C., & Haandrikman, K. (2014). Repopulation of the Swedish countryside: Globalisation by international migration. Journal of Rural Studies, 34, 128–138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jrurstud.2014.01.005. Hela Sveriga ska leva. (2018). Befolkning i hela landet. Balansraport#3. Recieved at https://helasverige.se/fileadmin/user_upload/Kansli/pdf/Balansrapport_3_webb.pdf Hill, M. J. (2005). The public policy process (4th ed.). Harlow: Pearson Longman. Hollander, J. B. (2018). A research agenda for shrinking cities. Cheltenham/Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Hospers, G.-J. (2013). Policy responses to urban shrinkage: From growth thinking to civic engagement. European Planning Studies, 22(7), 1507–1523. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2013 .793655. Hospers, G., & Reverda, N. (2015). Managing population decline in Europe’s urban and rural areas. Cham: Springer International. Jones, R. (2008). People/states/territories. Oxford: Blackwell. Kommunal- og moderniseringsdepartementet. (2014). Regionale utviklingstrekk 2014 (RUT).www. regjeringen.no/globalassets/upload/kmd/rega/rapporter_2014/regionale_utviklingstrekk_ rut2014/rut_2014_h.pdf Kotilainen, J., Eisto, I., & Vatanen, E. (2013). Uncovering mechanisms for resilience. Strategies to counter shrinkage in a peripheral city in Finland. European Planning Studies, 23(1), 53–68. Luescher, A., & Shetty, S. (2013). An introductory review to the special issue: Shrinking cities and towns: Challenge and responses. Urban Design International, 18(1), 1–5. https://doi. org/10.1057/udi.2012.36. Massey, D. (2004). Geographies of responsibility. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 86(1), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0435-3684.2004.00150.x. Niedomysl, T., & Amcoff, J. (2011). Is there hidden potential for rural population growth in Sweden? Rural Sociology, 76(2), 257–279. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1549-0831.2010.00032.x. NOU. (2004: 2). Effekter og effektivitet. Effekter av statlig innsats for regional utvikling og distriktspolitiske mål. Olso. Pallagst, K. (2015). The interdependence of shrinking and growing: Processes of urban transformation in the USA in the rust belt and beyond. In K. Pallagst, T. Wiechmann, & C. Martinez-­ Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications. London/ New York: Routledge. Pallagst, K., Martinez-Fernandez, C., & Wiechmann, T. (2015a). Introduction. In K.  Pallagst, T. Wiechmann, & C. Martinez-Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications. London/New York: Routledge. Pallagst, K., Wiechmann, T., & Martinez-Fernandez, C. (Eds.). (2015b). Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications. London/New York: Routledge. Pallagst, K., Fleschurz, R., & Said, S. (2017). What drives planning in a shrinking city? Tales from two German and two American cases. Town Planning Review, 88(1), 15–28. https://doi. org/10.3828/tpr.2017.3. Peters, B. G. (2015). Advanced introduction to public policy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Prop. 96 S. (2016–2017). Proposisjon til Stortinget. Endringer i kommunestrukturen. Oslo. Rauhut, D., & Littke, H. (2016). A one way ticket to the city, please!’ On young women leaving the Swedish peripheral region. Journal of Rural Studies, 43, 301–310. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jrurstud.2015.05.003. Sellers, J. M., & Lidström, A. (2007). Decentralization, local government, and the welfare state. Governance, 20(4), 609–632. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0491.2007.00374.x. SOU. (2015: 101). Demografins regionala utmaningar. Bilaga 7 till Långstidsutredningen 2015. Stockholm: Wolters Kluwer. Sousa, S., & Pinho, P. (2013). Planning for shrinkage: Paradox or paradigm. European Planning Studies, 23(1), 12–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2013.820082. Statistics Sweden. (2019). http://www.statistikdatabasen.scb.se

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Torre, A., & Wallet, F. (2016). Regional development in rural areas analytical tools and public policies. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Wiechmann, T., & Bontje, M. (2015). Responding to tough times: Policy and planning strategies in shrinking cities. European Planning Studies, 23(1), 1–11. Wollmann, H. (2012). Local government reforms in (seven) European countries: Between convergent and divergent, conflicting and complementary developments. Local Government Studies, 38(1), 41–70. Woods, M., & Gardner, G. (2011). Applied policy research and critical human geography: Some reflections on swimming in murky waters. Dialogues in Human Geography. SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820611404488.

Chapter 4

Policy Implications of Rural Depopulation

Abstract  One critical point of departure in this volume is that the implications of depopulation for policy are context dependent. That is, whether shrinkage constitutes a problem or not depends not only on the interpretations of those in power but also on various central political, economic and geographical conditions. This chapter elucidates how local government representatives in Sweden understand shrinkage. In short, it suggests that depopulation has severe consequences in remote and rural parts of a Nordic welfare state: for welfare supply, for planning and development, for public administration and for politics and democracy. Keywords  Depopulation · Shrinkage · Welfare supply · Public administration · Policy · Democracy

One critical point of departure here is that the implications of depopulation for policy are context dependent. This argument has been put forward many times before – both implicitly and explicitly (Pallagst et al. 2015a). Studies undertaken in different geographical, social and political environments prove that population decline affects local communities in a multitude of ways. These studies also demonstrate that the local effects of depopulation  – on civil society, the local business sector and the public sector – are dependent on a complex web of contextual conditions. Included in these conditions are the interpretations of those who experience the depopulation and of those who are expected to formulate policies in relation to it (Yanow 2000). This book is based mainly on the results of studies performed in Sweden. Thus, it is a case that can illustrate the policy implications of depopulation in a remote and rural context and within the framework of a Nordic welfare state. Here, I will start out by describing what my informants refer to as consequences of depopulation on the local community. At this point, similarities to other cases – referred to in previous research  – are significant. Thereafter, I concentrate on the consequences of shrinkage from a public-sector perspective. That is, how do my informants – elected office holders and civil servants – understand as the implications of depopulation

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 J. Syssner, Pathways to Demographic Adaptation, SpringerBriefs in Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34046-9_4

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for public policy? What does depopulation entail for local governments, for public administration and for social welfare operations? When responding to these questions, I rely on extensive field studies conducted in more than 30 municipalities in the most clearly depopulating areas in Sweden. The Swedish case may stand out somewhat from cases that have attracted scholarly attention before. Thus, previous research on shrinkage and depopulation have mostly concerned urban areas and have concentrated mostly on issues related to spatial and physical planning (for an overview, see Hollander 2018). In the Swedish case, however, depopulation is an issue mostly for remote, rural and sparsely populated areas, and the main challenges do not relate to physical planning in the strict sense of the term. Rather, it is the assignments following from a rather ambitious welfare model that are referred to as the greater challenge. It is evident that the consequences of depopulation for the public sector vary with the geographical conditions and along with the general welfare model.

The Shrinking Community When population numbers fall and the demographic structure changes, the entire local community is transformed. Neighbours become fewer, villages are less populated and school classes become smaller and fewer in number. The number of active people in sports associations tends to decline. The distances people need to travel to fill up their cars, go to the movies or shop for shoes tend to increase. Depopulation is an issue that concerns the whole community. Population decline affects ‘all aspects of people’s daily lives’, as Hospers (2013: 1514) puts it. When population numbers reduce, they seldom do so evenly across all age groups. The mobility flows from the shrinking municipalities in Sweden are not torrential. However, they consist mostly of young people. According to Statistics Sweden, the mobility flows follow three general patterns: Between the ages of 19–23 years, many move to university locations to study. The next mobility flow – between the ages of 23 and 30 years – goes from universities to the bigger cities. Then, at ages just above 30  years, many newly formed families leave the bigger cities for suburban municipalities (SCB 2011). Even if mobility flows in other age groups are insignificant, this selective out-­ migration has both short-term and long-term consequences for places with negative net migration numbers. Several studies from different countries have emphasised the higher propensity among certain groups – women, singles, young people and highly educated, qualified and well-paid individuals – to leave rural areas and move to the bigger cities (Nordic Council of Ministers 2011; Weck and Beißwenger 2014). According to Keuschnigg et al. (2019: 1), there is a ‘strong evidence’ for the existence of a selective out-migration from rural areas. Compared to those who stay, it is argued ‘the educated and the smart are more likely to leave smaller places for larger labor markets’ (ibid).

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One profound consequence of this selective out-migration is that fewer families with children are formed. In my studies, several informants have stated that young people and families with children are those who make their neighbourhood a vivid and liveable place. Youngsters and families are referred to as consumers of commercial services, as the ones who are active in sports associations and as those who visit local pubs or restaurants (Syssner and Olausson 2015). As these groups come to make up an ever-smaller share of the population, civil society is very much affected. This is particularly evident in small, local communities where family ties and social networks are well developed and where local cohesion is perceived as important. Another suggested consequence of selective out-migration is that social capital structures change. The population becomes more homogeneous in the sense that it becomes older and more influenced by people with lower levels of education. This changing composition of the population is a sensitive issue that local government representatives hesitate to address. Some scholars have argued, however, that selective out-migration leads to ‘a loss of social and cultural resources at local level’ (Hutter and Neumann 2008: np) and means that the locality performs less well in terms of diversity and social capital. According to Martinez-Fernandez et al. (2012: 213), localities hit by selective outmigration suffer from ‘a lack of entrepreneurship and low levels of innovation and intellectual engagement’ (see also Keuschnigg et al. 2019). In contrast, others argue that, if social capital is understood in terms of trust-based networks of civic engagement (Putnam 1995), small towns and municipalities characterised by ‘a transparent overview of local actors’ (Leetmaa et al. 2015: 150) can be expected to perform rather well in this sense (see also Hospers and Reverda 2015: 50). One issue raised in previous research and in my own interviews concerns the collective self-image of places (Syssner 2014, 2016, 2018; Syssner & Siebert in press). Several voices have pointed out that it is difficult to keep up the image of a location as being interesting, attractive or vital when fewer people seem to want to live there; collective self-confidence is hurt when population numbers are shrinking. Some even argue that it is hard to talk about the fact that a municipality is shrinking without turning it into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The notion is strong that the image of a place will be negatively affected if it becomes associated with depopulation and stagnation (Haase et al. 2012). The business sector is also affected. Companies depending on local consumption face hard times when their customer base declines. The selection of commercial services in the form of shops, cafés and restaurants changes with the size and composition of the population. External investors’ and private entrepreneurs’ interest in investing in residential housing and leisure facilities is described as limited. Housing corporations and real-estate developers are affected by the vicious circles of depopulation; the stigma associated with shrinkage clearly affects the willingness to invest. This is how the process of decline turns into a vicious circle (Cunningham-­ Sabot et al. 2015; Hospers and Reverda 2015; Syssner 2014, 2016, 2018; Syssner and Olausson 2015).

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Shrinkage from a Public-Sector Perspective The Nordic welfare model is undergoing a fundamental transformation (Kvist and Greve 2011). Nevertheless, the Nordic or Scandinavian welfare model has for a long time been based on the principle of universalism and on the idea that all citizens should be able to ‘maintain a livelihood without reliance on the market’ (Esping-Andersen 1990: 21–22). All citizens are expected to contribute by paying income taxes that are rather high. In return, the model offers extensive social rights that should apply equally to everyone. Citizens thus expect the public sector to offer certain services in the form of healthcare, schools and elder care. These services are – at least in theory and in the words of Esping-Andersen (1990: 21–22) – ‘rendered as a matter of right’. The Nordic welfare model implies that social problems which may arise as a result of unequal capital accumulation can be alleviated. The fundamental principles of the Nordic welfare model therefore imply that the consequences of depopulation is an issue that the public sector must address. In countries where the welfare models rest more on initiatives from individuals, families, insurance companies or other private actors, the situation may be different. Below, I will refer to some of the policy implications of depopulation for the local level of government in Sweden. In short, my observation is that rural depopulation has implications for all aspects of municipal operations: for welfare supply, for planning and development, for public administration and for politics and democracy. It should be emphasised that in Sweden, most of the services that municipalities supply is statutory. This counts for services such as childcare, pre-school, compulsory school, upper secondary school and special education. The same applies to adult education, language education for immigrants and social services. The municipalities are also obliged by law to provide care for the elderly and for people with disabilities. They are responsible for community planning, health security, environmental protection and waste management. They are responsible for emergency services, water and sewage, and public libraries (Lidström 2018). Since these services are regulated by national law, it is an unlikely scenario that local governments should severely reduce the quality or accessibility in these operations. The local government representatives I have interviewed support the principle of national equivalence. They perceive the principle as important and fair. Nevertheless, all my informants – politicians and civil servants alike – understand the local government as being pressed between the high-quality standards set by the state and the expectations on availability hosted by the citizens. In my interviews, it becomes evident that depopulation entails new planning conditions and often a relative reduction of financial resources for local governments.

