In this thesis, I examine how local communities can be encouraged or enhanced in an apartment complex with the help of a local collaboration platform. I examine the relationship that exists within between neighbors in the apartment building in Sweden. Moreover, I focus on presenting relevant theory regarding neighborly relations along with research on creating local communities. I perform a series of interviews with people living in residential building in Sweden and the use of relevant methods for creating me an understanding of how we can use the areas located on the border of private and public space inside the residence. My research will also focus on how windows can be used to encourage local involvement and create a sense of community within the residential building. As part of the thesis, I highlight some relevant projects previously done in terms of neighborhood and community research, too.

abstract: Newer communication technologies (CTs) will always vie with more mature technologies for the attention of time-constrained legislators. As continual advances in CT make new methods of communication available to legislators, it is important to understand how newly introduced CTs influence novel and changing legislator behaviors. The mixed-method research presented in this study provides deep insights into the relationships between legislators and the CTs they use. This study offers many contributions, among them: it effectively bridges a gap between existing Internet Enabled CT (IECT) behavioral studies on non-legislators by expanding them to include legislator behavior; it expands existing narrowly focused research into the use of CT by legislators by including both IECT and mature CTs such as face-to-face meetings and telephone; it provides a fresh perspective on the factors that make CTs important to legislators, and it uncovers legislator behaviors that are both useful, and potentially harmful, to the process of democracy in the United States. In addition, this study confirms and extends existing research in areas such as minority party constituent communication frequency, and extends the topic of legislator CT behavior into some unanticipated areas such as constituent selective behaviors and the use of text messaging during floor debates which effectively enable lobbyists and paid consultants to participate real-time in floor debates in the Arizona House and Senate. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Public Policy 2014