The term green infrastructure captures the need to conserve biodiversity and to sustain landscapes’ different ecosystem services. Maintaining green infrastructures through protected areas, management and landscape restoration requires knowledge in geography, spatial data about biophysical, anthropogenic and immaterial values, spatial comprehensive planning, and thus geographical information systems (GIS). To understand land use planning practices and planning education regarding GIS in Sweden we interviewed 43 planners and reviewed 20 planning education programmes. All planners used GIS to look at data but did not carry out spatial analyses of land covers. BSc programmes included more GIS than MSc programmes but very few taught analyses for spatial planning. As key spatial planning actors, municipalities’ barriers and bridges for improved GIS use for collaborative learning about green infrastructures are discussed. A concluding section presents examples of how GIS can support spatial planning for green infrastructures.

We face a number of uncertainties, challenges and risks, known and unknown, many of which are linked to global changes. Urban development must be planned to become sustainable in the long term despite future changes and to succeed, planning must handle uncertainties. The current view of sustainability has resulted in a planning ideal that strives for sustainability as a vision of an ideal structure and design. The research on resilience question this by asking how something static can be sustainable in the face of uncertainties and future changes. The work towards sustainability must focus on increasing the capacity of cities to be resilient. Cities which are resilient have the capacity to adapt to future changes while retaining the same function, structure and identity.

Näringen is an existing industrial area in Gävle which has been designated suitable for a larger urban development exploitation project. The study aims to investigate how resilience is incorporated into the planning and development process of Näringen. The study compared Gävle municipality's intentions and ambitions for the development of Näringen in relation to theoretical principles for increased resilience in urban environment. The comparison between theory and practice was done through a qualitative content analysis of policy documents and interviews with two officials.

The findings show that the intentions and ambitions of Gävle municipality in some ways are in line with the principles for increased resilience in cities but miss important aspects within the principles. The municipality strives for novel and innovative ways of planning which the principles for resilience can contribute with. One problem which can lead to reduced sustainability and resilience is that socio-economic prerequisites and conditions are prioritized over natural geographical ones.

Implementation of the principles in municipal planning is not easily achieved in all situations because the principles in some respects overlap depending on the scale. Gävle Municipality's view of sustainability is also not in line with the approach that the research of resilience advocates, that we all live and operate in complex social-ecological systems. Resilience deals with complex theories and attempts to implement resilience principles without an understanding for the complexity of systems can lead to an unsuccessful outcome. The resilience principle adaptive planning holds the potential for continuous learning about social-ecological systems and is considered the principle that should be prioritized in planning for sustainability through resilience.

Ett varmare klimat innebär kraftigare skyfall och fler översvämningar. Men många kommuner är dåliga på att avgöra var risken för höga vattenflöden gör det olämpligt att bygga. Det menar naturgeografen Anders Brandt – som vill se ett kunskapslyft i geografi.

Kartografiska sällskapets utbildningssektion genomför varje år de så kallade lärardagarna, en utbildningskonferens som kretsar kring geografisk information. Tilltänkta deltagare är alla, både utbildare och avnämare, som har intresse av utbildningsfrågor från skol- till universitetsnivå. Den 17 till 18 augusti detta år stod KTH som värd, med Hans Hauska hållande taktpinnen, och med 19 deltagare från ett tiotal olika arbetsgivare.

With the implementation of the Bologna declaration, many study programmes and course curricula needs to be updated and revised. This paper describes the current situation in Sweden regarding GIT educations and courses and whether a harmonization is needed. A survey was made to see which GIT courses that are given and at which level they are given at the various universities. For some universities, interviews were conducted about their courses’ contents and their strategies for determining course levels. Discussions were also made about harmonization of courses between Swedish universities. Some problems due to lack of harmonization was noted, which probably will be more severe in the future due to increased student mobility. To harmonize courses, Bloom’s revised taxonomy is put forward as a tool which is used to clearly state the level of the course in relation to learning objectives.

På Kartografiska Sällskapets årsmöte i Jönköping den 21 mars beslutades att inrätta en ny sektion inom sällskapet – en utbildningssektion. Denna artikel beskriver bakgrunden till sektionen och dess verksamhetsidé. Utbildningssektionens embryo tillkom för tre år sedan efter förslag från ULI som delegerade uppgiften till Geomatikprogrammet vid Högskolan i Gävle. Tanken vara att skapa ett forum för lärare inom geomatikområdet. Både för att sammanföra lärare från olika lärosäten, för att öka förståelsen för varandras arbeten, och för att kunna förbättra möjligheterna till samarbete.