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Implications for Welfare Supply The social consequences of depopulation and shrinkage have been recognised in research before. As Pallagst suggests (2015: 61), depopulation tends to appear alongside poverty, segregation and homelessness, even if these problems are more urgent in the USA than in Europe. One well-documented problem in depopulating areas – in both Europe and the USA – is that labour-related tax bases and revenues tend to decline (Amcoff and Westholm 2007; Pallagst 2015; Cunningham-Sabot et al. 2015; Hollander 2018). At the same time, the alternatives for allocating costs for pre-schools, schools, nursing homes and elder care are more limited (Hollander 2011; Haase et al. 2012). The per capita expenditure for social services, infrastructure and the built environment tends to rise. As a result, tax rates and rates for water and wastewater systems tend to increase (Fjertorp 2013; Sousa and Pinho 2013; Cunningham-Sabot et al. 2015). In Sweden, these vicious circles are – at least to some extent – balanced and mitigated by the welfare state. One of the foundations of the Nordic welfare model is that citizens should have access to equal welfare services regardless of where they live. No municipality should be able to skimp on the quality of schools or healthcare. The schools in remote and rural areas must meet the same legal requirements as those in wealthy urban areas. Pupils have the same right to well-educated and certified teachers, to follow the same curriculum and to achieve the same learning outcomes, no matter where they live or where they go to school. Similarly, citizens have the same right to care when they grow old, regardless of where they live. The idea of national equality has always been an important guiding principle for the Swedish welfare state and for the Nordic welfare model more widely. To manage these ambitious assignments – at least in financial terms – substantial amounts of funding are redistributed within the so-called municipal equalisation systems. On the one hand, municipalities with weak tax bases are compensated through income equalisation. Here, the state distributes money to municipalities that  – for different reasons  – have low tax-paying capacity in relation to other municipalities. On the other hand, municipalities with a disadvantageous population structure are compensated through cost equalisation. Here, tax incomes from municipalities with many residents of working age are transferred to municipalities with large groups of children and young people or with a large proportion of care-­ demanding elderly people. Despite the financial equalisation systems, local governments in remote, rural and depopulating areas still struggle to meet the requirements set by the state and the needs and expectations of citizens. Thus, the principles of national equality and financial equalisation do not come without demands. The state continuously assesses the welfare services provided by the municipalities, to ensure that the requirements of quality, accessibility and equality are met. The state has developed ambitious systems for control and follow-up, and over time this control has increased in scope

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and complexity as well as degree of detail (Statskontoret 2016). My informants in the smallest, poorest and most remote municipalities state that the national ­standards can be hard to meet and that the follow-up system causes an extra burden for the local administration. Geography and demography make a difference when providing citizens with social services, education and elder care. It makes a difference if population density is low and people are spread over a large area – in small villages, along river valleys or in the archipelago – or in more dense settlements. It makes a difference how large the cohorts of schoolchildren and the elderly are. The number people of working age makes a difference, as well as whether the population is growing or shrinking. Every local government included in my studies has tried to adapt their welfare services to the conditions of depopulation in one way or another. Many informants report that the strained economy, the large distances and the ageing and declining population have forced them to make some harsh decisions (Syssner 2014, 2016, 2018; Syssner and Olausson 2015). Some informants tell me that they have stopped providing services that may be of benefit to citizens but go beyond the minimum required by the central state. Cultural activities, public swimming pools, ski slopes and sports halls are, for instance, not compulsory tasks for the municipality. Thus, culture and leisure are examples of sectors that have suffered from the hard saving requirements. Family centres, music schools, support for sports associations and other activities are examples of operations that receive fewer resources. Many local government representatives are indeed hesitant about making savings here. Some of my informants express an emotional attachment to the local sports clubs, and some of them state that the very point of living in a small, rural municipality is the richness in the cultural and sporting activities for children and young people. In addition, there are relatively small savings to be made here, since these activities account for such a small part of the municipal budget. In every municipality included in our studies, informants state that they have made significant savings in the statutory welfare services. Local government representatives cite decisions to shut down services that are non-statutory, to centralise the care of the elderly and to make extensive budget cuts. Decisions like these affect people’s daily lives, and many politicians hesitate to make them. In location after location, we hear stories about cutbacks, closures, mergers and dismissals. We have fired around seven percent of our full-time employees. All in all, this concerns 25 people, the number would correspond to around 800 people in our larger, neighbouring municipality. –Torsten, municipal executive officer The decline is a constant course of events. But the savings are carried out in phases. If five students move from a class, the need for teachers doesn’t change. You can only make savings when the whole class has moved. Then you catch up, for a short while. The savings come in steps, the decline is continuous. –Anna, local government commissioner

Many politicians report that they have had to decide upon centralisations, efficiency measures, savings and redundancies in all parts of the welfare sector. Centralisations are undertaken not only to make savings. It is also described as easier to meet the

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state’s demands for quality and trained personnel within larger care units. Thus, the quality requirements for schools and elder care are, in all essentials, dictated by the central state. To reduce the quality is seen as neither possible nor desirable. Still, some informants testify to reduced services for citizens or reduced quality as a way to manage the financial consequences of a reduced population. We’ve centralised care for the elderly, closed a school, and raised taxes. –Ralf, local government commissioner We’re moving towards large-scale operations in the care of the elderly and pre-school […] more towards having everything under the same roof. –Jan, local government commissioner

In every municipality included in our studies, informants refer to decisions to close down village schools, to merge compulsory schools or to refrain from having their own upper secondary school. Thus, population decline is often most evident among the cohorts of children and young people. State reports show that the number of young people in the peripheral parts of Sweden has decreased from about 200,000 to about 130,000 individuals in the years 1975–2013. The decrease, it is stated, was particularly significant during the years 1990–2012. According to the forecasts, this development is expected to continue, albeit at a slower pace (SOU 2015: 101, p. 33). If we consider those 30 municipalities in Sweden that experienced the most severe population decline during the last four decades, all of them lost between 23% and 42% of their population. That is a drastic reduction in itself. But if we study changes in student cohorts during the same period, we learn that the number of children in compulsory school decreased between 45% and 65% in those 30 municipalities in Sweden that lost most of their student base (ages 7–16 years) during the same period of time. Of course, this has massive consequences for the school organisation in these municipalities. These significant changes in the student cohorts – in combination with the states’ increased demands on quality and difficulties recruiting certified teachers to remote and rural areas – are referred to as the primary cause of the closures of many small schools in Sweden during the last few decades (Table 4.1). It is difficult to come to firm conclusions about the actual effects of school closures on everyday life and mobility patterns (Amcoff 2012a, b; Cedering 2016). Still, many local government representatives describe school closures as one of the hardest decisions they have to make. Many are worried that a school closure will have far-reaching consequences for the liveability of its village. This is especially the case in parts of northern Sweden, where the distances between schools are huge. In some areas, it is not uncommon for pupils to travel 30 kilometres by bus to attend school every morning. If that school is closed, travelling distances increase further. In addition, schools have a strong symbolic significance (Wänström 2013; Wänström and Karlsson 2013; Wänström et al. 2013). A school is often seen as proof that the community or village has a future. The village school is also a symbol of the presence of the public sector. My observations and interviews also show that many small municipalities never had, or have decided not to have, their own upper secondary level school. This is the

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Table 4.1  The 30 municipalities in Sweden with the highest percentage reduction of schoolchildren (age 7–16 years) since 1975 Number of pupils (7–16 years) 1975 Överkalix 789 Gällivare 4353 Sorsele 582 Övertorneå 1025 Pajala 1533 Jokkmokk 1099 Hällefors 1695 Hagfors 2611 Kiruna 5657 Storuman 1348 Laxå 1338 Arjeplog 585 Åsele 588 Hofors 2065 Strömsund 2333 Ljusnarsberg 941 Oxelösund 2597 Dorotea 512 Bräcke 1287 Ragunda 1113 Munkfors 775 Gullspång 1028 Olofström 2854 Skinnskatteberg 841 Ånge 1791 Malå 669 Bjurholm 504 Degerfors 1869 Torsby 1921 Norsjö 843

Number of pupils (7–16 years) 2018 269 1637 225 407 614 448 701 1083 2445 584 584 267 276 979 1116 459 1275 257 646 563 392 520 1452 434 961 364 275 1020 1061 466

Decline of pupils 1975– 2018, in percent 65.9% 62.4% 61.3% 60.3% 59.9% 59.2% 58.6% 58.5% 56.8% 56.7% 56.4% 54.4% 53.1% 52.6% 52.2% 51.2% 50.9% 49.8% 49.8% 49.4% 49.4% 49.4% 49.1% 48.4% 46.3% 45.6% 45.4% 45.4% 44.8% 44.7%

Population decline 1975–2018, in total 39.5% 30.6% 37.9% 32.4% 35.9% 34.2% 37.8% 37.1% 26.3% 29.9% 34.9% 33.3% 42.4% 33.6% 34.1% 32.8% 15.1% 35.2% 32.9% 31.7% 30.9% 23.5% 21.4% 17.7% 32.3% 28.2% 29.7% 20.5% 27.1% 29.8%

Source: Statistics Sweden (2019)

case when student cohorts in the municipality are far too small to motivate their own school organisation. Instead of having their own upper secondary school, these municipalities cooperate with one or several of the neighbouring municipalities in the county. This is often seen as a less drastic decision. Still, not having an upper secondary school may impact upon the community in several ways. Secondary schools not only host pupils, but they also employ teachers with academic degrees. If these teachers are no longer requested, there is a risk that the level of education in the local workforce will decrease further. Another consequence of not having a local primary school was highlighted in one of my interviews with a municipal executive

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officer. She stated that, when students need to commute to the neighbouring municipality every day, their preference for partaking in sports and other activities in the evening is affected, as well as their sense of belonging to the place. In the longer run, my informant concluded, it affects the willingness of the youngsters to stay in the municipality or to return after finishing their education. The decisions to close village schools, or to cooperate on matters relating to secondary education, are from time to time referred to as a form of resource allocation. Resources for a specific activity – the school – are transferred to other operations in the municipality where the needs are increasing – for example, care of the elderly. Such decisions are not easy to make. Besides, even though the share of costs allocated to elder care has increased, the overall costs can still be reduced in absolute numbers. We have a demographic development where the number of elderly is increasing in the municipality. This mean that we should focus more efforts and resources on that group. While we know that we should prioritise to be attractive to younger people, to get them to stay or move back when they’ve finished their education. It’s a dilemma! –Anders, local government commissioner

Implications for Planning and Development In studies outside the Nordic countries, an oversized infrastructure is often identified as the most striking consequence of extensive population decline. Fixed assets such as roads, parking places, water supplies and sewage gradually become unnecessarily extensive when the population shrinks (Luescher and Shetty 2013; Hollander 2018). Schools with inadequate numbers of pupils are closed, but school buildings continue to generate costs if they cannot be sold or rented out. Industrial and housing units stand empty; dwellings and business premises are difficult to rent out; houses and plots become difficult to sell (Wiechmann and Pallagst 2012; Sousa and Pinho 2013). The result – for both private- and public-sector property owners – is less capital for maintenance and investment in physical infrastructure (Cunningham-Sabot et al. 2015). The costs of maintaining roads and water and sewage systems tend to exceed the financial capacity (Pallagst et al. 2017). Local governments in shrinking cities face a situation in which they have ‘less money for over-dimensioned and underutilized infrastructure’, as accurately described by Sousa and Pinho (2013: 5). In many cases, the policy measures taken to meet this situation have consisted of large-scale demolition programmes in which unused residential buildings, garages and commercial facilities have been torn down to make space for new, smaller buildings or green areas (Hollander 2018). It is no wonder that the adaptation of an oversized infrastructure has become a major issue in the international research literature. When large cities shrink, it is noticeable in the cityscape. In my interviews, the issue of an oversized infrastructure has not been a priority. Thus, just like the other Nordic countries, Sweden hosts no large, depopulating ­cities. Shrinking municipalities in Sweden can all be classified as rural and more or

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less sparsely populated areas. In these locations, it is often not the core area of the municipality – i.e. the county town – that loses inhabitants. Instead, it is the nearby rural districts – surrounding the town but still forming part of the municipality – that suffer from long-term population decline. These small towns can thus be described as ‘islands of growth in a sea of decline’, as Wiechmann et al. (2015: 127) have put it. The pattern referred to above implies that shrinkage may be hard to trace visually in the county town. Buildings and premises can look very much the same. Instead, it is the small villages, minor communities, dominated by private housing, that suffer from decline. This may be one reason why demolition is a minor issue in my interviews. That is, vacancies and empty houses in the countryside are an issue for the individual property owners rather than for local government. Besides, in recent years, the situation in most Swedish municipalities has been described mainly in terms of housing shortages. That does not mean that there are no empty houses or apartments in the small and shrinking municipalities. But it does mean that the existing houses and apartments do not correspond to modern needs in terms of size, standards and location. Another reason for the few mentions of demolitions as an adaptation policy measure is probably that many apartment buildings in Sweden were torn down already during the 1990s. During the first few years of the 1990s, conditions for property management changed dramatically. This meant that many municipal housing corporations suddenly had apartments that were impossible to let out. According to the National Housing Delegation, the number of empty apartments was at its height in the year 1998. At that point, more than 62,000 apartments were standing empty, mainly in municipalities in former industrial districts (Statens bostadsnämnd 2002). Empty, public apartments became a huge problem for these municipalities. This led to the demolition of just over 23,000 apartments during the latter years of the 1990s, most of them with state support (SKL 2001: 6, 13). These demolitions in the 1990s could be seen as an early example of adaptation to depopulation or shrinkage, even if the informants in my interviews did not make that connection. Another consequence of depopulation, when it comes to physical planning, is that private investors are notable by their absence. According to my informants, this implies that the municipal organisation stands out as a rather lonely planner and a solitary development agent (Syssner and Olausson 2015). On top of this, small and shrinking municipalities tend to have strained economies and to lack the financial muscles required for becoming an active planner and development agent – or even to maintain the fixed assets they already possess. In one study, we saw that many depopulating municipalities have water and sewage systems, properties, sports facilities and road networks that were constructed in the 1960s and 1970s (Jonsson and Syssner 2016, 2018). Back then, several municipalities were experiencing a sturdy growth phase, and the state gave financial support to the expansion. Decades of depopulation and reduced revenues thereafter, together with increased demands for social welfare, have contributed to the municipalities not maintaining these fixed assets to the extent necessary. The fee-paying collective has been shrinking, and the operation and maintenance costs are distrib-

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uted between fewer and fewer users. Now, their status is described as insufficient, and many municipalities are faced with large renovation needs. The studies we have conducted in Sweden show that it is hard for the municipalities to adapt their fixed assets to the demographic decline (Jonsson and Syssner 2016, 2018). Many municipalities have large and neglected maintenance needs. The prospects of making room for a more extensive investment budget are described as being insignificant. The result is that many municipalities push their extensive maintenance costs forward. It is unclear how and when such costs will be taken care of by future generations.

