<p>The aim of this study has been to describe the ongoing region enlargement process in the region Mälardalen, located in the east part of Sweden, and to investigate how this process can affect the local level. The study is especially orientated on public communications and accessibility. The intention has also been to examine how the local accessibility can affect the re-gional development in Mälardalen. The local investigation object that has been chosen for this research is the city Strängnäs, situated in the province of Södermanland. The city of Strängnäs and the cities in it’s near geographic surroundings has been the benchmark for this casestudy, in which the local accessibility with public transportation has been investigated. The cities that take part in the case-study have been chosen on their geographic relations to Strängnäs.</p><p>The region enlargement process has caused several consequences for the region Mälardalen. One of the main reasons to region enlargement process is that cities and regions gradually have integrated into a more cohesive infrastructure system. There is also a general opinion that larger region has more potential to be dynamic and create economic growth. One effect of this development is that the number of local labor markets has decreased during the latest decades. The result of this is that the mobility on the labor market has increased for certain individuals in society. However the study has shown that the mobility on the labor mar¬kets in the region Mälardalen differs between individuals. Depending on education, income level and gender the mobility of individual changes in labor market.</p><p>When it comes to how region enlargement can affect the local level, the conclusion is that the accessibility changes depending on the geographic direction, mode of transportation and the destination. The accessibility is better to and from the cities Stockholm, Södertälje and Eskilstuna because of the regional train, Svealandsbanan, that’s operates at this distance. The cities Katrineholm, Flen, Enköping and Västerås are not situated along this distance where the re-gional train passes, which delimits their accessibility to Strängnäs. The main reason of this problem is that Svealandsbanan, local busses and other regional trains not are correctly coor-dinated with each other.</p><p>The final conclusion of this study is that if the region enlargement process does not develop in the entire region of Mälardalen, it might lead to an uneven regional development. If the com-munications systems are not developing in several geographic directions, the consequences may be polarization within the region.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA/oai:DiVA.org:sh-1611 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Fredricsson, Christian |
| Publisher | Södertörn University College, School of Life Sciences, Huddinge : Institutionen för livsvetenskaper |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, text |
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