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No description available.

This work examines the impact of the pandemic on a smaller society were cross-border shopping is a major player. The chosen location for the work is Töcksfors in Årgäng municipatly, were trade with Norway plays a central role for the location. We also want to investigate whether the shopping places established in Töcksfors function as important meeting places for the locals and whether this function and significance looks different due to the pandemic. As shops close and the access to premises is limited, we see it as interesting to investigate whether other places in the location have a different significance as meeting places than before the pandemic. What is the supply of alternative meeting places and what significance do these have when large facilities and premises that usually accommodate many people become empty? The work is based on previous facts about shopping as a meeting place, as well as collected data consisting of a survey where residents are given the opportunity to give their views on the social value of the shopping places. As a complement to the survey, an interview is also conducted with a business strategist who is active within the municipality, and a deacon within the Church of Sweden who is also one of two who is behind a citizen proposal that calls for meeting places. This is to further provide perspective on the situation.Based on our collected data in the form of literature, questionnaire study and two interviews, the conclusion is that trade is of importance as a meeting place in Töcksfors. But despite the trade's importance as a meeting place for the inhabitants, there is still a demand for new meeting places beyond shopping, which is partly something that could be stated extra muchduring the pandemic.

A major issue in current strategic planning is how local ambitions to achieve growth should be balanced against interlinked national and global targets for climate and environment. This competition between local and cross-boundary issues are of vital importance to highlight considering that all spatial planning is local in some regard. The Swedish spatial planning system allows for a great deal of self-determination among the local municipalities. Research indicates that the municipalities first and foremost gives consideration to local environmental issues in regards to their strategic planning. This creates a potential conflict between local and non-local interests leading to a deprioritization of national planning interests. Considering these issues the Swedish spatial planning system should be examined to identify its potential structual weaknesess. Towards this end the essay examines a case-study of expanding cross-border trade in the municipality of Strömstad using discourse analysis. Using this the essay maps how perspectives on cross-border trade among the participating actors has shaped the planning process. The esseay has a broad approach covering issues of politics, economics and environemnt to capture how these issues interlink and affect each other. The essay reveals that the planning process has been characterized by an informal co-operation between the municipality and the corporate interests that stands to gain from the expanded border trade. Private companies that do not stand to gain from the municipal planning strategy are excluded from the informal process. The informally participating companies finance part of the planning process and are expected to finance the investments in infrastructure which will be required to realize the planning strategy. This indicates that the process of strategic spatial planning has taken on some characteristics of the processes in Swedish planning usually reserved for developing detailed development plans for specific projects. The most commonly occuring perspective on the local cross-border trade is one of its use for the local area in generating growth and jobs. Issues of global environmental impact are portrayed to be of such wide consequence and affected to such a small relative degree by the strategic plan that it is not for the municipality to solve. The municipality portrays this conflict of local and national interests in its strategic plan but does not alter the proposition to lessen these. The county administration, participating to secure state interests, is initially sceptical of the proposition but relinquishes much of its criticisms despite no alteration of the proposed plan. Cross-border state actors in Norway are given little opportunity to participate in the planning process. The perspectives reveal a great risk that national sustainability policies are left unimplemented because of municipal self-interest.

Strömstad har omfattande gränshandel som stora delar av befolkningen försörjer sig på. Men att vara så beroende av en näring som till stor del styrs av ett annat lands befolkning är inte problemfritt. Uppsatsen har fokuserat på hur Strömstad påverkas av att ha en sådan viktig och speciell näring som gränshandeln. Det har också undersökts varför norrmännen väljer just Strömstad som gränshandelsort. Uppsatsen består av både litteraturstudier och egen insamlad empiri. Flera olika källor har använts, både svenska, norska och internationella. En större intervju genomfördes med näringslivsutvecklare och planeringsarkitekt i Strömstad kommun. Fyra kortare intervjuer genomfördes med företagare inom gränshandeln. Utöver detta genomfördes en enkätundersökning där 94 norrmän som ofta gränshandlar i Strömstad fick delge sitt perspektiv. Gränshandel innebär att en konsument åker över en nationsgräns med syftet att inhandla varor. För att detta ska kunna ske behövs vissa förutsättningar, som exempelvis goda kommunikationer och lockande varor. Gränshandeln får också en del konsekvenser, både i området som besöks och området som lämnas. I Strömstad erbjuds ett stort utbud av shopping som tilltalar norrmän, men handeln ger också en viss ekonomisk osäkerhet. Resultatet visar att norrmännen åker till Strömstad eftersom det ligger nära gränsen och att det dessutom finns goda kommunikationer i form av vägar och färja. Strömstad erbjuder dessutom ett stort utbud av andra aktiviteter än shopping och är en attraktiv plats att åka på utflykt till. Strömstad präglas av att vara en gränshandelsort på många sätt, bland annat skapar det arbetsplatser, gör att stora projekt kan genomföras samt påverkar stadens identitet. Gränshandelns framtid ser bra ut, eftersom många norrmän inte åker till Strömstad enbart för låga priser, utan också för ett större utbud och bättre kvalitet på varor. Det gör att handeln inte är så känslig som det skulle kunna antagas, även om prisskillnaden inte är lika stor som den en gång var.

Going from having bought the most essential at the small shops close to home, better communications and an increasingly consumption oriented lifestyle has created a change in shopping behavior and has led to phenomenon such as shopping centres and more. These are constantly being built in Sweden: in the cities, outside the cities and more recently even in small cities -small cities as for one reason or another have access to a larger customer base which can have businesses to flourish economically. During the first decade of the 21st century, shopping centres have been established along the Swedish/Norwegian border. Since the Norwegian Krone is much stronger than the Swedish Krona Norwegians save a great deal of money on going to Sweden to shop. During the shopping trips to Sweden, it is mostly alcohol, meat, tobacco and candy that are being bought. However, other products such as clothing, technology, household appliances and more are also being purchased, all to save money on the trip. Together these cross border shoppers spent 11, 6 billion in Sweden during the year of 2010. This gives an average spending of approximately 10 900 SEK per cross border shopper on annual basis. Nordby, Töcksfors and Charlottenberg (small cities located in southwestern Sweden) are places characterized by Norwegian cross border shopping. Together, they generate billions every year and this only seems to increase. These places are relatively small in size but have prominent attributes such as proximity to the Norwegian border. Apart from these resorts and shopping centres, there are few or none similar places near the Norwegian border in the rest of Sweden. However, a place which is geographically well located and has a relatively large Norwegian and Swedish customer base is the ski resort of Sälen in west central of Sweden. Sälen is a village located near the Norwegian border, although fairly sparsely populated. The destination has annually about one million official guest nights, based on the 414 000 visitors who stay an average of about 4, 5 days.  Per visit, these tourists individually spend an average of 862 SEK on shopping at the destination. The expenditure of the mountain tourists together with the Norwegian border shoppers makes it very interesting to explore the opportunities for shopping development in terms of a shopping centre in the region of Sälen.