Urbanization has for a long period of time been the dominant movement of migration in industrialized countries and still is to this day. Because of this many rural areas are faced with depopulation and the closure of local amenities. When a rural school in the northern parts of Swedish Gotland was threatened with closure a project was launched where people could come and try out living at Gotland, as a way to attract people to move to the rural areas of Gotland. This study aims to investigate if such initiatives are a successful way to increase migration to rural areas, by examining the characteristics of the projects participants, what their motives were for moving and staying at Gotland and how they experienced the availability of local amenities. The results show that participants who moved with children had a slight tendency to be higher educated, younger and from bigger cities than those who moved without children. Participants with children tended to move because they wanted a rural, safer and calmer lifestyle for them and their children whereas people without children mainly moved because of job opportunities, mostly in creative professions. The majority of people claimed they stayed because of the kindness and openness of the locals and that they felt at home in Gotland. Most also claimed that having attained the lifestyle change they had been searching for and the proximity to nature were reasons for why they chose to stay. How people experienced the availability of amenities varied greatly amongst the participants and no clear pattern could be seen.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-276364 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Henriksson, Tove |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Kulturgeografiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Uppsatser Kulturgeografiska institutionen |
Page generated in 0.025 seconds