In this article, we deal with landscape activities in relation to changing landscape identity after a major wildfire in Sweden in 2014. The aim was to investigate the relationships between 22 landscape activities (before the fire) and 2 components (emotion and cognition) of landscape identity (before and after the fire). A total of 656 respondents living nearby the fire area participated in this study. Before the fire, a positive association was found between the activities of enjoying nature and foraging, and both components of landscape identity. This suggests that the more participants enjoyed nature and picked berries and mushrooms, the stronger their attachment to the landscape (emotion), and the more they remembered and reasoned about the landscape (cognition). Post fire, these relationships were found only between the two components of landscape identity and foraging. This implies a significant role of this type of activity for keeping alive' landscape identity.

We need to be proactive when it comes to planning our cities to meet the challenges that arrive with rapid and increasing urbanization. It’s important to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem services in a rapidly growing city since they have a great positive effect on our environment. The sustainable city can be defined through a valuation, quantification and identification of the ecological values and ecosystems in the urban area. One approach to quantify important socio-ecological ecosystem services is to calculate an areas eco-effective surfaces by using the Biotope Area Factor (BAF) tool.This study aim to increase the knowledge of how ecosystem services can be included in the planning process to create a sustainable city- and living environment. The goal of this study is to explore the requirements of BAF in the planning process since it’s important to assure and preserve ecosystem services in urban areas. The study is a comparative case study that includes a BAF-calculation with GIS and an analysis of the courtyards in three blocks in the suburb Hammarby Sjöstad, Stockholm. The result is then compared with three cityblocks in Norra Djurgårdsstaden, Stockholm. Interviews with experts are also included to give the study legitimacy. The result shows that the BAF-value does not differ between the chosen blocks in the districts, although the balancing was very low in Hammarby Sjöstad compared to Norra Djurgårdsstaden. The result also showed that the experince of the courtyard does not correspond to the achieved BAF-value and that the BAF-tool used in this study has developing potential. The BAF-tool is initially a good tool too enhance issues about ecosystem services but in the longterm we need to build and plan differently compared to how we build and plan today. This study has therefor resulted in ten criterias that should be considered when planning in space limited urban areas to enhance ecosystem services in the city.

Fjällområdet är ett kulturlandskap där människor bott och verkat under tusentals år. Naturen har satt gränsen för människans livsvillkor och möjlighet att överleva. Här har växt- och djurliv slipats och formats och det är bara arter med hög grad av anpassning som överlevt. 

Vi ser fysiska lämningar efter mänskliga aktiviteter, men det finns också minnen, berättelser och kunskap som förs vidare från generation till generation.

Denna skrift är en sammanfattning av resultaten från projektet Fjällandskap: betydelsen av kulturella ekosystemtjänster som har varit ett samarbetsprojekt mellan Göteborgs universitet, Högskolan i Gävle, Länsstyrelsen i Jämtlands län, Fjällmuseet i Funäsdalen och Gaaltije, sydsamiskt kulturcentrum. Projektet är en del av forskningsprogrammet Storslagen fjällmiljö.

This study addresses social-ecological dynamics in the greater metropolitan area of Stockholm County, Sweden, with special focus on the National Urban Park (NUP). It is part of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) and has the following specific objectives: (1) to provide scientific information on biodiversity patterns, ecosystem dynamics, and ecosystem services generated; (2) to map interplay between actors and institutions involved in management of ecosystem services; and (3) to identify strategies for strengthening social-ecological resilience. The green areas in Stockholm County deliver numerous ecosystem services, for example, air filtration, regulation of microclimate, noise reduction, surface water drainage, recreational and cultural values, nutrient retention, and pollination and seed dispersal. Recreation is among the most important services and NUP, for example, has more than 15 million visitors per year. More than 65 organizations representing 175,000 members are involved in management of ecosystem services. However, because of population increase and urban growth during the last three decades, the region displays a quite dramatic loss of green areas and biodiversity. An important future focus is how management may reduce increasing isolation of urban green areas and enhance connectivity. Comanagement should be considered where locally managed green space may function as buffer zones and for management of weak links that connect larger green areas; for example, there are three such areas around NUP identified. Preliminary results indicate that areas of informal management represent centers on which to base adaptive comanagement, with the potential to strengthen biodiversity management and resilience in the landscape.

