The craft of planners are planning for a better future. Knowledge about climate change, environment, health and availability effects the trend towards less car dependent societies in favour of public transport and active transport like walking and biking. This study takes place in Västerbotten, one of Sweden’s most north provinces with a population of 260 000 inhabitants. It is a sparsely populated area with two dominant cities, the other municipalities are largely unpopulated. The issue in this study is to see what opportunities exist to create a regional plan for pedestrians and bicyclists. I have conducted a participatory observation during the meetings where civil servants were in creation of this regional plan.

Det finns många olika typer av landsbygder och därmed olika förutsättningar för den kommunala planeringen och utvecklingsarbetet. Denna uppsats syftar därför till att undersöka hur två landsbygdskommuner med olika förutsättningar – med och utan dominerande besöksnäring – planerar och utvecklar sin landsbygd. Uppsatsen baseras på två fallstudier. Den ena är en fallstudie av Vetlanda kommun och den andra av Rättviks kommun, där Vetlanda är en industrikommun och Rättviks kommun har dominerande besöksnäring. / There are different kinds of rural areas and by that there are also different conditions for the municipal planning and development. This essay aims to investigate how two rural municipalities with different conditions, in this case with or without tourism as its largest industry, plan and develop their rural areas. The essay is based on two case studies. One case study of the municipality of Vetlanda and one case study of the municipality of Rättviks, where Vetlanda is an industrial municipality and Rättvik is the municipality with tourism as its dominating industry.