Implications for the Municipal Organisation The population in peripherally located and shrinking areas is older than in Sweden on average. An increased number of elderly people entails increased demands and higher costs for welfare services aimed at the elderly (SOU 2015: 101). Of course, this raises questions about how the welfare provision is to be financed in the future. One problem that is described as more acute in my interviews, however, is that the proportion of people of working age decreases when the proportion of older people increases. This means that the supply of labour decreases. The availability of skilled personnel in the welfare sector is thus described as one of the major problems in my interviews. Many of my informants are concerned about how to recruit not only teachers, social workers and nurses but also civil servants to the municipal administration (Syssner 2018). Public administration in a small, shrinking municipality is often larger in relation to operational activities than it tends to be in a larger municipality. This is because municipalities have a number of tasks to manage, regardless of their size. According to the Public Administration Law (SFS 2017: 900), the public authority should respond to requests from citizens in a supportive and flexible manner and without undue delay. Municipalities are also responsible for a large number of administrative issues, such as wage management, record keeping, archiving, statistics collection and financial reporting. These tasks do not disappear, even if the population declines, and they cannot always be reduced in correlation with the reduced size of the population. This implies that the administrative overheads in small and depopulating municipalities can be rather large (Syssner 2018). At the same time, however, the administrative organisation in small and shrinking municipalities can also be regarded as small or – as some informants put it – anorectic  (Syssner and Olausson 2015). Civil servants in a small and shrinking municipality must manage a wide array of issues and policy areas. This entails that they become generalists in all directions. They have to handle a broad portfolio of policy areas, and they have to cover strategic issues as well as operational ones. Accordingly, there are a lot of good generalists in these administrations, but there is no room to let them be true specialists.

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Many civil servants report that it is hard for them to fulfil the requirements imposed by the state on municipal operations. The selective outmigration from peripheral rural regions implies shrinking access to a skilled workforce (Rauhut and Littke 2016: 302; Amcoff and Westholm 2007). Additionally, legislation is seen as increasingly complex, and the demands concerning quality and availability are referred to as ever more pressing. The requirements on administrative routines and information reports are seen as unreasonably large. It is also obvious that the administrations in small and shrinking municipalities have limited means to support extensive fact-finding or to develop long-term strategies  (Syssner and Olausson 2016). The strategic capacity in a small municipality is very limited. The municipalities with the most pressing need to develop strategies for how to manage longterm population decline are precisely those that have the tiniest resources for doing so – in terms of time, finances and competence (Syssner and Olausson 2015).

Implications for Politics and Democracy Many of those who engage in politics do so from a desire to develop their own community. None of the numerous politicians I have interviewed have had it as their main ambition to reduce quality, delimit accessibility or raise costs for citizens. Still, every politician I have interviewed testified that they have had to manage issues such as the closure of schools and other public facilities, budget cuts and efficiency issues. In many cases, the politicians’ ideals collide with the reality they have to manage. Many informants stress that it is hard to communicate the decisions that local government has to make when the population decreases (Syssner and Siebert in press). Even if responding to shrinkage would require the involvement of many stakeholders (Hospers 2013: 1514), some of my informants claim that there is nothing to gain from a dialogue on tough decisions, since in any case citizens do not understand why these decisions need to be taken. Some state that it is depressing to constantly think about savings and budget cuts and that it would be more interesting to work with new start-ups and growth. In my interviews, these conditions are understood to have implications for the recruitment of new politicians in depopulating areas. Being an elected politician in such an area is described as a hopeless and difficult task that involves nothing but decisions on budget cuts (Syssner 2018).

Context-Dependent Consequences The consequences of depopulation vary across time and space. Basic geographical conditions, such as commuting distance, population density or population composition, lead to different effects arising from population decline. Studies performed in big cities in the USA or in city regions in Europe often point out that a declining

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population has its advantages. Reduced population density implies that areas previously used for parking, houses, roads or unattractive buildings can be converted into green areas or parks. Empty industrial facilities can be renovated and used for creative and artistic projects. In Sweden and the other Nordic countries, planning conditions are different. The places that shrink here are those with a large area and a small population. These are places where it is difficult to see any advantage at all arising from an even lower population. The financial and organisational consequences of depopulation are described as troublesome. At some points, however, it is difficult to determine what the most challenging planning condition is. Is the problem that the municipality is shrinking? Or is it that the municipality is so sparsely populated? Or is it that it covers such huge areas? International studies show that it may be difficult to manage extensive and long-­ term population decline, even for large cities. Still, the means available to support innovative solutions, internal reorganisation and efficiency measures are larger in a big organisation than a small one. A small organisation can also be more vulnerable than a large one  – to sudden changes in revenue, to changed or increased state requirements or to the loss of competence when individual employees leave (Syssner and Olausson 2015). A broken water pipe, a rehabilitation case, an inappropriate recruitment or the remediation of mould costs just as much in a small municipality as in a large one, but in the small municipality these exceptional costs become much larger in relation to the running costs. The main observation in this chapter is that depopulation has implications for all aspects of municipal operations: for welfare supply, for planning and development, for public administration and for politics and democracy. Despite these implications, none of the local governments included in our studies could present a long-­ term, explicit strategy or policy for how to cope with depopulation. Thus, as parts of our field studies, my colleagues and I have inquired whether Swedish municipalities draw up formal policies for demographic adaptation. The short answer is that they do not – even if some of the municipalities under study have had an almost constant population decline for more than 40 years. We have also inquired into whether there are other documents or plans in which local governments in remote and rural areas describe how they intend to handle depopulation and adaptation. Our studies of comprehensive plans, budgets and annual reports in depopulating, sparsely populated areas in Sweden show that population decline is seldom elaborated upon in these documents. In sum, demographic adaptation or adaptation policies seem to be a non-issue in  local government documents (Syssner 2014; Jonsson and Syssner 2016, 2018; Syssner and Olausson 2015, 2016). Local governments in Sweden do indeed take decisions that aim to handle the consequences of depopulation, but these remind more of fragmented attempts to solve multidimensional problems (Syssner 2016). In the following chapters, I will contend that there are several problems with ignoring shrinkage in places where it actually exists. I will also argue that there are many advantages to talking openly about how to handle the challenges arising from depopulation. One of the main statements of this book, therefore, is that local

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g­ overnments in shrinking areas ought to develop what I refer to as local adaptation policies. Before expanding upon that argument, however, I will explore the reluctance among local governments to plan for further depopulation. In the next chapter, my intent is to elucidate why local governments tend to deal with shrinkage in such a disorganised manner.

Literature Amcoff, J. (2012a). Do rural districts die when their schools close? Evidence from Sweden around 2000. Educational Planning, 20(3), 47–60. Amcoff, J. (2012b). Nedlagda landsbygdsskolor påverkar inte utflyttningen. Dagens samhälle. Downloaded 2012-11-16 from https://www.dagenssamhalle.se/debatt/ nedlagda-landsbygdsskolor-paverkar-inte-utflyttningen-4029 Amcoff, J., & Westholm, E. (2007). Understanding rural change: Demography as a key to the future. Futures, 39(4), 363–379. Cedering, M. (2016). Konsekvenser av skolnedläggningar: En studie av barns och barnfamiljers vardagsliv i samband med skolnedläggningar i Ydre kommun. Kulturgeografiska institutionen, Uppsala universitet, Uppsala. Cunningham-Sabot, E., Audirac, I., Fol, S., & Martinez-Fernandez, C. (2015). Theoretical approaches of “shrinking cities”. In K.  Pallagst, T.  Wiechmann, & C.  Martinez-Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications, pp. 14–28. London/New York: Routledge. Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Fjertorp, J. (2013). Hur påverkas kommunernas ekonomi av befolkningsförändringar? NatKom/ Kfi Rapport 17, Göteborg. Haase, A., Hospers, G.  J., Pekelsma, S., & Rink, D. (2012). Shrinking areas: Front-runners in innovative citizen participation. The Hague: European Urban Knowledge Network. Hollander, J. B. (2011). Can a city successfully shrink? Evidence from survey data on neighborhood quality. Urban Affairs Review, 47(129), 129–141. https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087410379099. Hollander, J. B. (2018). A research agenda for shrinking cities. Cheltenham/Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Hospers, G.-J. (2013). Policy responses to urban shrinkage: From growth thinking to civic engagement. European Planning Studies, 22(7), 1507–1523. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2013 .793655. Hospers, G., & Reverda, N. (2015). Managing population decline in Europe’s urban and rural areas. Cham: Springer International. Hutter, G., & Neumann, I. (2008). Learning and spatial planning practices: Towards a stage model in shrinking cities. Learning Cities in a Knowledge-Based Society. XIth EURA Conference, Milan, 9–11 October 2008. Jonsson, R., & Syssner, J. (2016). Demografianpassad infrastruktur? Om hantering av anläggningstillgångar i kommuner med minskande befolkningsunderlag. Nordisk Administrativt Tidsskrift Nr, 93(3), 45–64. Jonsson, R., & Syssner, J. (2018). New demography, old infrastructure: The management of fixed assets in shrinking municipalities in Sweden. In G. J. Hospers & J. Syssner (Eds.), Dealing with urban and rural shrinkage: Formal and informal strategies (pp. 31–44). Berlin, Münster: LIT Verlag. Keuschnigg, M., Mutgan, S., & Hedström, P. (2019). Urban scaling and the regional divide. Science Advances, 5(1), eaav0042. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aav0042. Kvist, J., & Greve, B. (2011). Has the Nordic welfare model been transformed? Social Policy and Administration, 45(2), 146–160. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9515.2010.00761.x.

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Leetmaa, K., Agnes K, Mari N. & Joachim B. (2015). Strategies to Cope with Shrinkage in the Lower End of the Urban Hierarchy in Estonia and Central Germany. European Planning Studies, 23(1), 147–165. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2013.820100. Lidström, A. (2018). Subnational Sweden, the national state and the EU. Regional & Federal Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/13597566.2018.150090. Luescher, A., & Shetty, S. (2013). An introductory review to the special issue: Shrinking cities and towns: Challenge and responses. Urban Design International, 18(1), 1–5. https://doi. org/10.1057/udi.2012.36. Martinez-Fernandez, C., Audirac, I., Fol, S., & Cunningham-Sabot, E. (2012). Shrinking cities: Urban challenges of globalization. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 36(2), 213–225. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01092.x. Nordic Council. (2011). Mega trends. TemaNord 2011: 527. Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers. Pallagst, K. (2015). The interdependence of shrinking and growing: Processes of urban transformation in the USA in the rust belt and beyond. In K. Pallagst, T. Wiechmann, & C. Martinez-­ Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications. London/ New York: Routledge. Pallagst, K., Martinez-Fernandez, C., & Wiechmann, T. (2015a). Introduction. In K.  Pallagst, T. Wiechmann, & C. Martinez-Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications. London/New York: Routledge. Pallagst, K., Wiechmann, T., & Martinez-Fernandez, C. (Eds.). (2015b). Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications. London/New York: Routledge. Pallagst, K., Fleschurz, R., & Said, S. (2017). What drives planning in a shrinking city? Tales from two German and two American cases. Town Planning Review, 88(1), 15–28. https://doi. org/10.3828/tpr.2017.3. Putnam, R. D. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6(1), 65–78. Rauhut, D., & Littke, H. (2016). A one way ticket to the city, please!’ On young women leaving the Swedish peripheral region. Journal of Rural Studies, 43, 301–310. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jrurstud.2015.05.003. SCB (2011). Inrikes omflyttning. http://www.scb.se/Statistik/BE/BE0101/2010A01L/Inrikes_ omflyttning.pdf, Downloaded 2018-03-14 SFS 2017:900 Förvaltningslag (Public Administration Law). SKL. (2001). Efter bostadsakuten – tomma bostäder kostar på. http://webbutik.skl.se/bilder/artiklar/pdf/7289-046-0.pdf?issuusl=ignore. Accessed 6 Apr 2018. SOU. (2015: 101). Demografins regionala utmaningar. Bilaga 7 till Långstidsutredningen 2015. Stockholm: Wolters Kluwer. Statistics Sweden. (2011). Inrikes omflyttning. https://www.scb.se/Statistik/BE/ BE0101/2010A01L/Inrikes_omflyttning.pdf, Downloaded 2018-03-14 Sousa, S., & Pinho, P. (2013). Planning for shrinkage: Paradox or paradigm. European Planning Studies, 23(1), 12–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2013.820082. Statens bostadsnämnd. (2002). Statens stöd för kommunala bostadsåtaganden 1998-2005: om bostadsdelegationen och statens bostadsnämnd. Stockholm: Statens bostadsnämnd (SBN). Statistics Sweden. (2019). https://www.statistikdatabasen.scb.se Statskontoret. (2016). Statens styrning av kommunerna. Stockholm: Statskontoret. Syssner, J. (2014). Politik för kommuner som krymper. Norrköping: CKS Rapportserie. Syssner, J. (2016) Planning for shrinkage: Policy implications of demographic decline. Journal of Depopulation and Rural Development Studies, 20, 7–31. https://doi.org/10.4422/ager.2015.14 Syssner, J. (2018). Mindre många: om anpassning och utveckling i krympande kommuner. Årsta: Dokument Press.  Syssner, J. and Siebert, C. (In press) Local governments and the communication of demographic decline: Who, what and why? AGER: Journal of Depopulation and Rural Development Studies. Syssner, J., & Olausson, A. (2015). Att vara en krympande kommun. Urbanisering. SKL: Stockholm.

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Syssner, J., & Olausson, A. (2016). Översiktsplanering i kommuner som krymper. Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift 2/2016. Wänström, J. (2013). Demokratisk förankring i skolnedläggningsprocesser. Förutsättningar för medborgardialog i en känsloladdad fråga. NatKom Rapport 15: Göteborg: KFi. Wänström, J., & Karlsson, M. (2013). Kontroverser utan avtryck. Skolnedläggelsers påverkan på kommunala valresultat. NatKom Rapport 2: Göteborg: KFi. Wänström, J., Karlsson, M., & Wänström, L. (2013). Riskfyllda beslut. Skolnedläggelsers avtryck i kommunala valresultat. NatKom Rapport 9: Göteborg: KFi. Weck, S., & Beißwenger, S. (2014). Coping with peripheralization: Governance response in two German small cities. European Planning Studies, 22(10), 2156–2171. https://doi.org/10.1080 /09654313.2013.819839. Wiechmann, T., & Pallagst, K. M. (2012). Urban shrinkage in Germany and the USA: A comparison of transformation patterns and local strategies. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 36(2), 261–280. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01095.x. Wiechmann, T., Volkmann, A., & Schmitz, S. (2015). Making places in increasingly empty spaces: Dealing with shrinkage in post-socialist cities: The example of East Germany. In K. Pallagst, T. Wiechmann, & C. Martinez-Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications. London/New York: Routledge. Yanow, D. (2000). Conducting interpretive policy analysis. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Chapter 5

Why Do They Fail?