Recent empirical research has confirmed the importance of green infrastructure and outdoor recreation to urban people’s well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, only a few studies provide cross-city analyses. We analyse outdoor recreation behaviour across four Nordic cities ranging from metropolitan areas to a middle-sized city. We collected map-based survey data from residents (n = 469–4992) in spring 2020 and spatially analyse green infrastructure near mapped outdoor recreation sites and respondents’ places of residence. Our statistical examination reveals how the interplay among access to green infrastructure across cities and at respondents’ residential location, together with respondents’ socio-demographic profiles and lockdown policies or pandemic restrictions, affects outdoor recreation behaviour. The results highlight that for pandemic resilience, the history of Nordic spatial planning is important. To support well-being in exceptional situations as well as in the long term, green infrastructure planning should prioritise nature wedges in and close to cities and support small-scale green infrastructure.

This paper examines the marketing and management efforts that have been undertaken to make the Falun World Heritage Site a successful tourist destination in terms of hegemonic, visual representations and narrative constructions. Visual representation is assumed to be a vital aspect of the construction of narratives used to promote tourist destinations. The idea of a narrative as something that constructs sites as comprehensible places through visual representation can be used to illuminate the logic of heritage tourism and branding destinations. The paper argues that representations of a heritage site that are closely related to hegemonic ideas of the site’s history are not necessarily the most profitable ones. If the heritage site is to contribute to local development and tourism, it is essential to understand what the representations of heritage communicate. Using the Falun World Heritage Site as a case study, the article aims to show how the attraction of a site can be hindered by hegemonic assumptions of its history, and therefore of its most interesting and valuable aspects. Analyses of Falun’s marketing, as well as the site itself, show that the constructed hegemonic narratives about the Falun Mine primarily concern men, masculinity and nationalism. Visitors are offered an opportunity to take part through narratives of the Swedish Great Power Period, as constructed and experienced by male geniuses and male mineworkers. These are the stories that correspond to the hegemonic view of those who manage and market the site.

The rapid urbanization process of cities is majorly coupled with extreme climate change, housing shortage and urban safety issues. These issues are raising new challenges to address the capability of urban resilience. Enhancing Urban Safety and Security is one of the major principles addressed by UN-Habitat in Sustainable Development Goal number 11. Making cities safe and sustainable means ensuring access to safe and affordable public spaces for all. This book chapter aims to highlight how do the city’s public spaces are linked and affected by crime and fear of crime? How do crime and fear of crime interconnect to the built environment in cities while promoting positive urban transitions in terms of safe and sustainable cities? This book chapter explores answers to these questions through the parks and public spaces of the city as a case study. In other words, the book chapter deals with the issue of safety and security by (1) showing links between parks and public spaces, and crime and fear of crime, (2) highlighting how different attributes in the built environment can affect people’s perception of safety, (3) understanding socio-technical perspectives i.e., how technological systems and equipment’s (such as lighting sensors, security alarms, security electronic devices, closed-circuit television (CCTV), smartphones or other technological instruments) are influencing safety/security and sustainability, (4) demonstrating the issues and challenges found in Stockholm, Sweden, and, (5) providing recommendations on how these places can be planned and designed to become more sustainable.

A city is not a tree but a semilattice. To use a perhaps more familiar term, a city is a complex network. The complex network constitutes a unique topological perspective on cities and enables us to better understand the kind of problem a city is. The topological perspective differentiates it from the perspectives of Euclidean geometry and Gaussian statistics that deal with essentially regular shapes and more or less similar things. Many urban theories, such as the Central Place Theory, Zipf's Law, the Image of the City, and the Theory of Centers can be interpreted from the point of view of complex networks. A livable city consists of far more small things than large ones, and their shapes tend to be irregular and rough. This chapter illustrates the complex network view and argues that we must abandon the kind of thinking (mis-)guided by Euclidean geometry and Gaussian statistics, and instead adopt fractal geometry, power-law statistics, and Alexander's living geometry to develop sustainable cities.

The wholeness, conceived and developed by Christopher Alexander, is what exists to some degree or other in space and matter, and can be described by precise mathematical language. However, it remains somehow mysterious and elusive, and therefore hard to grasp. This paper develops a complex network perspective on the wholeness to better understand the nature of order or beauty for sustainable design. I bring together a set of complexity-science subjects such as complex networks, fractal geometry, and in particular underlying scaling hierarchy derived by head/tail breaks — a classification scheme and a visualization tool for data with a heavy-tailed distribution, in order to make Alexander’s profound thoughts more accessible to design practitioners and complexity-science researchers. Through several case studies (some of which Alexander studied), I demonstrate that the complex-network perspective helps reduce the mystery of wholeness and brings new insights to Alexander’s thoughts on the concept of wholeness or objective beauty that exists in fine and deep structure. The complex-network perspective enables us to see things in their wholeness, and to better understand how the kind of structural beauty emerges from local actions guided by the 15 fundamental properties, and in particular by differentiation and adaptation processes. The wholeness goes beyond current complex network theory towards design or creation of living structures.

