Following the argument that increasing mobility has scattered consumption throughout Sweden’s regions, this study investigates how individuals’ consumption choices are influenced by official heritage. It argues that individuals’ everyday routines highlight the role played by heritage in socio-economic regional change, challenging traditional planning systems and altering individuals’ relationships with their environments, leading to new values being placed on official heritage. This argument was tested using interviews and questionnaires in Mariefred, Sweden, and demonstrates that official heritage plays multiple and contrasting roles, including the use of heritage as an attempt to reconcile opposing principles such as progress/development and tradition/conservation. 

Idag lever vi i ett globaliserat konsumtionssamhälle, i ett allt intensivare tempo där konkurrensen är hård om tid, utrymme och uppmärksamhet. I vår samtid är även kultur- och stadsmiljöerna på olika sätt ”produkter” och ”resurser”. Men hur påverkar samhällsutvecklingen kulturarvet och vår syn på dess värden? Kanske kan vi tydligare se utvecklingstrenderna och kulturarvets roll för hållbar stadsutveckling om vi blickar bakåt i tid och även vänder perspektivet mot framtiden? I Det förflutna i framtidens stad lägger en grupp forskare olika tidsperspektiv på relationen mellan kulturarv, konsumtion och hållbar stadsutveckling. Författarna arbetar till vardags med framtidsstudier, samhällsplanering, arkeologi, arkitektur och konst och de samsas här under tematiska avsnitt som framtidsvisioner, valmöjligheter, tid och rörelse i stadslandskapet. Texterna gör nedslag i vår närmiljö bland resor, detaljhandel, bostäder och livsstilsideal. Författarna frågar sig bland annat hur vi kan bygga in hemkänsla, identitet och trygghet i stadsmiljön. Kan vi återanvända historiska bostadsmodeller? Och vem bestämmer vilka minnen som är värda att bevaras – vilka föreställningar om framtiden har bäring på samtidens kulturmiljövård? Boken vänder sig till beslutsfattare, tjänstemän, studenter och en bred allmänhet – alla som har ett intresse för såväl utmaningar som lösningar för en hållbar stad. 

Interurban-level focus during the last decade has shifted from the compact city towards a polycentric urban framework. The ability to define consistent urban structures and also link them with sustainability goals has been hindered by inconsistent evaluation methods for density and mixed functionality in a polycentric framework. The aim of this research is to test and combine various methods from these perspectives in order to define more reliable and consistent descriptions of urban structures. The methods used are spatial-density modelling using kernel convolution, a polycentric density estimation, and methods depicting mixed functionality and the association between density and mixed functionality. The empirical findings relate to planning goals at both national and international level. The study region is the municipality of Strangnas, within the Stockholm City Region since 1997. Results from the analysis reveal urban development towards further segregated land use and sprawl, as well as a decreasing link with a polycentric urban scheme. The methods developed for depicting urban form could be useful tools in the planning process and may reinforce the possibility for analysing links between urban form and sustainability aspects. This improved knowledge in turn could contribute towards formulating future planning principles.

The aims of this paper are to empirically test and evaluate methods for describing intraurban polycentricity, and to evaluate the polycentric development with respect to the regional development plan of the Office of Urban and Regional Transportation in 2001. The study area is Stockholm County and the time period investigated is 1991-2004. Three dimensions of polycentricity are analyzed: urban nuclei size relations, spatial distribution of urban nuclei, and potential interaction (accessibility). According to the methods' various qualifications in describing polycentric forms it is proposed here that a combination of methods is preferable for this subject. The polycentric structure exposes an increasing and considerable concentration of urban resources to the major urban nuclei. This concentration is combined with an increased spatial dispersal of the urban nuclei. In relative terms, the accessibility has decreased concerning the accessibility by public transportation modes and increased (workspace) or remained on almost the same level (residential space) by car transportation mode. Thus, the urban structural change in the Stockholm region corresponds to the political guidelines. In spite of this, by the increase in relative accessibility by car and decrease in the relative accessibility by public transportation modes the goal concerning higher share in public transports may not be possible to fulfill.