Abstract  It is well known that local-level policymakers avoid developing strategies for how to handle long-term population decline. A central claim in this chapter is that we should try to understand why this is so. That is, the inability among policymakers to deal with depopulation is in itself a phenomenon that needs to be explained. The chapter starts out from a broad literature on the success and failure of the public sector and suggests that the inability to plan for depopulation can be seen as a policy failure. It is also suggested that the disinclination among local governments in Sweden to plan for decline has to do with the potential benefits of growth, goal dependencies, a prevalent growth norm, personal sentiments and a lack of professional support or good examples of smart shrinking. By way of conclusion, it is suggested that we need to make a better distinction between two interrelated policy areas: growth and development policy versus local adaptation policy. Keywords  Depopulation · Shrinkage · Policy failure · Growth norm · Goal dependencies

It is a well-known fact among researchers studying shrinkage and depopulation that local-level policymakers avoid developing strategies for how to handle long-term population decline. That local governments strive to refute population decline rather than to plan for it is a widespread phenomenon. Sweden is no exception here. The reluctance among local governments to plan for further depopulation or shrinkage is very well documented. Over the last few years, my colleagues and I have explored whether shrinking municipalities in Sweden draw up formal policies for demographic adaptation. From extensive field studies, observations and interviews, we can conclude that they do not – even if decades of depopulation would be a strong incentive for doing so. A central claim in this book is that we should try to understand why local governments tend to deal with shrinkage in such a disorganised manner. That is, the reluctance or inability among policymakers to develop long-term policies for how to deal with depopulation is in itself a phenomenon that needs to be explained.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 J. Syssner, Pathways to Demographic Adaptation, SpringerBriefs in Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34046-9_5

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In this chapter, I start out from the theoretical assumption that the inability to plan for depopulation can be seen as a policy failure. I link my argument to a broad literature on the success and failure of the public sector, spanning many disciplines and covering a variety of policy areas (see, e.g. Le Grand 1991; Bovens et al. 2001; Dollery et al. 2006; McConnell 2015; May 2015; Peters 2015a, b). Studies in the field of policy failure often start out with a discussion of what failure actually is and how and when we can conclude that it is in fact a failure that we are observing. Here, I understand failure not as an objective matter of fact but as something that is perceptual as well as politically and socially constructed through discourses and narratives (McConnell 2015). What is perceived as a success or as a failure varies between people, over time (Bovens et al. 2001: 20) and across politicians with different perceptions of the policy world (Peters 2015b: 172). Failure, moreover, is a relational concept. That is, a failure arises in relation to something – such as intended objects or target groups – in relation to costs and benefits or in relation to time (McConnell 2015; Kay 2016). Here, I would say that the incapacity to develop policies and strategies aimed at handling long-term population decline is a failure in the sense that there is a mismatch between how policymakers understand the consequences of decline and the policies they develop to handle these consequences. That is, depopulation is framed by policymakers as an undesirable and troublesome planning condition. For some reason, however, these matters are not explicitly addressed as a policy problem (see Peters 2015b: 13). The very same policymakers who frame depopulation as something inherently troublesome fail to develop long-­term, explicit policies for how to handle the situation. They do take measures to meet with the consequences of depopulation, but these stand out more as fragmented examples of austerity policies with budget cuts, savings and closures (Aalbers and Bernt 2019). In the literature, moreover, it is emphasised that failure is always a matter of degree (McConnell 2015) or extent (Howlett et al. 2015). This means that no sharp lines can be drawn between success and failure. Rather, the field of policy failures is filled with grey areas, spectra and ambiguities (McConnell 2010). In our case, the degree of failure differs across places. Some local governments are more proactive than others in adapting to demographic decline. Some are slightly more inclined to involve citizens in these processes than others. But, on the whole, the propensity among local governments not to develop explicit policies for how to handle depopulation is palpable. Moreover, a failure always requires someone to classify it as such (Peters 2015b: 172). This means that we need to discuss for whom a failure is a failure. Is it a failure for certain target groups (McConnell 2015: 229) or for those individuals or organisations who have invested resources in a certain policy measure? And who has the authority to classify something as having failed? Here, I am the one who is classifying the inability to develop policies or plans for how to address depopulation as a failure. This is an assessment that I make against the background of a comprehensive research literature on shrinkage that makes the same judgement, if as yet not explicitly or in the light of theories of policy failure. Paradoxically, this is also an assessment that I share with many of my informants. Many of the local

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g­ overnment representatives I have met during field work express deep concerns and dismay about the fact that they lack a plan or a policy for how to address the future population decline (for a similar discussion, see Zittoun 2015). In the literature, failure is often understood as the result of specific factors or circumstances (Dunlop 2016; Howlett et  al. 2015). In some studies, failures are explained with reference to ‘the design of the policies themselves’ (Peters 2015a: 265) or to the ‘poor design of policy tools’ (Dunlop 2016: 20). Other studies have suggested that failures can have their roots in various stages of the policymaking process, i.e. they can stem from the stages of agenda-setting, policy formulation, decision-making, policy implementation or policy evaluation (Peters 2015a: 265; Howlett et al. 2015: 213). Most of the studies however focus more on the ‘causes of failure, rather than the nature of failure per se’, as McConnell puts it (2015: 224). The failure addressed in this chapter concerns the inability of local governments to develop long-term strategies for how to deal with depopulation. That is, the problem is not that the long-term strategies are poor or that the implementation of them went wrong in some sense (Peters 2015b: 83ff). The problem is that long-term strategies do not exist. This means that our scholarly attention should be directed to the agenda-setting parts of the policy process. Here, it might be appropriate to acknowledge that the idea of the policy process as divided into a series of distinct steps or stages has been subjected to severe criticism. The stages heuristic has been dismissed as being both outdated and useless (Sabatier 1999: 7) and as having serious limitations for both research and teaching (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1993). Still, the idea of the policy process as being constituted by some certain activities, events  – or even phases or steps  – may help us ‘disaggregate an otherwise seamless web of public policy transactions’, as Deleon (1999: 24) puts it. Moreover, it is possible to perceive agenda-setting as a ‘crucial activity for policymaking’ (Peters 2015b: 78) without understanding it as a distinct or separate initial step in an allegedly linear policy process. In the text that follows, accordingly, I start out from an interest in why some certain issues find their way to the formal political agenda, while others don’t (Peters 2015b: 66ff; for a similar interest, see Bernt et al. 2014; Haase et al. 2016). I will pay a special interest in those barriers that prevent depopulation and shrinkage from being perceived and treated as an explicit policy problem that local governments should take care of. More precisely, I will try to identify those conditions that have kept the issue of long-term population decline off the agenda in so many localities for so many years.

Conditions for Failure Below, I will suggest that, at least in the Swedish case, the inability among local governments to develop long-term strategies for how to deal with depopulation has its foundations in several interrelated conditions. These conditions include the potential benefits of growth, goal dependencies, a prevalent growth norm, personal sentiments and a lack of professional support or good examples of smart shrinking.

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The Potential Benefits of Growth For local governments, there are several advantages to a stable or slightly growing population. This is particularly clear in sparsely populated, remote and rural areas. Municipalities in remote and rural areas of Sweden tend to cover huge land areas, to be extremely sparsely populated and to have few citizens in total. In all, 48 of the 290 municipalities in Sweden have less than 8000 inhabitants. Ten of these have fewer than one inhabitant per square kilometre. These municipal organisations are vulnerable in many ways  – to sudden changes in costs or revenue, to changed or increased state requirements or to a loss of competence when individual employees leave (Syssner and Olausson 2015). In general, more people imply more taxpayers, larger numbers of pupils in schools and greater access to skilled personnel for most parts of the welfare sector. This, in turn, would make the municipal more robust, in organisational terms as well as in terms of economy. If we consider these circumstances, it seems rational that local governments continue to strive for growth. Furthermore, both growth and decline tend to be gradual and long-term processes. Researchers who are interested in policy failures often point out that emergencies, rapid changes and crises tend to generate attention and determination among decision-makers (Bovens et  al. 2001; Peters 2015b). Slow, gradual and small-scale changes with unclear effects are less likely to end up at formal political agendas (Peters 2015b: 69). In my interviews, local government representatives stress that it is difficult to determine when a saving should be made or when an organisational change is to be implemented. That is, according to my informants, it is hard to settle if the trend of depopulation is about to persist or if the trend will turn in the coming years and if there will be a need for a policy for how to adapt to shrinkage. So, the potential benefits of growth and the gradual and sometimes unpredictable character of both growth and decline might be one reason to why it is so hard for local government representatives in remote, rural and depopulating areas to develop strategies for demographic adaptation. The potential benefits of growth and the gradualness of the decline allow them to cling to their hopes that the trend will reverse, that the birth-rate will increase, that the outward migration will stop and that new residents will find their way to the municipality.

The Growth Norm Even if there are some palpable benefits with growth in remote and rural areas, growth is not in itself a key to success. This – along with the fact that the growth strategies developed here obviously do not create growth  – suggests that there must be further reasons as to why local politicians avoid planning for population decline.

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In the literature on shrinkage and depopulation, growth is recurrently referred to as a norm and even a paradigm. According to that norm, places characterised by growth are seen as inherently better than those that do not grow. Shrinking places, on the contrary, are framed as failures or as problems to be rectified. Norms could in this respect be understood as sets of commonly accepted, implied perceptions and ideas regarding how society should work and how people should act (Therborn 1993). When these perceptions become dominant, they develop into societal norms. Norms vary with time, location and context. Still, they tend to be followed – even if there are no formal laws or regulations that force people to obey to them. Those who go against a norm risk more of a social punishment for such behaviour. Norm-­ breaking individuals may be regarded as exciting and daring indeed, but more often they are regarded as uncomfortable, strange, difficult or deviant. In some cases, people in the vicinity of a norm-breaking individual can create a distance, not wanting to be associated with the deviation. This causes stigmas, which will be elaborated on further below. In the literature on shrinkage, it has been observed that, since growth is a strong societal norm, it can be hard for local politicians not to support the growth agenda. In a discussion about government-related challenges in shrinking contexts, Hospers (2013: 1515) stresses that one of the main challenges for local governments is to ‘move from growth thinking to accepting shrinkage’. Pallagst (2015: 63) refers to growth as ‘the normative doctrine in planning’. Cunningham-Sabot and Roth (2015: 119) critically note that population growth within cities tends to be used as a measure of their popularity, even though growth on its own, as demonstrated by Sousa and Pinho (2013: 2), does not equate to development. The growth norm is probably the reason why many local politicians truly believe that their main assignment is to be an ambassador for their locality or the ‘head booster’ of their city, as Hollander (2018: 43) puts it. Many local government representatives see their main assignment as always promoting the advantages and strengths of their municipality. Since growth has reached the status of a core value, speaking openly about shrinkage is believed to come with a high political price. Population decline is ‘a challenging phenomenon to discuss in political and societal circles’, as Hospers and Reverda (2015: 19) put it. To say that the municipality is shrinking is regarded as difficult, impossible or even undesirable. It is also recurrently contended that talking about the fact that a place has an ageing population and is continuously losing inhabitants can be counter-productive or even become ‘a self-fulfilling prophesy’ (Hollander 2018: 43). But stating that something is a norm is not enough. We also need to elucidate why some certain normative frameworks become dominant and others not. It may be true that growth has received the status as the final goal and the only way forward for spatial development (Sousa and Pinho 2013: 11). But how did it come about that this goal gained such a strong hold even in those parts of Europe that for decades did not experience growth? My suggestion is that it has to do with the inherent vagueness of the growth concept as well with external pressure from strong and powerful institutions.

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The Merits of Vagueness Growth is often framed both as an undisputed goal and as a taken-for-granted planning condition. Growth tends to be framed as a panacea or, as Leo and Anderson (2006; see also Sousa and Pinho 2013, p. 12) put it, as ‘the elixir that cures all ills’. But even if the term ‘growth’ holds a key position in the normative framework of development policy, it remains a vague and ill-defined concept. Here I would suggest that the vagueness of the concept – and the fact that it can be filled with so many different meanings – is one reason for why growth has such support in public policy. In some cases, growth is described as an applied value – i.e. as a means to an end and as something that is valuable because it has valuable consequences. Growth could then be referred to as a precondition for financing social welfare. It could also be forwarded as a means to attract public and private investment that in turn will lead to positive circles in terms of more jobs and more wealth. In yet other cases, however, growth stands out as an intrinsic value. In these cases, growth is no longer put forward as a means to achieve other, more or less clearly defined objectives. Instead, it is referred to as something that is good in itself and as something that would better permeate the whole society. The downsides to growth  – increased income gaps, stress and illness, and environmental and climate hazards – are not touched upon at all in these cases (Syssner 2006, 2012). Although growth has become a core value in the normative frameworks of local and regional development policy, it is difficult to define or measure it in an unambiguous manner. Different dimensions of growth – employment and productivity, for example  – can actually contradict each other (Keating 1997; Mankiw 2004; Syssner 2006). In a similar vein, population numbers and employment rates can go in different directions; population growth does not always result in a decline in unemployment rates (Frisk and Martinsson 2017). In a Swedish context, there are many examples of shrinking municipalities where unemployment rates are low and where the limited access to a skilled and educated workforce is seen as a major issue for both the private and the public sectors. The vagueness referred to above means that politicians can talk about growth in a positive, general and sweeping manner without knowing whether their understanding is shared by others. The vagueness makes it easier to talk about growth than about adaptation. In policy programmes for growth, local governments seldom need to describe their priorities. The tone tends to be cheerful and positive, as if everything would be better off for everyone if we just manage to grow. In an adaptation policy context, it is completely different. If a policy for adaptation is to become anything else than empty words, it must take a stand. It must recognise conflicts of interest and requires exact verdicts and harsh prioritisations.