The things surrounding us vary dramatically, which implies that there are far more small things than large ones, e.g., far more small cities than large ones in the world. This dramatic variation is often referred to as fractal or scaling. To better reveal the fractal or scaling structure, a new classification scheme, namely head/tail breaks, has been developed to recursively derive different classes or hierarchical levels. The head/tail breaks works as such: divide things into a few large ones in the head (those above the average) and many small ones (those below the average) in the tail, and recursively continue the division process for the large ones (or the head) until the notion of far more small things than large ones has been violated. This paper attempts to argue that head/tail breaks can be a powerful visualization tool for illustrating structure and dynamics of natural cities. Natural cities refer to naturally or objectively defined human settlements based on a meaningful cutoff averaged from a massive amount of units extracted from geographic information. To illustrate the effectiveness of head/tail breaks in visualization, I have developed some case studies applied to natural cities derived from the points of interest, and social media location data. I further elaborate on head/tail breaks related to fractals, beauty, and big data.

Living structure is a physical phenomenon and mathematical concept, through which the quality of buildings or artifacts can be judged objectively. Living structure is to beauty what temperature is to warmness. Just like a tree, a living structure has two distinguishing properties: “far more small things than large ones” (so called scaling law) across all scales from the smallest to the largest, and “more or less similar things” (so called Tobler’s law) on each scale. Living structure can be only generated in some step by step fashion by two design principles (differentiation and adaptation) through the 15 structural properties.

Relying on random and purposive moving agents, we simulated human movement in large street networks. We found that aggregate flow, assigned to individual streets, is mainly shaped by the underlying street structure, and that human moving behavior (either random or purposive) has little effect on the aggregate flow. This finding implies that given a street network, the movement patterns generated by purposive walkers (mostly human beings) and by random walkers are the same. Based on the simulation and correlation analysis, we further found that the closeness centrality is not a good indicator for human movement, in contrast to a long-standing view held by space syntax researchers. Instead we suggest that Google's PageRank and its modified version (weighted PageRank), betweenness and degree centralities are all better indicators for predicting aggregate flow.

This thesis explores the feasibility of reintroducing tramway lines in Malmö, Sweden, as asustainable transport solution to a rapidly growing population. The study employs a Multi-CriteriaDecision Analysis (MCDA) methodology, integrated with Geographic Information System (GIS)tools, to evaluate potential tramway routes between Malmö central station and the Lindängen andStenkällan neighborhoods. Drawing from a comprehensive literature review, the researchestablishes a structured decision-making framework utilizing the Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP) to define criteria and assign relative weights. Ten criteria are identified, including, forexample, accessibility, conservation, and integration. Utilizing spatial data from various sources,suitability maps are generated to delineate optimal tramline routes, considering factors such aspopulation density, land use patterns, and proximity to key public facilities. A sensitivity analysisis conducted to assess the robustness of the evaluation results, while a least-cost path analysisevaluates the optimal paths within Malmö’s road network. The study contributes valuable insightsinto tramway route selection methodologies, demonstrating the efficacy of MCDA in supportingsustainable urban transportation planning. The findings provide a roadmap for policymakers andurban planners seeking to enhance public transport infrastructure and promote environmentalsustainability in urban areas like Malmö. 

Klimatet har en stor inverkan på stadens invånare och den mänskliga aktiviteten i det offentliga rummet. Under vintern vistas människor generellt mindre utomhus, eftersom väderförhållandena bidrar till att det upplevs mindre behagligt att vara ute. Samtidigt är utomhusvistelse och social interaktion viktigt för människors mentala hälsa. Det är därför av vikt att utforma mötesplatser med hänsyn till klimatfaktorer för att göra det mer behagligt att vara utomhus även på vintern. Kajstråk är en typ av offentligt rum som ofta beskrivs som säsongsbaserat, eftersom många funktioner som finns på platsen är mer anpassade till sommaren. Samtidigt ligger kajstråk ofta centralt i staden och utgör en unik rekreationsmöjlighet där invånare kan få nära kontakt med naturen. Syftet med den här studien är därför att undersöka hur ett offentligt kajstråk kan utformas för att bli en attraktiv mötesplats även på vintern. Studien genomfördes genom en fallstudie, där ungefär 600 meter av det allmänna kajstråket på Gävle Strand i Gävle studerades.

