With the rise of the internet especially and information- and communication technology in general, the opportunities for fast and effective communication and sharing of information have proliferated. In relation to the new technologies, the citizens? demands on organizations? communicative efforts have increased. Today?s citizens have high standards regarding transparency, the opportunity to dialogue and have hopes to influence the public sector.

Th is essay is the final piece of my eduacation. The essay contains material that have beenproduced from a study that have been made in Majviken, Gothenburg, one of many cohousingcommunitys in Sweden. The special quality this building poses is that is was originally built as acohousing living but in the past 25 years is has been a housing estate without any form of servicefunction included.During the last year the whole house have been remodeled and a new kind of livingconcept havebeen created, a lifestyle living with many different kinds of service functions included, hostess,common premises for the residents with things suchs as gym, saunas, movietheater and relaxationareas.The study is about the residents living in Majviken, and how they feel about the new way ofliving but also how it affect their lives. What do the new living lifestyle stand for?My original intention have also been to observe and make interwievs with the residents to capturetheir thoughts and in the end have the possibilty to summarize and compare how it was before theredmodeling..

Background: From the beginning of the 60´s until the beginning of the 80´s the swedish local government has expand enourmously. The expansion didn´t lead to any discussions about how the local government should be controlled or organized. The local government should instead be organized and controlled as administrations. Lately it has became more usual to have these discussions about how local government should be controlled and organized. Nowadys it´s not unusual that local governments imitate private companies.

It has become increasingly common for cities and municipalities to take greater account of the place marketing, and to see the physical location as a brand. An early step in this process is to make the image measurements of the place, in order to develop better marketing strategies. A method often used in tourism research for this type of measurements is Etchner and Ritchie's theoretical framework. The framework is initially designed to measure visitor's image of a tourist destination.Almost all previous research in this area is based on the visitor's perspective, but Olofsson and Skredsvik have used this framework to measure a location's image among the residents. They feel that the residents of a place can be seen as ambassadors of the place because they know the site well.

This essay examines resident experiences and notions of the Gotland countryside and their ideas about the future. In particular the countryside is studied as both space and place. In space and place people interacting. People are therefore important components in the study of the landscape. One can say that the landscape and the interaction between people affect resident experiences and notions of the countryside, as well as people certainly affect the landscape.

Sweden's population holds today one of the highest life expectancies in the world and an increasing number of Swedes believe that they have good health. However, the problem still remains that there exists significant differences in health between different population groups and neighborhoods. Two neighborhoods that demonstrate high inequality in health status are Rinkeby and Danderyd in Stockholm County.    The purpose of this study was to examine why health differs between different neighborhoods and how residents experience the area and their health. To answer this purpose a combination of statistical data and qualitative interviews with residents in Danderyd and Rinkeby has been used with an additional literature review.      The study showed that the causes of health inequalities between these neighborhoods was primarily concerned with the factors of education, economic conditions, ethnicity, conditions of comfort and companionship and the surrounding residential environment. The population in Danderyd, made up largely of people with high education, good economic conditions and few foreign-born, while the majority of Rinkeby?s population consists of individuals with low education, poor economic conditions and a high proportion of inhabitants of foreign origin, which are determining factors leading to poorer health status among the population.

The purpose of this thesis was to create a deeper comprehension for the role of place marketing within Swedish municipalities and how it is applied to attract visitors and residents. A case study was performed to obtain this purpose. Interviews with three northern municipalities were conducted in order to retrieve essential information. This was compared to previous studies of place marketing in order to find similarities and differences. The results of this study showed that municipalities emphasise on creating an attractive image, directed to the residents as well as to people outside.

The aim of this study was to describe and analyse the constructions andinterplay of gender, ethnicity and sexuality between female and male careworkersand residents in a nursing home. To explore this from a qualitativeeveryday life?s approach, material was collected through participating observations,interviews, and informal conversation with careworkers and residents.The result points out that historical patterns of gender and caring relatedto this context still matter and affect both careworkers and residents. Forexample, female careworkers talked about the concept of caring as a genuinefemale experience, while male careworkers, who were in a minority, insteadtalked about caring in more gender-neutral words. The result also indicatesthat a larger number of male careworkers not necessarily leads to a highergrade of gender equality.

The aim of this essay is to see how the IOGT, local politicians and the local newspaper acted in the city of Hedemora in Sweden in connection with the referendum held in 1922 whether or not to ban the use of alcoholic beverages. To accomplish this I have examined protocols from local IOGT-groups, the town council and the local newspaper Södra Dalarnes tidning. I find that the local IOGT not only worked with the issue of alcohol but served as an institution that deepened democracy and education in the local community through discussions, study circles and applying pressure on local politicians. The locally elected bodies in turn were generally in favour of the good work the IOGT did, although not always overwhelmingly so. Many of the local politicians that handled the issues of alcohol were themselves active members in organisations promoting absolutism.

This thesis deals with local identity and the workplace. We have taken part of stories dealing with local identity and the workplace, by using a qualitative method. We interviewed eleven men working at the same company. The group contained of men from urban areas as well as rural areas. The data from our interviews have been applied to theories of local identity and social theories by sociologists such as Durkheim, Simmel and Tönnies.

It has become increasingly common for cities and municipalities to take greater account of the place marketing, and to see the physical location as a brand. An early step in this process is to make the image measurements of the place, in order to develop better marketing strategies. A method often used in tourism research for this type of measurements is Etchner and Ritchie's theoretical framework. The framework is initially designed to measure visitor's image of a tourist destination.Almost all previous research in this area is based on the visitor's perspective, but Olofsson and Skredsvik have used this framework to measure a location's image among the residents. They feel that the residents of a place can be seen as ambassadors of the place because they know the site well.

This case study, ?The sense of place in a courtyard in Gothenburg?, examines whether the city planners? vision correspond to the residents? perception regarding the sense of place and the physical environment in a courtyard in Gothenburg. By carrying out a questionnaire survey, the inhabitants? perception has been explicated, which we have then compared to the total vision for the design of the courtyard that we have gathered from doing interviews with the planning executive, the developer and the landscape architect as well as reviewing the development plan. The study has shown that the vision coincides relatively well with the residents? perception, but it differenciates when it comes to social aspects.

The essay's purpose is to find out why municipalities engaged in local labor market policies and the study focused on a smaller survey unit. In the paper an analysis is made of the Torsås municipality's labor market policy. The work also intends to structure the political organization and their cooperation with other players. The survey methods used were interviews and a case study. The essay results are based on two interviews.

The purpose of this study was to examine how the design of the wards, at Björnkulla nursing home, affects the residents? wayfinding ability and autonomy. Thus, the aim has been to make a design proposal that, trough color and design can increase the residents? chance to independent mobility. Since the study aimed to examine how the environment affect and can support people with dementia, qualitative methods were used.

The hypothesis of this study is that the local government act in Sweden 1862 was an instrument for the state to keep its´ political influence on the local level. It did not open for local self-government. The swedish historians Dahlkvist and Strandberg description of the Swedish local government act support this hypothesis, as does the analysis of political scientists Pettersson and Söderlind. The general opinion that the local government act opened for local self-government does still exist among many swedish historians.This study had two aims. The first was to investigate the actual extent of self-government in Borgvik, a small municipality in Sweden during the period 1861-1924.