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External Pressure To understand how growth became such a superior value at the local level of government, we need to take into account the 1990s shift of paradigms in regional development policy in Europe. This has been referred to as a shift from old to new regionalism or from redistribution to competitiveness among regions (Keating 1998). After the Second World War, regional development policy in Sweden  – as in many parts of Western Europe – was based on the idea that the central state both could and should contribute to levelling out differences between rich and poor regions. During this period, much of the regional policy debate focused on how state-led initiatives could support industries threatened with closure and how the willingness to invest in poor regions could be strengthened. At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, however, the regional policy discourse went through considerable changes. The issue under discussion was no longer how the state could support the regions that were lagging behind. The principle of spatial Keynesianism (Martin and Sunley 1997), which prescribes that economic activity should be steered away from overheated areas in the centre to marginalised areas in the periphery, was replaced with the principle of regional competitiveness. With this, the policy debate came to concentrate around the best ways of supporting growth and competitiveness within each region. The new approach to regional development – sometimes referred to as the new regional development paradigm – started from the idea that regions are competitors and that the state and the European Union first and foremost should support the regions in their endeavour to become more competitive. With the shift from redistribution to competition, economic growth and competitiveness developed into a core value for many local and regional leaders (Keating, 1997, 1998, 2002; Keating and De Frantz 2004; Syssner 2006, 2012). It is my task as a politician to stand up for my municipality and be an ambassador. I couldn’t give up and say that everything will turn downward, could I? –The chairperson of Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, Public speech in Almedalen, 2017

The focus on growth and competitiveness is neither new nor specific to Sweden and Europe. Several studies have shown that, during the industrial revolution, society was very much characterised by harsh competition for investments (Leo and Anderson 2006). Resources – private as well as public – are limited, and all investment decisions are preceded by some kind of competition. Still, the novel aspect of the so-called new regional development paradigm was that it became important for municipalities and regions to stand out as competitive, not just in order to assert themselves within a globalised economy but also to receive regional development funds. Representatives from local and regional governments had nothing to gain from pointing out the challenges they were facing. Rather, their task became to care for the image of their place and to market it as being attractive and holding a unique growth potential. To support their own municipality or region, politicians and planners had to become ambassadors and salespersons (Syssner 2012).

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So, when local government representatives decide to rally for growth rather than to develop strategies for how to deal with depopulation, they are acting in accordance with external political demands. The growth regime of which they form a part pursues growth and competition, and this is what is rewarded when public funds are distributed to local and regional development projects (cf. Cunningham-Sabot et al. 2015: 25). In a Swedish context, both state agencies and regional organisations distribute large sums to projects aiming to stimulate growth and competitiveness at local and regional levels. These are institutions that support growth-oriented thinking, also in the areas where growth is highly unlikely to happen. Another institution – entirely different – that helps to establish growth-centred thinking is all the ranking lists that permeate media reports and local government strategies. In relation to his research on shrinkage in US cities, Hollander (2018) mentions Forbes Magazine as a magazine that ‘loves to rank the best and worst of everything’ and which ‘may have hit a new low by profiling the Fastest Dying Cities in its August 2008 issue’. In Sweden, we find many examples of such ranking lists. Each year, an excess of lists is presented – by magazines, lobby organisations, NGOs and so forth. They rank the municipalities based on the housing market, growth rate, business climate, entrepreneurship, investments, etc. These lists are easy to produce, and even though some of them are based on extremely weak data, they get a lot of attention when published. Many local government representatives – no matter whether in the USA or Sweden – keep track of the plethora of ranking lists that give municipalities more or less flattering ranks each year. These ranking lists have been harshly criticised by both researchers and journalists (Vlachos 2013; Rayman 2013). Nevertheless, they have a huge symbolic impact within local politics.

The Goal Dependency of Growth Policy One circumstance that makes it difficult for local decision-makers to talk about depopulation and adaptation is that so many of them have invested so much and for so long in growth rhetoric. In previous research, the strategies used by local planners and politicians to reverse negative population trends have been referred to as countering (Hospers and Reverda 2015). This strategy of countering can manifest itself in diverse ways but consists in essence of policy measures aimed at stimulating (population) growth. Every Swedish municipality included in my studies has at some point worked out a strategy or a policy for local development. In general, these programmes aim to create economic growth and population increase. They include efforts to promote the establishment of new businesses; to attract new workforce, place-branding initiatives and collaborations involving public-private networks; and to describe efforts made to strengthen the local business sector (Pierre 2004; Syssner 2006, 2012, 2018; Erlingsson et  al. 2011; Fjertorp 2013; Syssner and Olausson 2015). Rural

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policymakers, as stressed by Niedomysl and Amcoff (2011), are increasingly turning to campaigns aimed at attracting new residents (see also Syssner 2012). Often, there are hopes that such efforts will prevent young people from moving away from the place and will attract new residents to it. When evaluated, however, such campaigns ‘show no evidence of success’ (Niedomysl and Amcoff 2011: 258). But even if the attempts to promote local growth seem to have little success in remote and depopulating areas, these policy initiatives remain. These initiatives and programmes thus constitute an example of incremental policymaking, where politicians ‘take the policy of the past as a compass’ (Bovens et al. 2001: 13) and dare to make minor changes in the policies they decide upon only. In incremental policymaking, previous policy aims or policy theories are neither questioned nor threatened. The policy aims persist, and the policy interventions made to reach these aims are only marginally adjusted (Bovens et al. 2001: 13). To understand what the investments in incremental growth policies, growth strategies and growth rhetoric may mean, we can learn from the conceptual framework of evolutionary governance theory (see Van Assche et al. 2014). From this perspective, it is evident that decision-makers act within some certain paths and in ‘a given configuration of institutions’ where the options of changing the policy course are limited (ibid). The paths that governments and policymakers follow are subject to some certain dependencies. One of them is goal dependence, previously understood as the dependence on shared visions of the future (Van Assche et al. 2014) or as ‘the effects of previous choices’ (Van Assche et  al. 2019: 4). Here I would add more explicitly that any politician who for years invested political capital in some specific goals (such as growth and population increase) will find it difficult to abandon these goals at a later stage. Such an act would either signal that the politician formulated erroneous objectives at an earlier stage or that she/he has failed to reach the goals set at the outset. Both options are undesirable for a politician who is dependent on citizens’ confidence.

Stigma and Personal Sentiments Another reason why a local politician clings to the dream of growth may be found in their personal experiences. At least in a Swedish context, many of those engaged in politics are deeply rooted in their local community. Some of them have lived there all their lives and are attached to the place emotionally as well as in practical ways. Some of them approach a development characterised by depopulation and shrinkage with feelings of grief. They observe – perhaps with sorrow – how commercial and public services are dismantled. They notice that fewer and fewer citizens are involved in local civil society associations. For them, it can be extremely hard to accept the situation and to start planning for a future characterised by continuing depopulation and shrinkage. These feelings of sorrow and grief are probably exaggerated by the fact that shrinkage and demographic decline are viewed as something tragic and deeply

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problematic (Hospers and Reverda 2015; Hollander 2018: 41). Shrinkage, as Sousa and Pinho (2013: 2) put it, ‘carries the negative weight of a symptom of an undesirable disease’ and is, as stated by Martinez-Fernandez et al. (2012: 220), associated with ‘a certain stigma’ (see also Pallagst 2015: 63). At a societal level, the growth norm has turned shrinkage into a political taboo (Wiechmann et al. 2015: 125), and to territorial stigmatization (Wacquant et al. 2014). At an individual level, there is a risk that both political leaders and residents in shrinking places will ‘internalise the perception of failure’ (Sousa and Pinho 2013: 3). This is confirmed in one of my studies, where local government representatives expressed feelings of shame and inadequacy when asked about the emotions they associated with depopulation (Syssner 2018).

A Lack of Professional Support In the search for conditions that precipitate policy failure, some have suggested that asymmetry of information between politicians and civil servants is one such critical condition. Dollery et al. (2006: 343) refer to ‘councillor capture’ as a situation in which managers and civil servants are better informed than local politicians and are thus capable of exerting a huge (and harmful) influence on policy outcomes. We know from previous studies that civil servants do have a strong position in many remote, rural and depopulating municipalities in Sweden (Syssner and Olausson 2015). Nothing suggests, however, that they prevent or hinder local politicians from developing policies or strategies for how to deal with depopulation. Rather, our interviews with civil servants suggest that they ask for transparent priorities, policies and strategies and that they accuse policymakers of lacking the political courage to make harsh decisions. Before we approve of the criticism from civil servants, however, we need to consider what support politicians actually get when they are about to set difficult and sensitive priorities. This, in turn, leads us to a discussion of what perspectives the civil servants – who are supposed to provide politicians with this support – host and what frameworks they receive in their respective education. It may very well be that civil servants and planners in the public administration provide rather narrow conceptions of both policy problems and potential solutions (Peters 2015b: 112). If we take planning education and research as an example, this seems to be the case. Thus, these environments are generally poor at providing their students with perspectives on how to plan for decline. For many years, planning research has focused on urban growth areas – perhaps for good reasons. When the population is increasing, the demand for housing, pre-­ schools and schools concurrently increases. The establishment of new companies often leads to new requirements for land use and different kinds of infrastructure. This requires active and extensive urban planning of a kind that has traditionally interested both planners and planning researchers. In addition, planning is a knowledge-­intensive undertaking that requires resources to perform. The capacity

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to demand and pay for such an undertaking is very much concentrated within large and growing organisations, rich of financial capital. Accordingly, these are the environments where planning-related knowledge development takes place. In recent years, this one-sided research and planning focus has been met with criticism (Bontje 2004; Moss 2008; Hollander 2011; Sousa and Pinho 2015; Wiechmann and Pallagst 2012). Planning researchers, mainly in Germany and the USA, have pointed out that planning does take place in shrinking cities and municipalities as well (see for example, Wiechmann & Pallagst 2012; Rhodes & Russo 2013; Radzimski 2016). The examples of Eastern Germany, or of Detroit or Youngstown in a US context, have been used to prove that not all planning aims at expansion. They show that planning in shrinking places is different from planning in growing places and that it can concern the adaptation of existing infrastructure to new, different and often more limited needs. In this way, scholars of shrinkage and depopulation have been rather successful in showing that planning theories developed in urban growth areas do not always fit into a shrinking context. In line with this idea, reputable universities in the USA have also started to teach courses with a focus on depopulating areas (Luescher and Shetty 2013: 2). These positive examples aside, however, conventional planning education – at least in Sweden – still seems to focus on expanding urban areas. The dominating analytical frameworks and geographical imaginations (Harvey 2005; Massey 2007; Gieseking 2017; Tuan 1990) in these academic environments are still dominated by ideas about urbanity and growth. This implies that planners  – who should supply professional support to local governments – themselves lack knowledge on how to plan for depopulation. The incapacity among planners and civil servants to present ‘alternative conceptions of the issue’ (Peters 2015b: 112) may contribute to local politicians being hesitant to address depopulation more explicitly. In a Swedish context, it is also evident that the marketplace of conferences, workshops and training courses available to civil servants, planners and politicians offers a limited supply of events focusing on depopulation. This may indeed be due to a lack of demand. The municipalities that are in need of knowledge about shrinkage have few resources to use for the further education of their employees. And in the event that local governments in depopulating areas have financial resources to invest in knowledge development, they might decide to learn more on how to promote growth rather than how to cope with decline. In this event, there is a whole industry of consulting agencies waiting for them, claiming to be able to create growth with the help of campaigns, workshops, policy models and powerpoints.

A New Terminology Is Needed In this chapter, I have suggested that the inability among policymakers to develop long-term strategies for how to deal with depopulation is a failure that needs to be explained. In my review, I have highlighted several circumstances that make it

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LOCAL GROWTH POLICY (LGP)

LOCAL ADAPTATION POLICY (LAP)

MEASURES: Stimulating entrepreneurship, investment, local brands, business climate, communications...

MEASURES: Inter-municipal collaboration, sharing costs for HR, concentration, budget cuts, cooperation with civil society, increased taxes

AIMING AT ...creating supply as well as demand in local markets, creating growth and a more diversified local labour market...

AIMING AT adapting the municipal service and organisation to current and upcoming conditions

RESULTING IN: ...greater tax revenues, reduced costs for social services, and better preconditions for welfare services in all parts of the municipality.

RESULTING IN: ...an economy in balance, high-quality welfare services despite shrinking resources. Transparency and inter-municipal learning.

Fig. 5.1  Local growth policy versus local adaptation policy

extremely difficult for local politicians to handle depopulation, i.e. the potential benefits of growth, the slowness of both growth and decline, a prevalent growth norm, goal dependencies and incremental policymaking, as well as personal sentiments and a lack of professional support. Now, we need to reflect on what responsibility we as researchers have in this context. In a recent publication, Hollander (2018: 41) stresses that ‘the language of depopulation is not an easy one to embrace for an elected official’. This is a statement that most scholars of shrinkage and depopulation can verify and an argument that has been put forward before. The era of shrinkage, Cunningham-Sabot et al. state (2015: 14), ‘calls for a new vocabulary’ capable of describing both the pro-

Literature

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cesses of shrinkage and their effects. This implies that we, as scholars, need to clarify what development, growth, decline and adaptation may mean. We also need to clarify the policy tools involved in adapting society to a new demography. As Hollander (2018: 4) puts it, we must be able to complement the standard economic development tools with tools aiming at ‘improving the quality of life for those left behind’. On the whole, we need to clarify what it will entail to adapt society to a situation with fewer and older inhabitants. My main contribution in this matter is the suggestion that we need to separate Plan A from Plan B. Plan A may indeed be the good old growth and development policy. This plan may very well include all the well-known measures that local governments take in order to support growth, competitiveness and attractiveness. But if Plan A does not work out, there is a genuine need for a Plan B. Plan B is thus a policy for how local government seeks to adapt its municipal operations and organisation to a new demographic situation. Plan B, I would say, is an explicit, transparent and long-term local adaptation policy. What de facto adaptation looks like was demonstrated in Chap. 4. In a Swedish context, de facto adaptation consists of a variety of difficult decisions – on closures, savings and layoffs. In the chapter that follows, I argue that these decisions could be better prepared for if they were processed in dialogue with citizens and other local governments that share a similar situation. I will also call for a more explicit adaptation policy, formulated and established by politicians who can be held accountable in public elections. The figure below illustrates the differences between local growth policy, on the one hand, and local adaptation policy, on the other hand. The point is not to replace growth policy with adaptation policy. The point is rather that these are two different policy areas. The policy theories behind them are inherently different, and they present different tensions, conflicts and problems of prioritisation. These two policy areas need to be developed according to their own prerequisites, but in an ideal world the two policies are connected and support each other in a positive way (Fig. 5.1).