För att genomföra detta arbete användes olika metoder. Först gjordes en inventering och en platsanalys av kajstråket för att bättre förstå platsens kvalitéer och brister. Platsanalysen gjordes genom att bedöma den befintliga miljön enligt den danske arkitekten Jan Gehls 12 kvalitetskriterier för ett väl fungerande offentligt rum. Sedan skickades en enkät ut till Gävleborna för att samla in information om deras åsikter och behov på kajstråk på vintern. De fick svara på vad som skulle få dem att besöka kajstråket mer vintertid, men även vilken identitet de önskar att platsen hade. Därefter genomfördes en sol- och vindstudie där förhållandet mellan sol/skugga visualiserade och den mest dominanta vindriktningen under vintern pekades ut. Slutligen med hjälp av teori och dessa metoder togs det fram ett gestaltningsförslag som visar på hur kajstråket på Gävle Strand bättre kan anpassas till vintern och tillgodose platsens besökares behov på vintern. Gestaltningsförslaget utvärderades sedan av författaren och en planarkitekt som arbetar på Gävle Kommun genom att bedöma det enligt Gehls 12 kvalitetskriterier.

Resultatet visar att åtgärder som kan göras för att kajstråket ska bli mer anpassat till vintern är att framför allt säkerställa att det finns vinteranpassade aktiviteter, visuella nöjen och väderskydd, men även att införa mer färg och säkerställa att det finns gott om belysning samt att gångvägar underhålls bra. Dessa åtgärder är även applicerbara på andra offentliga kajstråk, men anordningarna måste anpassas till den specifika miljön och en förutsättning för att lyckas är att invånare fortsätts engageras i utformningen.

The aim was to investigate the relationships between landscape-related personal and collective identity and well-being of residents living in a Swedish mountain county (N = 850). It was shown that their most valued mountain activities were viewing and experiencing nature and landscape, outdoor recreation, rest and leisure, and socializing with friends/family. Qualitative analyses showed that the most valued aspects of the sites were landscape and outdoor restoration for personal favorite sites, and tourism and alpine for collective favorite sites. According to quantitative analyses the stronger the attachment/closeness/belonging (emotional component of place identity) residents felt to favorite personal and collective sites the more well-being they perceived when visiting these places. Similarly, the more remembrance, thinking and mental travel (cognitive component of place identity) residents directed to these sites the more well-being they perceived in these places. In both types of sites well-being was more strongly predicted by emotional than cognitive component of place-identity. All this indicates the importance of person-place bonds in beneficial experiences of the outdoors, over and above simply being in outdoor environments.

Volunteered geographic information (VGI) plays an increasing role in current geodata provision. At the same time, due to its lack of structure, it is hard to use as meaningful input in software applications. In this chapter, we embark upon the unstructured character of VGI and on ways to enrich the structure in order to make it suitable for information retrieval. We describe the characteristics of semantic enrichment and explain how folksonomies and ontologies play a role. We believe that they represent different levels of formality in a semantic reference space and determine the richness of the information retrieval.

The population in Sweden is growing older. One fourth of the population will be over 65 years of age by the year 2070, a development that will set pressure on the Swedish welfare system. One way to reduce the public expenses has been to introduce kvarboendeprincipen, which is that elderly will be given the possibility to live in ordinary homes instead of nursing homes. By law, it is up to municipalities to secure local housing by conducting appropriate policies and guidelines. An important tool has for a long time been municipal housing companies.

The municipal housing companies are obligated by Swedish law to act with a public purpose and at the same time to act in a businesslike way. The legislation from 2011 has been questioned by several researchers whether it is possible to combine a public purpose and still act in a businesslike way.

The purpose of the study is by a qualitative multi-case study describing how the municipalities alongside the municipality housing companies are working together to provide housing customized for the elderly. The study is delimited to the municipalities: Söderhamn and Ljusdal in the county of Gävleborg. The selected cases have a negative population growth and most of their housing stock consists of property rights, which according to previous studies and research entails difficulties to provide the elderly with customized housing.

To answer the research questions a qualitative content analysis of different municipal guiding documents has been performed: like comprehensive plans, housing supply documents and owner directives of the municipal housing companies. Interviews with public servants from the municipality’s city planning offices and representatives from the municipality housing companies have also been made.

The study shows that the current housing stock in the analyzed municipalities: Söderhamn and Ljusdal is outdated which constitutes a problem concerning availability. The analyzed cases promote the production of customized housing for elderly in order to secure the housing needs of an aging population. The relationships between the municipalities and the municipal housing companies differ between the two analyzed cases which may affect the supply of customized housing. The results indicate that the provision of housing for the elderly not only can be understood by economic theories regarding supply and demand.

