Ingen hastighet i fastighetsaffärer. En studie om kommunens roll i platsmarknadsföring och förmedling av ödehus på landsbygden

This study concerns issues of depopulation and growth objections in rural areas. It focuses on how the municipal role is perceived in relation to the new project of mapping and mediation of abandoned houses. Furthermore, it examines the underlying reasons for commencing the project and how it’s operationalised as well as potential sustainability objections within the project. As a method, we’ve carried out qualitative semi-structured respondent interviews with relevant municipal authorities. In order to explain our empiricism and fulfil the research purpose, central theoretical approaches and perspectives in this thesis have been used. These include place marketing, place identity, auto stereotypes, the municipal role, entrepreneurialism and governance. Some of the reasons mentioned for initiating projects of mapping and mediating abandoned houses relates to a slow property market in rural areas, and property owners’ incomprehension regarding the current rural housing demand, as well as the low values on rural real estate. Moreover, a reason to start the project stems from a willingness to create attractive rural areas that can supply municipal service for its residents. The result show further that the municipal role and in which way the actors involved use of strategies such a place marketing and collaboration with private actors and civil society plays a part in the projects’ result and long-term effects. Sustainability perspectives described by the respondents refers to resource use and sustainable lifestyles in rural areas. We conclude that geography matters in terms of municipal actors’ capacity of action within the project in different rural areas and that the locally available prerequisites also play a part.