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Syssner, J. (2018). Mindre många: om anpassning och utveckling i krympande kommuner. Årsta: Dokument Press. Syssner, J., & Olausson, A. (2015). Att vara en krympande kommun. Urbanisering. SKL: Stockholm. Therborn, G. (1993). Normens vägar och frågetecken. Sociologisk Forskning, 30(2), 3–16. Tuan, Y. (1990[1974]). Topophilia: A study of environmental perception, attitudes, and values (Morningside ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. Van Assche, K., Beunen, R., & Duineveld, M. (2014). Evolutionary Governance Theory, An Introduction. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Van Assche, K., Hornidge, A. K., Schlüter, A., & Vaidianu, N. (2019). Governance and the coastal condition: Towards new modes of observation, adaptation and integration. Marine Policy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2019.01.002. Vlachos, J. (2013, October 12). Går det att lita på kommunrankingar? Hämtad 2018-01-12 från https://ekonomistas.se/2013/10/12/gar-det-att-lita-pa-kommunrankingar/ Wacquant, L., Slater, T., & Pereira, V. B. (2014). Territorial stigmatization in action. Environment and Planning A, 46(6), 1270–1280. https://doi.org/10.1068/a4606ge. Wiechmann, T., & Pallagst, K. M. (2012). Urban shrinkage in Germany and the USA: A Comparison of Transformation Patterns and Local Strategies. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 36(2), 261–280. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01095.x. Wiechmann, T., Volkmann, A., & Schmitz, S. (2015). Making places in increasingly empty spaces: Dealing with shrinkage in post-socialist cities: The example of East Germany. In K. Pallagst, T. Wiechmann, & C. Martinez-Fernandez (Eds.), Shrinking cities: International perspectives and policy implications. London/New York: Routledge. Zittoun, P. (2015). Analysing policy failure as an argumentative strategy in the policymaking process: A pragmatist perspective. Public Policy and Administration, 30(4), 243–260. https://doi. org/10.1177/0952076715581634.

Chapter 6

Arguments for a Local Adaptation Policy

Abstract  This volume starts out from the belief that there would be many advantages to talking openly about how to handle depopulation and shrinkage. This chapter lays out what is probably the most central statement of this book: that local governments in shrinking areas ought to develop local adaptation policies. These policies need to cover not only the field of physical or strategic planning but also all aspects of the public sector where depopulation is significant – especially welfare-­ related issues such as pre-school, primary education, elder care and social welfare. But, despite the many arguments for making adaptation policies more explicit, these policies also need to be subjected to critical assessment. This chapter, therefore, also introduces a model for how local adaptation policy priorities could be assessed in a more structured manner. Keywords  Depopulation · Shrinkage · Local adaptation policy · Demographic adaptation · Democracy

Local governments do not tend to formulate explicit strategies for how to deal with shrinkage. This has been concluded by many researchers before and is verified by my studies at local levels of government in Sweden (Syssner 2014, 2016, 2018; Syssner and Olausson 2015; Jonsson & Syssner 2016, 2018). Local governments do take measures to meet with the consequences of depopulation, but these decisions rather stand out as fragmented attempts to solve multidimensional problems. This book, and this chapter in particular, starts out from the belief that there would be many advantages to talking openly about how to handle the challenges arising from depopulation. This is why I am calling for an explicit and transparent local adaptation policy that covers all operations for which depopulation makes a difference. To call for local adaptation policies is not to accept patterns of inequality as something natural or to see uneven demographic development as something that state authorities cannot remedy. Rather, it is to acknowledge the limitations of growth and to acknowledge that different geographical and demographic conditions

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call for different policies. Depopulation has been, is and will continue to be a contextual condition for many places all over the world. And, at least in the Swedish case, it is decision-makers at the lowest level of government who have to cope with the situation. Consequently, there is a real need for policies on how to deal with these conditions at the local level of government. My defence of explicit local adaptation policies does not imply that I believe them to be easily designed or free from conflict. Rather, I would recommend that we already at the outset highlight some of the conflicts inherent in any such policy. In this matter, we could begin with the classic definition of politics by David Easton (1953), suggesting that politics concerns the right to distribute values in society. Another definition – just as classic – is Harold Lasswell’s (1936), suggesting that politics is about deciding ‘who gets what, when and how’. Both definitions highlight that politics is about the setting of priorities – between groups, interests, needs and resources. In policy theory too, priorities take a central position. Every policy is the result of some issues being prioritised over others, of some values being prioritised over others and of some proposals for action being preferred over others. And if politics and policy design are about setting priorities among needs, values and resources, these features should be imperative in societies where the needs are changing and the resources declining. Hence, in such a situation, someone must inevitably make the painful decisions about prioritisation. Several scholars before me have called for a change in how local, urban and regional development matters are framed in policy, planning and research (Martinez-­ Fernandez et al. 2012; Sousa and Pinho 2013). A growing community of scholars has demonstrated that unrealistic and biased ideas of growth have hindered the development of ‘proactive strategies in managing decline’ (Lang 2012: 1748) and that ‘planning for shrinking cities does not work if it presupposes urban growth’ (Wiechmann and Pallagst 2012: 261, 263). In the international literature on shrinkage, we meet with a multitude of examples of smart shrinking – most of them starting from a planning perspective. This literature helps us to think about how a city could be rightsized (Pallagst et al. 2017: 7) or downsized (Cunningham-Sabot et al. 2015: 22). It also presents vacant property strategies and is rich in examples of how vacant and abandoned properties could be repurposed (Hollander 2018: 11) through land banks and the development of green infrastructure (Sousa and Pinho 2013: 9). It also elucidates how a ‘pragmatic deconstruction’ (Wiechmann et al. 2015: 126) could reduce built environment surplus or how strategies like zoning or de-­ suburbanisation could be used in the planning for shrinking cities. In this chapter, I begin with this literature but add that local adaptation policies should not restrict themselves to the field of strategic or physical planning. Rather, local adaptation policies should cover all aspects of municipal operations for which depopulation makes a difference  – especially welfare-related issues such as pre-­ school, primary education, elder care and social welfare. In the following, I start out by introducing and defining the concept of a local adaptation policy. Thereafter, I present six central arguments as to why local governments in shrinking areas should develop more explicit local adaptation policies. In the section following that, I stress that we need to critically discuss the harsh

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priorities that are embedded in the act of adapting to new conditions. By way of conclusion, I discuss in more detail the policy tools that could form part of a local adaptation policy. I do this by bringing in some of the measures that my informants refer to when I ask them about their attempts to adapt to a situation of depopulation. Their answers disclose what I would refer to as a de facto adaptation policy, i.e. measures that local governments in Sweden have already taken in order to adapt their organisation to a declining population. In this section, I also introduce a model that could be used when analysing the value basis of local adaptation policies.

Local Adaptation Policy: A Definition The meaning of local adaptation policy is not established, either as a concept or as a policy area. If we start out at a generic level, the concept can be divided into three parts. The first part, local, implies that the focus is on local levels of government. This does not imply that regional or state governments are free from responsibility when it comes to addressing issues related to demographic adaptation. It only means that, here, it is the local level of government that is under discussion. The second part, adaptation, indicates that someone (in this case, local government) is adapting to something (in this case, depopulation and its financial and organisational consequences). Here, I conform to the distinction between reaction and adaptation made by Sousa and Pinho (2013: 7), who suggest that reaction is about attempts to ‘reverse shrinkage and resume growth’, whereas adaptation is about attempts to ‘adapt/optimise to consequences of shrinkage’. The third part, policy, is important. The word policy implies that adaptation is not a value-neutral or bureaucratic issue but a set of ideas that involves value judgements, as well as judgements of reality, and prescriptions for action (see Chap. 1 in this volume). The very design of a local adaptation policy, i.e. what policy tools it actually consists of, must thus depend on at least two things: the specific conditions in the place that needs to adapt and the analytical and normative frameworks employed by the people in charge of the local adaptation policy.

Arguments for an Explicit Local Adaptation Policy One basic question in the policy literature regards why the public sector should intervene in economics or society at all (Peters 2015b: 14). One response in this setting would be that governments at all levels already intervene in society. A complex web of policies shapes the conditions for the public sector and for everyday life in depopulating areas. Local adaptation policies thus attempt to alter this web of policies and to make at least some of them more suitable for the new and sometimes demanding conditions being experienced in these areas. Apart from that, there are many interrelated arguments for why local governments in depopulating areas

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should develop explicit, long-term and transparent adaptation policies. In the following, I will expand upon six of them. The first argument for local adaptation policies is that depopulation is a matter of fact. All over the world, there are places, regions and parts of countries undergoing long-term population decline. In some of these places, demographic decline has been a reality for decades. This development may be undesirable, and this might not be the geography that we want, as Massey (2007: 16) puts it. Some may dream of a situation in which all places are always growing. Many of us would probably prefer a situation in which growth is more evenly distributed socially and geographically. Nonetheless, depopulation is – and will continue to be in the future – a planning condition for at least some parts of society. And given that different geographical and demographic conditions call for different policy interventions, there is a need also for policies on how to deal with depopulation. The second argument refers to the seriousness of the consequences of depopulation. If the effects of depopulation on society were insignificant, the need for strategies on how to handle these effects would be limited. But we know – from previous research and from my own studies in Sweden – that quite the opposite, long-term demographic decline has severe consequences for the local community, for individual citizens and for the entire municipal organisation. Ignoring, concealing or obscuring these consequences from the own analytical framework is indeed an alternative. As argued here before, also nonaction, the maintenance of status quo and the defence of the current allocation of resources can be part of a policy (Hill 2005: 8; Peters 2015a, b: 71). Intuitively, it however seems to be a better idea to try to gain an overview of how the social consequences of depopulation are understood by, and impact upon, different groups in society. The third reason is related to policy impact. Demographic decline is a result of processes that local governments have limited prospects to alter. Every serious attempt that has been made to explain why some places shrink while others grow has pointed to structural changes at a macro level. Factors such as economic restructuring, deindustrialisation, globalisation or increased mobility are frequently referred to as processes explaining why some cities and regions shrink (Reckien and Martinez-Fernandez 2011; Hollander and Nemeth 2011; Haase et  al. 2012; Kotilainen et al. 2013; Wiechmann and Bontje 2015). The inclination to describe local places as products of global flows or as victims of global flows has been met with harsh criticism (Massey 2007: 166). Such imaginaries run the risk of leading up to policies aiming to protect or to ‘defend the local against the global’, as Massey (2007: 166) puts it. But even if we stress that the global and the local as products of each other and that local government decisions do make a difference, we need to acknowledge the limited reach of the investments and efforts made by local governments in sparsely populated areas. Structural conditions are crucial for how a place develops, and it is hard for financially strained local governments in remote, rural and depopulating areas to reverse the global trend of urbanisation. Therefore, to meet depopulation only with attempts to promote local growth does not seem to be a very good idea. Thus, on the other hand, these organisations have good opportunities to alter and improve the ways in which

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they handle the consequences of decline. This is a policy area that local governments are in more control of and where they are less dependent on agencies on other levels of government. This does not mean that local governments should cease to engage in development in a more traditional, growth-oriented sense. And it does not mean that they should cease to question spatial inequalities in a more structural level. It implies only that their prospects of having an impact on how to adapt to depopulation are greater than their opportunities to influence patterns of growth. The fourth argument is about quality of governance. As argued in previous research (Hospers and Reverda 2015: 80), population decline demands a coherent approach in which all of its consequences are acknowledged. Many local governments do indeed implement measures to adapt to the new financial and demographic prerequisites stemming from depopulation. Budget decisions that include decisions on savings, cutbacks and tax rates are on recurrent agendas at the local level of government, and as such, they return to the agenda each year (Syssner 2018; Peters 2015b: 68). In some countries, we even find examples of local governments who develop plans for how to deal with population loss and economic decline (Hospers 2013; Kotilainen et al. 2013; Pallagst et al. 2017: 7). In many locations, however, the urge towards growth has prevented the emergence of explicit and long-term strategies for managing population decline (Lang 2012; Hospers and Reverda 2015). My studies on the local level of government in Sweden indicate that elected officials hesitate to set explicit priorities. In our interviews, civil servants repeatedly state that local politicians have a penchant for general savings decided upon rather late in the budgeting process. That is, budget cuts are decided upon in the form of a percentage that should be saved in all parts of the municipal organisation. Many civil servants in the administration criticise this principle. In my interviews, they refer to the principle of late and general savings as an example of decisions that are ‘coward’ and lacking in political direction (Syssner 2018). It is also interesting that every local government representative included in our studies reports that, at some point, they have prepared or made decisions that conflict with their own primary values or norms. They report that, quite often, they make decisions because they have to or because there are no other alternatives. This is often the case when local governments decide to close village schools or to centralise social services. From a quality of government perspective, it might be that a long-term programme for gradual adaptation would allow decision-makers to avoid ending up in dead-end situations where there is – at least seemingly – only one decision that can be taken. A fifth important argument for local adaptation policies concerns the values of democracy and transparency. It is well known among scholars of shrinkage that local government representatives tend to be reluctant to communicate about depopulation and shrinkage with the citizens. This is something that my colleagues and I have observed too, in a Swedish context as well as in a German one (Syssner and Siebert in press). But given that truth-telling is ‘a fundamental value’ (Peters 2015a, b: 165) in many political and ethical systems, there are both ethical and consequentialist reasons for speaking openly about depopulation.