Big data has now become a strong focus of global interest that is increasingly attracting the attention of academia, industry, government and other organizations. Big data can be situated in the disciplinary area of traditional geospatial data handling theory and methods. The increasing volume and varying format of collected geospatial big data presents challenges in storing, managing, processing, analyzing, visualizing and verifying the quality of data. This has implications for the quality of decisions made with big data. Consequently, this position paper of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) Technical Commission II (TC II) revisits the existing geospatial data handling methods and theories to determine if they are still capable of handling emerging geospatial big data. Further, the paper synthesises problems, major issues and challenges with current developments as well as recommending what needs to be developed further in the near future.

Segregation in Sweden has been rising in recent years, which has lead to an increase in social problems. It is therefore important that municipalities, in an early stage, actively begin to work against segregation and towards social sustainability. With this study and its methodology we want to encourage smaller Swedish cities by developing and testing a method that municipalities can use in mapping of segregation.

To handle segregation's complex problems, several of method steps have been applied. A literature review resulted in six variables, all of which have a significant impact on segregation. The variables were: housing tenure, employment rates, domestic/foreign-born, overcrowding, education and age. A survey was then conducted with 14 experts in the urban planning sector. The planners were asked to rank the variables that the literature review highlighted. The rankings were then used to create rank sum weights, which later led to a multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) based on a linear additive method. The aim of the study is to present a mapping of the segregation in Bollnäs urban area based on the method we have developed.

The result of the study shows that out of 15 areas in Bollnäs urban area, four were classified as "most segregated" and three areas classified as "least segregated". These results have been tested using three validity and reliability methods: The Index of Dissimilarity, interview and sensitivity analysis. The results of the three tests demonstrate clear trends and similar results compared with our method, which indicates that our method is robust and trustworthy. The necessity for proper mapping of segregation is demonstrated by the interview where a planner from Bollnäs municipality was given the chance to pinpoint five areas the person considered to be most segregated. For these five areas, the planner pointed out one area that according to our study was least segregated, which proves the difficulty of identifying segregation. Our hope with this study is to create a method that support municipalities work with social sustainability.

Shows the variation of rurality between Canada's census divisions.

This study examines the concept of perceived safety in relation to public environments. The aim of the study is to investigate how perceived safety affects young women and men and how young women and men experience safety in Uppsala. The studied area is Uppsala central station. The study investigated the experience of safety among young women and men in the age group 18–25 years who have visited Uppsala central station and based on their responses suggestions is presented that can increase the feeling of safety in the station environment. The age group was chosen as it is more often young people who are exposed to violent crimes and robberies in public spaces. In previous studies, it has emerged that public environments such as train stations are perceived as unsafe and this has to do with various factors. The study examines the factors of lighting, visibility, camera surveillance, maintenance and human presence. 

The goal of the study is to gain increased knowledge of the concept of perceived safety and understanding of young people's experiences of safety, based on their perspective, to investigate how measures and proposals can create a sense of safe environments at Uppsala central station. More specifically, the study will investigate how Uppsala central station is perceived as safe in theories of perceived safety. 

The methods that have been used in the study are a mixed method which consists of literature study, site visits and questionnaire survey. Results from site visits and the survey showed that safety at Uppsala central station is relatively good based on perceived safety. There were some flaws in the design of the station where obscured sight lines and camera surveillance were missing based on the site visits. According to the survey, 8.6% of the respondents felt that Uppsala central station was unsafe. Despite this, more guards, more lighting and that the central station needs to be improved were requested. Some suggestions were wishes for more color, art, cleanliness and an attractive environment, which can increase the sense of safety. The results of the study shows that the factor lighting was most significant for perceived safety among the respondents. Design proposals are presented in the results for increased perceived safety at Uppsala central station.

This paper reports results from two locally based geography excursions at two secondary schools in Sweden, in order to study how the pupils’ own experience from the local neighborhood, intrinsic motivation, and flow interact during the learning process to see if these parameters affect their understanding and knowledge of the studied objects. The methods used were observations during the excursions, as well as interviews and questionnaires afterwards. The results show that the pupils believe that they learn more when studying objects in their natural environment, i.e. outside their classroom. Furthermore, the results show that intrinsic motivation may be difficult, but not impossible, to achieve, and also that there are good opportunities for attaining flow. If the pupils can see patterns and structures of the objects and processes studied, they will start understand and gain knowledge. This process will increase chances for intrinsic motivation, which will further increase understanding and knowledge, and attaining flow. Once achieved, a spiral process of continued flow, continued intrinsic motivation, and increasing knowledge may be maintained.

