Centrumutveckling i en småstad : Förbättrad social hållbarhet i Smedjebacken

Sammanfattning: Many small municipalities, in contrast to larger centers, struggle to offer natural social venues in their neighborhoods. As people choose larger cities for social gatherings, smaller city centers becoming depopulated and in turn they lose their necessary demand to sustain social meeting places. The purpose of this work is to see what small towns can do to make social spaces more attractive and vibrant and thereby encourage people to participated more in the public realm. This study will focus on Smedjebacken (Sweden) municipality's urban development and present proposals for measures that the municipality can take to become more socially sustainable from a planning perspective. The work is much based on Kevin Lynch and Jan Gehl's theories. Where Lynch's scientific strategies see the great perspective of how the city is built and Gehl's ideologies are at a more detailed level where the residents meetings in the city are the primary. A case study has been conducted to gather information about past and future strategies concerning Smedjebacken's city center, as well as documents, ideas and views of municipal official and knowledgeable persons through interviews. A Lynch-based observation analysis of central parts of the city was also used. The method is based on theories in Lynch’s The image of the city, Lynch argues that people see five critical elements in cities: paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks. This analysis was conducted during two days in Smedjebacken’s city center. The results show that Smedjebacken has several improvement points in order to increase the social sustainability in the city center. The city is divided into three major districts and has an incoherent character, which means that the few shops and social venues in the city are dispersed and do not benefit from one another as a result. In order to fuse the core of the city, recommendations based on Jan Gehl's theories are advanced. The key strategy recommended is to create social meetings that encourage residents to visit and participate in their community center.