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Apart from this, the public policy literature suggests that there are many democratic benefits to a policy that is explicit and codified (Naurin and Oscarsson 2017; Naurin 2011; Oscarsson et  al. 2008). Explicit policy programmes can serve as guidelines for the parties or organisations that have signed them. Formal policies or declarations can offer guidance for decision-makers who are facing difficult decisions and considerations. Such programmes can also provide citizens with an overview of how a local government seeks to approach a certain issue. Policy programmes can thus be seen as declarations of intent whereby citizens gain an indication of where parties and political representatives are aiming to go, how they seek to manage certain situations and what priorities they intend to set. As in any other policy area, there can be disagreements between parties and candidates on how to adapt. It is likely that different candidates or parties will come to different conclusions about how to allocate scarce and declining resources or how a local adaptation policy could be designed. These disagreements can be based on diverging moral outlooks or ideologies (John 1998: 145), or on diverging conceptual or analytical frameworks or on different judgements about how serious a problem actually is (Tingsten 1942; Yanow 2000; Lindberg 2018). With explicit programmes, citizens could take a stand on different alternatives for how to adapt to depopulation and shrinkage. Lastly, explicit policy programmes can also form the basis for evaluation at election time. Voters can compare the declarations of intent with the policies carried out when they go to the ballot box. Have the politicians really done what they said they would during the past term of office (Oscarsson et al. 2008)? Altogether, explicit policies are a means to re-politicise the act of adaptation. The principle of late and general savings, referred to above, has huge democratic implications. General savings imply that elected office holders are pushing the responsibility for managing a tense financial situation onto the administration. Adaptation then never becomes an issue for political debate and discussion, and we do not see a situation where citizens can distinguish between different adaptation policies. Instead, adaptation becomes a practical issue for the bureaucracy to manage. The sixth argument draws upon the notion that explicit policies have the potential for policy transfer, policy learning and policy mobility. From my studies in Sweden, I know that the inclination among local governments to learn from other shrinking municipalities is extremely low (Syssner 2018). This is probably due to the growth norm and the propensity to frame shrinkage as something embarrassing that local governments prefer to neglect rather than expose to external parties. In an international context, however, the idea of smart shrinking has grown strong. This idea is based on the assumption that adaptation is something you can do better – if you learn from each other (Hollander 2011; Hollander and Nemeth 2011; Haase et al. 2012). In the policy literature, it has indeed been argued that learning and drawing conclusions from policy is difficult (Peters 2015b: 138) and that the translation of policy experiences from one context to another might not be very easy (Rose 1993; John 1998: 151). But, even though there are numerous barriers (Peters 2015b: 139) to policy learning, policymakers do respond to changing contexts (John

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1998: 151). And if the context offers new knowledge and new perspectives, it is not unlikely that decision-makers will take these into account.

Assessing Local Adaptation Policies Even though there are many arguments for making adaptation policies more explicit, these policies also need to be critically assessed. Following the definitions of Easton (1953) and Lasswell (1936) given above, politics and public decision-making are essentially about deciding what is more or less important. This entails that politicians with different analytical and normative frameworks may prioritise differently (see Chap. 2 for an extensive discussion on analytical and normative frameworks). In Sweden, most of the services supplied by municipalities are statutory. Since the standards of these are to a large degree set by the central state, it is an unlikely scenario that local governments would severely reduce their quality or accessibility. Despite these legal requirements and the principle of equity, however, local governments do end up in situations where they have to prioritise. Thus, with every budget decision, politicians are giving priority to some needs, services and operations over others. At the same time, they are giving priority to some locations and not to others. Some groups of citizens get priority before other groups. On top of that, local governments often need to consider the values of economy, quality and availability in their decision-making. How these interests and values could be considered and assessed in a more structured manner is elaborated upon below.

Interest Groups as a Conflict Base One fundamental principle of the Nordic welfare state is that every citizen should be treated equally and have the same rights to good services. Another principle is that municipalities should help to reduce disparities in living conditions (SKL 2017), for example, by providing transport for those who live far away from their school, transportation services for those who cannot get to a medical facility on their own or home care for those who cannot manage their everyday lives. Despite these principles, local governments do end up in situations where they need to prioritise among interests, needs and resources. One way of understanding priorities among interests is to understand them as prioritising between groups of citizens. When giving priority to some citizens before others, fairness tends to constitute a ‘fundamental normative criterion’ (Peters 2015b: 156). Thus, public policy is expected to be fair and to treat citizens equally (ibid). What fairness and equality mean in each case is, however, not so easy to determine. In Chap. 2, I referred to the closure of village schools as a form of resource allocation. Resources that were formerly used for educational matters are then allocated to and used in other services – for example, elder care, where the

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needs are increasing as the population gets older. In many such cases, however, teachers, pupils and parents raise their voices to save their school. These voices consider the non-prioritising of their own school as unjust, but few of them would explicitly argue that local government should instead close another school or keep down the costs in elder care. What is currently happening in many depopulating areas is that ‘the immigrants’ are identified as the group that could be the target of savings. The fact that these immigrants also form part of the groups ‘kids’, ‘youngsters’, ‘parents’, ‘teachers’ or ‘elders’ is often forgotten. This illustrates Peters’ (2015b: 156) argument that, as humans, we often judge the policy decisions that benefit us as being fair, whereas policies that ‘benefit other people, and especially people whom we may not particularly like’ are seen as being unfair. Apparently, savings and cutbacks lead to categorisation, patterns of inclusion and exclusion and tensions between socially and politically constructed groups of citizens. Another way of conceptualising prioritisations among interests is to understand them as priority-setting between various parts of the municipal organisation. During my field studies, I have at several occasions observed how strained finances lead officials and politicians who are responsible for one specific sector – be it education, care or social services – to become defenders of that particular sector only. That is, the Social Democrats on the Social Welfare Committee may very well create an informal alliance with the conservative representatives on the same committee in order to ensure that their particular committee or services are not subjected to savings. Similarly, representatives from different parties on the Education Committee can agree that their own service is the most important one. In my interviews, this is referred to as ‘committee parties’ or ‘sectoral parties’. These are concepts that are used to describe a situation in which political ideology or solidarity with one’s own party is subordinated to solidarity with one’s policy area, sector or committee. Accordingly, we can study local adaptation policies and the arguments that surround them by asking what interests are referred to by decision-makers as being the most important ones to defend. Do they present themselves as representing a particular group in society or as a representative of a particular part of the public-sector organisation? This enables us to identify the analytical and normative frameworks on which a certain policy is based.

Location as a Conflict Base US researchers have developed the term rightsizing to describe the strategies used to adapt physical infrastructure to new needs and fewer users (Hollander 2018: 42). The idea is to concentrate residents and the services they need within certain nodes in the city, instead of distributing them over a large and sparsely populated area (Hackworth 2015). Rightsizing has been criticised, both as a phenomenon and a term. The critics claim that this is a classic policy of austerity, above all affecting marginalised groups without sufficient resources to assert their interests. They argue

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that there is a tendency to see schools, bus routes and service facilities in poor and minority areas as being oversized, when the infrastructure is to be rightsized. In contrast, goes the argument, rich and already resource-rich areas are prioritised when scarce resources are to be distributed geographically. In Sweden and the other Nordic countries, we are having a similar discussion. Here, however, the conflicts are not between different parts of a shrinking urban settlement. More often, the debate is about whether scarce resources and welfare services should be located in villages or other sparsely populated areas in order to provide good access to welfare services or if they should rather be concentrated in the county town of the municipality. The argument for concentration tends to be that this is a means to ensure a cost-efficient and high-quality welfare service. Evidently, the conflicts about the spatial distribution of services can be found also in rural and peripheral areas and at the local level of government. As in the case of the ‘committee parties’ above, I have encountered several examples of how local government representatives – who represent different parties but reside in the same locality – make up an informal alliance to promote the interests of that particular locality. Once again, solidarity with a political ideology or party organisation can be left behind and replaced, in this example by solidarity with a geographical area. When analysing local adaptation policies, we could ask what spatial solidarities decision-makers give voice to. Do they construe themselves as representatives of a village or a certain part of the municipality, or do they articulate any other spatial identity or belonging? This too is a means to clarify the analytical and normative frameworks of local adaptation policies.

Values as a Conflict Base Another way of understanding priorities is to say that some values are prioritised at the cost of others. Freedom, the right to choose, growth, sustainability, equality, efficiency, justice, quality and accessibility – all of these are values that are given different degrees of priority by different actors in different policy contexts. In a situation of scarce resources, where priorities have to be set, decision-makers need to reflect upon what they value most. That is, which values are the most important ones to defend? One conflict of values to which many of my informants refer – at least implicitly – is the one between cost efficiency, quality and access. The ideal tends to be welfare services that retain a high quality at an affordable cost and are easy for citizens to access. From experience, however, we know that these core values ​​often contradict each other. Accordingly, decision-makers need to take a stand: Should the welfare services in the municipality maintain the highest quality possible? Or is it more important that services should be easily accessible in all parts of the municipality? Or should we raise taxes (again?) to achieve both? An explicit adaptation policy needs to recognise conflicts of interest and, at some point, set priorities. This does not imply that one specific value should be given

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general precedence in the policy. Rather, the policy could be that any decision should be preceded by a general discussion in which conflicts of values or interests are recognised and clarified. An example of how this can be done is presented in the model below (Fig. 6.1), which shows how the core values of cost efficiency, quality and availability can relate to each other. In short, the model suggests that local government decisions can start out from, contribute to or even advocate three possible situations: In Situation A, the ideas of cost ​​ efficiency and quality are prioritised. In such a situation, the value of accessibility is de-emphasised or even abandoned. If an even and high quality takes precedence together with cost efficiency, the result often becomes the centralisation of welfare services. In practice, this is what happens when a local government decides to centralise and merge schools or care units. In Situation B, quality and accessibility are highlighted as the most important values. In practice, however, all public organisations have limited financial resources. This means that those who advocate Situation B are creating a situation in which they need to make other decisions that create financial space to safeguard both quality and accessibility. Raising taxes and making savings in other policy areas are examples of such decisions. In Situation C, cost efficiency and availability are given priority. If a high degree of availability is the ideal, a more decentralised but less specialised organisation is endorsed. In such cases, lower quality can be acceptable, since accessibility is perceived to be of such importance. In theory, a local government could reduce the proportion of certified teachers in schools and allow fewer nurses to take care of the elderly or to accept a lower standard in public premises. In practice, fortuitously, this is often a non-alternative because in many respects it is the central state that sets and assesses the quality requirements of welfare services. This makes the discussion regarding quality versus availability somewhat hypothetical; the municipality must prioritise quality in order to manage the requirements set by the state government.

Fig. 6.1  Value conflicts in local adaptation policy

QUALITY

Sit

nB

ua

atio

tio

nA

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COST Situation C

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The model above does have its limitations. The key concepts of ‘efficiency’, ‘access’ and ‘quality’ are rather nebulous terms, and there is little consensus about what they actually mean. Still, the model could help us in structuring the analysis – not of the policy tools as such but of how these policy tools are motivated by decision-­makers. Used in this way, the model can be used to clarify and illustrate how conflicting values and opportunities for decision-making are conceptualised and addressed in a given situation. In the text that follows, I give a short illustration of how the model could be used. Hopefully, this model can become a tool for self-reflection among the decision-­ makers who are responsible for developing and implementing adaptation policy measures. Likewise, it could provide students and scholars with a simple tool for systematic reflection and assessment of the value basis of local adaptation policies in various contexts.

Policy Tools of Local Adaptation As already noted, local governments in Sweden do not formulate long-term explicit adaptation policies. They do, however, take solitary measures intended to adapt parts of their services to a declining population. Below, I briefly describe some of these decisions. At this point, they can be described as the most common de facto adaptation policy instruments. I describe them below in relation to the model for analysis introduced above (Fig.  6.1) and reflect upon the value judgements that might have informed the decisions to use these particular policy instruments. Neither the model nor the account that follows is normative; they should not be seen as a recommendation for decisions that local governments ought to make. Rather, it is a descriptive model that is intended as a support for how to analyse the ‘action-guiding thought-content’ (Lindberg 2018) of local adaptation policy.

Inter-municipal Cooperation Inter-municipal cooperation is perhaps the most frequently mentioned example of how local governments try to meet the challenges of a shrinking municipality (Syssner 2014). In our studies, we meet with the arguments that this is a means for pooling resources and an opportunity for joint funding. It is also referred to as a way to maintain or improve quality or to meet the need for competence and quality in welfare services (Syssner 2016). Inter-municipal collaboration includes administrative issues and specialised services such as legal expertise or wage management. It also includes issues such as IT systems, broadband investment, sanitation and street maintenance. The Swedish case is not exceptional here. Studies from other contexts also emphasise that for years inter-municipal cooperation has been a strategy for

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sharing financial costs between municipalities (Cunningham-Sabot and Roth 2015: 111). When analysing the arguments in favour of inter-municipal collaboration, we find a combination of ‘keeping down the costs’ and ‘raising the quality’ being referred to. Accordingly, this policy tool is used when Situation A is preferred or justified by decision-makers. The measure has been used to a lesser extent when it comes to welfare services that citizens expect to find in their geographical proximity. People expect schools and childcare to be found in the vicinity of their place of residence, and much of Swedish elderly care is actually carried out in the elder’s own home. Thus, only a minority of the elderly live in retirement homes, and those who do so have extensive needs for medical care.