The purpose of this article is to present the results from a review of literature on geography excursions and field studies and to discuss their development over time, focusing on purpose, content, method, and execution. The scope was limited to Swedish and Anglo-Saxon literature, produced after the year 1900. The results show that excursions and field studies have since long been important methods in school teaching, not only in the subject geography. One of the purposes of using excursions and field studies in teaching is to facilitate the learning process of pupils and students. Several authors arguing that learning improved when the objects are studied in the real world. We can see that a continuous process of change has altered contents as well as conduction of the excursions. The previous instrumental orientation has moved toward more pupil-participating work methods. Today preparation is a keyword in most texts on excursions, and the perspectives have been broadened.

The distance between home and work has increased in recent decades. By the development of infrastructure and public transport, jobs farther from home have become more accessible and this development has in turn increased commuting. Commuting travellers often pass over administrative boundaries which often serve as borders for public transport pricing. Also the market control prices. Research shows that travel times and costs significantly affect commuting choice. Many people have an upper limit of 60 minutes commuting distance between home and work. How commuting costs affect the individual's choice of commuting will vary depending on the individual's income and housing costs. The aim of our study was to see how public transport costs and travel times may vary geographically. GIS, Geographic Information System was used to make a network analysis which showed time distances and travel costs on maps. We also examined whether there was a link between towns accessibility by public transport and housing market which we did with help of correlation and regression analysis. In order to answer our questions we started from a study area consisting of Uppsala County with its surrounding commuting area. The maps showed how accessibility to larger towns varies among the smaller towns. The access is often best between bigger towns while there is less accessibility between smaller towns. The distance to bus stops or railway station also has a significant effect on how long the total travel time will be. Urban areas with access to rail services had the best opportunities to reach larger cities and that give also better access to labour market. From our study of the Uppsala County with a monocentric structure, we could indicate a link between accessibility to the bigger cities and housing prices in the surrounding towns. The higher commuting costs and longer travel time to the central place the lower the housing prices. A similar study of Stockholm which has a polycentric structure showed that the relationship between accessibility and house prices not are applicable to all regions. Here we can conclude that housing markets depends on many other factors than access to rapid public transport. House prices can depend on things like closeness to nature and water.

The study is a qualitative study that aims to examine how foreign-born parents affect second-generation immigrants choice of form of housing and residential areas and what differences there are between Swedish native-born and foreign-born parents. The study also examines how ethnicity affects young adults' choice of housing and residential area and the importance of second-generation immigrants attitudes towards segregated areas in the future have. The study focuses on the residential neighbourhoods of Sätra located in Gävle and Vivalla located in Örebro. Both neighbourhoods are million program areas but in different ways. The data collection consisted of ten people, five women and five men. The method asked specific questions and then interviewees spoke about themselves and how they perceive housing segregation. The selection has been made strategically thus the people that have been interviewed are born in Sweden and have parents that are born abroad. Also all of the interviewed individuals live in segregated areas. There is a lot of prejudice in the media and the public about segregation and the vulnerability of segregated areas. The results shows five women and five men’s own experiences and thoughts about living in segregated residential areas, having foreign- born parents, how both have affected them and their views of ethnic segregation.

Syftet med examensarbetet är att ta reda på hur bra skolböcker i samhällsorienterande ämnen lyckas förmedla en dynamisk och rättvis bild av Afrika. Mina frågeställningar är: Vilken bild av den afrikanska kontinenten och afrikanerna förmedlas av läroböckerna för högstadieelever? Hur dynamisk och mångfacetterad är egentligen den bilden? Ger läroböckerna en god möjlighet till en positiv identifikation med människor i Afrika? Hur skiljer sig denna bild från den som ges av den socialrealistiska afrikanska filmen Borom Sarret?

Läroboken är fortfarande ett viktigt strukturerande verktyg för läraren. Den styr till stor del fortfarande undervisningen på ett övergripande sätt. Trots detta är det inte många som verkar intressera sig för läroböckerna och deras utformning.

Lpo-94 nämner vikten av att förstå både det egna kulturarvet och delaktigheten i det gemensamma, om vikten av en stark identitet och en kulturell mångfald. Det bör rimligtvis innebära att man inte får försumma en hel kontinents kulturarv genom att enbart ta upp Afrikas historia när den varit viktig för Europas historiska utveckling. Detta är vad som sker i de allra flesta skolböcker.

Skolböckerna utgår alldeles för ofta från att vår kultur och vår utveckling är ett facit för hur andra länder bör se ut. De ger grovt generaliserande och stereotypa bilder av Afrika som ett enda stort u-land befolkat av anonyma afrikaner. Vi behöver en mer dynamisk och mindre generaliserande bild av Afrika och dess befolkning.

