Kommunal utveckling i den regionala periferin – en fallstudie om Västra Götalandsregionens inverkan på Melleruds kommuns utveckling

Sammanfattning: This essay aims to describe and analyse how a municipality is affected by being located in a regional periphery. The rural Mellerud Municipality is situated within the Västra Götaland County, which population-wise is the second biggest in Sweden and is in some contexts described as a “metropolitan county”. Despite the fact that Mellerud is located in this big county with strong economic growth, the municipality have struggled with depopulation and high unemployment rates for several years. This essay is based on theories concerning the core-periphery relationship, cumulative causation, growth-poles and self-fulfilling prophecies and argues that Mellerud is situated in a regional periphery. This is expressed in how the rural areas is treated in the Region Council’s public documents, by interviewees and the municipality’s differing statistics among other things. This study shows that Mellerud’s development potential is greatly dependent on the regional development and how the region’s core, Gothenburg, is developing and growing.