Civil Society Cooperation Several studies have demonstrated that civil society engagement and informality are integral parts of planning practices in many places (Normann and Vasström 2012; Mukhija and Loukaitou-Sideris 2015; McFarlane and Waibel 2012). In our studies, we have observed that many municipalities intensify their collaboration with civil society when financial resources decrease. Our studies have revealed that informal planning agents plan all kinds of facilities – schools, libraries, sports facilities, etc. – that generally used to belong to the domain of local governments (Meijer and Syssner 2017; Syssner and Meijer 2017, 2018. See also Meijer 2018). When civil society is referred to as a solution, it is mostly arguments about cost-­ efficiency that are referred to. The main purpose is to save money, but commitment among citizens is also highly valued and believed to have positive dynamic effects in society. Rather often, however, the argument is that if civil society does not step in, the service will not be provided at all. Accordingly, accessibility is a core value in this matter, and this is thus a policy intervention that promotes Situation C. In the interviews, it is not explicitly argued that quality will decrease if a service is provided by civil society volunteers. Rather, it is arguments about cost efficiency and availability that come to the fore. ‘A penny in the civil sector lasts longer than in the public sector’ is one such argument. Another argument I have encountered in interviews is that NGOs are less restricted than the public sector in how services are provided. One municipality included in my studies allowed the local ski association a minor payment to take care of the ski slope. Here, the argument was that if the municipality had to hire someone to care for the ski slopes, it would be extremely expensive given that much of the work of preparing slalom slopes is rather risky and also done at night. ‘But if we hire the local ski club to do the job, they can organise it however they want, and most of the job is done by volunteers anyway’ was the argument I encountered. Thus, ‘quality’ can refer to many things. It does not only have to refer to the quality of the service provided but also to legal rights or to the quality of working conditions.

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Raising Taxes Every local government included in my studies has raised local taxes at one or several points during the last few decades. This is not very surprising. In fact, 283 out of 290 municipalities in Sweden have higher taxes today than 25  years ago (Mellander 2018), which proves that increased taxes are not an issue for shrinking municipalities only. Rather, the costs of producing welfare services that meet the standards set by the central state have increased across the entire municipal sector. Nevertheless, tax levels do tend to be higher in sparsely populated shrinking municipalities than in major cities and larger municipalities (SOU 2015: 101, pp.  42). With one exception, the ten municipalities in Sweden with the highest municipal tax rates can all be classified as sparsely populated and shrinking municipalities. Nine of them have at some point been included in any of my studies. These municipalities all have tax rates that amount to approximately 23% (regional and national taxes excluded). As a contrast, the ten municipalities with the lowest tax rates in Sweden can with some exception be classified as urban settlements in the vicinity of the capitol of Stockholm. Here, the tax rates amount to around 17–18% (once again with the exclusion of regional and national taxes) (Table 6.1). My observation is that increasing taxes is often understood as a less controversial decision. Indeed, raised taxes are not seen as positive, and proposals for increasing taxes have generated stormy debates in many municipal councils. It has also been stated that the recruitment of skilled personnel – such as teachers, nurses and social workers – will be even more aggravated when these individuals will have to pay a higher amount of their salaries in taxes each year. It is quite rare, however, for citizens to raise their voices in protest. It might be, as suggested by Peters 2015b: 156), that citizens are ‘willing to accept some deprivations, such as higher taxes or loss of services in times of crisis, provided they believe the policy treats all citizens equally and is implemented fairly’. Thus, higher taxes hit all citizens equally, which is not Table 6.1  Highest versus lowest tax rates in Sweden. (Source: Statistics Sweden 2019) Municipalities with highest and lowest tax rates in Sweden, 2019 Municipalities with highest Municipal tax Municipalities with lowest tax rates in Sweden rate, 2019 tax rates in Sweden Dorotea 23.85 Österåkers Sorsele 23.65 Solna Vindeln 23.65 Danderyd Vännäs 23.65 Täby Munkedal 23.63 Stockholm Arjeplog 23.5 Sollentuna Pajala 23.5 Lidingö Vilhelmina 23.45 Nacka Malå 23.4 Vellinge Norsjö 23.4 Kävlinge Source: Statistics Sweden (2019)

Municipal tax rate, 2019 17.1 17.12 17.55 17.55 17.74 18.12 18.29 18.43 18.5 18.51

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the case if the local government decides to close a school or centralise a certain service. If analysed through the model introduced above, I would say that raising taxes is a policy instrument that is used to make Situation B possible – i.e. a situation in which the values of both quality and accessibility can be safeguarded. Thus, if local governments decide to raise taxes, this is often done as an alternative to other decisions that would involve either a fall in quality or reduced accessibility.

Demolishing Buildings Previous studies indicate that problems relating to infrastructure and housing have been a major issue for local governments in shrinking communities (see Chap. 1 in this book). Many Swedish municipalities were involved in the large-scale demolition of underutilised public premises during the late 1990s. Today, however, neither oversized infrastructure nor the demolition of public premises is a topical issue in depopulating municipalities in Sweden. Even though it is not referred to as the most urgent issue, many of the municipalities included in my studies have nevertheless taken decisions to demolish public premises. According to my informants, this is a policy tool that is difficult to use (Syssner 2014; Syssner and Olausson 2015). Thus, the demolition of a building is not a saving but a cost in the short term. And, in some cases, the municipality still has loans and credits left that they were once granted to build these houses. In all events, these are decisions that promote Situation A, i.e. a situation in which the values of ​​cost efficiency and quality are prioritised. Thus, it is often calculated that costs will be kept down in the longer run, if underutilised premises are demolished. It is also argued that the quality of the housing stock will increase if it is downsized. Costs for maintenance can thus be concentrated on those premises that are actually in use.

Centralising Services The costs for welfare services – such as education, health, social care and health services  – comprise roughly three-quarters of an average municipal budget in Sweden. In remote, rural and sparsely populated municipalities, the question of where these services should be localised is a matter of constant discussion. In every municipality included in our studies, local governments have at some point taken decisions to close schools, merge school units or centralise some of their services. To be sure, cost efficiency is often the primary argument in support of decisions to centralise services. But, just as often, quality is mentioned as an important value by decision-makers. Thus, it is a well-known fact that, in remote and rural areas, it can be hard to find teachers with the right qualifications or nurses with the right field

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of expertise. Accordingly, this is a Situation A decision, where the values of cost ​​ efficiency and quality are given priority at the expense of the value of accessibility.

Where Are All the Policy Tools? Few of the policy interventions I have encountered during my field studies involve new ways of organising or providing welfare services in a sparsely populated context. In fact, they remind more of standard austerity policies with budget cuts, savings and closures. This is perhaps not very surprising. Goal dependencies (Van Assche et al. 2019) and the traditional desire for growth may prevent local governments in depopulating areas from investing in innovations in the policy area of adaptation at all. Quite apart from that, policy development tends to happen incrementally, through small steps and within an existing and established policy frame (Peters 2015b: 74). This means that we cannot expect the policy measures aiming at adapting the municipal organisation to new demographic conditions to be very innovative or original. When more radical policy change has been explained in public policy research, the role of ‘advocates of policy change’ (Mintrom and Norman 2009: 649) is often brought to the fore. These actors have been referred to as ‘highly motivated individuals’ with the capacity to ‘draw attention to policy problems’ and to ‘present innovative policy solutions’ (ibid). Besides, policy ideas are not just out there, as explicated by Blyth (2002: 304), but need to be ‘developed, deployed, repeated (…) and none of this is costless’. As stated earlier in this book, the municipalities under study here host a very limited strategic capacity. They might indeed be the ones with the most pressing need for policy designed to manage long-term population decline. But they are also the ones with the most limited resources for developing such policies – in terms of time, finances and competence (Syssner and Olausson 2015). Still, there are some interesting initiatives under way that are worthy of some attention, even if they were not frequently referred to in my interviews. The first initiative is the Centre for Rural Medicine (Glesbygdsmedicinskt centrum), i.e. an R&D unit in Västerbotten region in southern Lapland, Sweden. The centre is striving to develop methods to provide accessible and cost-effective care in sparsely populated areas. They do this through developing methods that utilise medical distance technology and methods for digital consultations with patients in sparsely populated areas with a high proportion of elderly people. Another such initiative, also taken within the same region, concerns attempts to highlight the merits of distance learning. Mediacentre Västerbotten is a regional resource established by the county council to promote digitalisation in schools. Their task is to develop methods for using digital technologies as a means for small and sparse municipalities to offer high-quality schools and education. Distance learning, as they put it, is a method that gives all students access to an equivalent education with the same quality and range, no matter where they live.

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The two initiatives mentioned above show that there is a willingness to work out new methods for welfare provision in sparsely populated and depopulating areas. These methods may very well form part of a more forward-looking local adaptation policy in the future, even if I did not see many traces of digitalisation or innovation on my field studies yet. Here, I come back to the arguments put forward previously in this book. Thus, one reason as to why there are so few examples of explicit local adaptation policies, and so little innovative thinking about how to adapt to new circumstances, is that decision-makers at the local level of government have very little professional support in the matter. Planners and civil servants – who should provide this support – seem themselves to lack knowledge about how to plan for depopulation. One argument in favour of explicit local adaptation policies would once again be that they have the potential for policy learning and policy mobility. If shrinkage-related policy innovations were documented and codified more systematically, it would be easier for local governments handling the same challenges to learn from each other. To shrink smart may mean something different in remote and sparsely populated areas than it does in urban environments, but the idea that adaptation is something you can do better if you learn from each other still persists.

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Index

A Analytical framing, 19

E Education Act, 32

B Broader cognitive paradigms, 17

F Face-to-face interviews, 6 Financial equalisation systems, 41 Fixed assets, 45

C City Council, 32 Civil society cooperation, 80 Cognitive paradigms, 16 Committee parties, 76, 77 Conceptual framework, 17 Content-related policy analysis, 18 Context-dependent consequences, 28–30, 48–50 Conventional planning theories and practices, 13 Conventional policy theory, 17 Councillor capture, 62 Critical policy analysis, 16 D Democracy, 49, 73 Demographic adaptation, 71 Demography, 42 Depopulation, 31, 32, 37–42, 46, 49, 50 and demographic change, 4 policy implications, 2 and shrinkage, 2 Devolved Welfare State, 30–32

G Geographical perspective, 3, 5 Geography, 42 Goal dependencies, 55, 60, 61, 64 Growth norm behaviour, 57 external pressure, 59, 60 government-related challenges, 57 merits of vagueness, 58 norm-breaking individuals, 57 population decline, 57 shrinkage and depopulation, 57 spatial development, 57 Growth-oriented approaches, 13 H Human geography, 3, 4 and policy analysis, 3–5 I Infrastructure, 45 Inter-municipal cooperation, 79, 80

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 J. Syssner, Pathways to Demographic Adaptation, SpringerBriefs in Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34046-9

91

Index

92 L Local adaptation policy arguments, 71–73 depopulation, 72 disagreements, 74 explicit policy programmes, 74 international context, 74 policy impact, 72 public sector, 71 quality of governance, 73 values, democracy and transparency, 73 conflict base interest groups, 75, 76 location, 76, 77 values, 77, 79 decision-makers, 70 definition, 71 depopulation, 69 geographical and demographic conditions, 69 growing community of scholars, 70 local governments, 69 policy tools, 70 centralising services, 82 civil society cooperation, 80 demolishing buildings, 82 development, 83 distance learning, 83 instruments, 79 inter-municipal cooperation, 79, 80 interventions, 83 planners and civil servants, 84 radical policy, 83 raising taxes, 81 shrinkage-related policy innovations, 84 politics and policy design, 70 pragmatic deconstruction, 70 setting of priorities, 70 Local government representatives, 6 Local governments, 23 M Multifaceted geographies, 32 Municipal equalisation systems, 41 Municipalities supply, 40 Municipal organisations, 56 N National Housing Delegation, 46 New regional development paradigm, 59 Nordic neighbouring countries, 23, 26

Nordic welfare model, 40, 41 Nordic welfare state, 7, 75 Normative foundations, 18 Normative frameworks, 18, 19 Norwegian government, 26 Norwegian territories, 27 O Opinion of reality, 17 P Physical infrastructure, 45 Planning research, 62, 63 Policy analysis, 15, 16, 18 and geography, 2–5 and planning, 1 Policy failure depopulation/shrinkage, 53 discourses and narratives, 54 goal dependency, growth policy, 60, 61 inability of local governments, 55 inability, policymakers, 63 intended objects/target groups, 54 lack of professional support, 62, 63 local governments, 54 policy areas, 54, 65 policy tools, 65 policymakers, 53, 54 policymaking, 55 potential benefits, growth, 56 public policy transactions, 55 research and teaching, 55 shrinkage and depopulation, 64 shrinking municipalities, 53 stigma and personal sentiments, 61 Policy implications, 40 Policy perspective cumulative causation, 12 demographic decline, 13 depopulation, 13 economic restructuring and transformation, 12 globalisation/urbanisation, 13 literature, 11 public policy, 11 remote and rural areas, 12 shrinkage, 14–16 Policy theory, 17 Policy tools, 79 Political belief systems, 17

Index Politics, 49 Public administration, 38, 40, 47, 49 Public-sector perspective, 40 Q Qualitative and interpretive tradition, 6 R Remote and rural areas, 4 Resource allocation, 45, 75 Rural depopulation, 5, 25–26 Rural development, 3 Rural shrinkage depopulation, 24 literature, 24 municipalities, 25 in Sweden, 24 urban settlements, 24 S Sectoral parties, 76 Shrinkage, 2, 4, 12 advantage, 30 literature, 14, 30 policy analysis, 15 policy concept, 15 cities, 13 Shrinking community business sector, 39 consumers of commercial services, 39 context-dependent consequences, 48–50 depopulation, 38 housing corporations and real-estate developers, 39 implications municipal organisation, 47 planning and development, 45–47 politics and democracy, 48

93 mobility flows, 38 municipalities, Sweden, 44 public-sector perspective, 40 selective out-migration, 39 trust-based networks, 39 welfare supply (see Welfare supply) Shrinking municipalities, 25, 26 Sparsity, 25, 26 Stipulations, 17 Sweden, 5, 14, 24 municipalities, 29 population changes, 27 Swedish context, 6, 25, 30, 63 Swedish municipalities, 25, 31 T Transparency, 73 U Uneven demographic development, 26 Urban environments, 1 W Welfare services, 82 Welfare supply culture and leisure, 42 financial equalisation systems, 41 geography and demography, 42 local government representatives, 43 municipal equalisation systems, 41 municipality, 42, 43 national equality, 41 observations and interviews, 43 per capita expenditure, 41 politicians report, 42 public sector, 43 resource allocation, 45 social consequences, 41