This study aims to investigate how socio-economic segregation is treated and communicated within different instances. The study examines whether municipalities and national agencies work on the same goals and strategies regarding socio-economic segregation. The study has a local delimitation to the newly developed area of Gävle Strand in Gävle.

Segregation between different socioeconomic social groups has increased in recent decades. High housing prices and rental requirements make it difficult for social classes with lower incomes to establish themselves in the housing market. This leads to socio-economically strong groups having a greater opportunity to follow developments in the housing market.

The studies have conducted a qualitative content analysis as well as a qualitative comparative analysis, where a comparison has been made between the municipal urban planning and national targets and strategies related to socio-economic segregation. Silence has also been addressed in the text.

The results of the study show that there are similarities and differences in how the subject socio-economic segregation is addressed in the documents. In order to ensure the diversity of residential areas, most of the documents considered mixed forms of tenure to be important. At the same time, the documents describe the problems of new production being too expensive and leading to homogeneity. A big difference in this study's results is how the national documents emphasize the importance of placing more demands on municipal planning, while the municipal documents explain that they do not want to limit the building concepts of the building developers. There are also differences internally between municipal and local plan documents that deal with socio-economic segregation.

The study has created an increased understanding of how the work on socio-economic segregation is treated and implemented, by demonstrating what differences and similarities exist between different control and planning documents. The study's results can be used to better understand these similarities and differences in order to ensure that work at the different levels to a greater extent deals with socio-economic segregation in the same way in the future.

Glasgow, Stockholm and Melbourne by resilience and planning scholars, this paper synthesizes practitioner insights into how resilience thinking can inform metropolitan planning. The paper identifies three ways resilience thinking can usefully inform metropolitan planning. First, by offering new metaphors regarding the nature of structural change in linked and complex systems that prioritize change and uncertainty. Second, through the application of new frames and tools for analysis of the dynamics of complex social-ecological urban systems. Third, by examining the relevance of adaptive governance for metropolitan planning.

In the era of big data, increasingly sizeable datasets come from social media, particularly location-based social media, in the form that is widely known as user-generated contents. Many social media datasets are made available at the finest spatial and temporal scales. The availability of such data creates unprecedented opportunities for researchers to uncover what were previously hidden in the era of small data. What kinds of new research questions may be addressed with the available social media data? What are the social, ethical, and political implications of the wide use of social media platforms and the availability of such data? This special issue responds to the unique research opportunities and challenges from two broad perspectives. First, it looks at the need to develop new theories and data models for the management and analysis of social media data. Secondly, it advocates innovative acquisition and employment of social media data to enhance our understanding of human activities, social and spatial interactions, or the society as a whole. The inspiration for this special issue was the first ever International Conference on Location-based Social Media (ICLSM) held March 5-7, 2015 in Athens, Georgia, USA that brought together researchers from around the globe to discuss geosocial analysis and modeling of social media data. Geographers, GIScientists and social scientists gathered to report on the unique opportunities of collaboration and insights that can be gained from the analysis of location-based social media data collected from sources such as Facebook and Twitter. Participants shared innovative methods for social media data mining, big data analytics, social network analysis, social media data models and representations, human mobility and patterns of interaction.

In general, immigrants face various problems as they adjust to their new surroundings and begin a new life. The educated, employed Arabic immigrant Muslim women, (EEAIMW), live between two worlds: a Swedish world at work and an Arabic world at home. In this East-West dichotomy, they keep trying to find who they are and where they belong. This thesis helps to understand the influence of the intersection of religion, ethnicity, and gender serving as the primary disadvantage due to cultural expectations, socio-political considerations, and unfavourable stereotypes and stigmatization. This disadvantage affects not only their employment and career advancement, but also the agency and performed identities of EEAIMW in their Swedish workplace, (SWP). The purpose is to give voice to 17 EEAIMW narrating their journey in re-evaluating and developing their religious, ethnic, and gender identities to adapt to the environment of their SWP. Furthermore, to challenge the stereotyping and the stigmatization that position them as the “Other,” impeding their sense of belonging. Comprehensive data concerning the phenomena was gathered through a qualitative research approach and from in-depth semi-structured interviews with the study participants, joined with a literature review on immigrants, Islam, and employed Muslim women, covering topics about identity theories and organizational behaviour. According to the study’s findings, EEAIMW create a place for themselves in their SWP through their diverse agency and identity performing adaptation strategies, and that relationships rather than the place, create a sense of belonging. It is also found that the different sociocultural contexts do not destroy EEAIMW’s religious beliefs but add value to their existence outside their religious aspect. And when representing Swedish society, they remain linked to their homelands.