Municipal conservation strategies in rural areas. A case study with focus on citizen dialogue

This paper addresses how local government works with agrarian environments and the extent to which citizens are given the opportunity to participate in this process. Through a literature review the legal frameworks and conditions for citizenship in municipal cultural planning are examined. These conditions currently consists of conventions and policy documents stating that we should strive for greater participation. This is of high importance for rural cultural environments as these are not as strictly regulated by the physical planning, which means that the responsibility for these cultural environments primarily with property owners. As these environments often fall outside the scope of local authority practice the state instead use economic encouragement contributions paid in compensation to the property owners who manage culturally valuable landscape elements. The study focus is on a case study where the view of the landscape is examined, both from the municipality and the citizens' perspective. It also addresses the question of the extent to which the municipality uses the public dialogue is a knowledge base for the cultural environment produced. The municipality involved in the case study work primarily from an expert perspective, where citizens are informed afterwards. The values and descriptions of the landscape that emerges from the knowledge base are consistent to some extent with the local population view, but with some key differences when the knowledge base values the physical structures while locals focus on the processes that maintain them. Finally, the pros and cons of citizen participation in municipal cultural planning is discussed where my conclusion is that civic participation together with the expert knowledge creates a broader knowledge base and lead to a consensus among different parties. Additionally this anchors the knowledge bases with property owners at an earlier stage, which will enables an increased responsibility and thereby maintaining the valuable properties of these cultural environments.Uppsats för avläggande av filosofie kandidatexamen i Kulturvård, Bebyggelseantikvariskt program 15 hp Institutionen för kulturvård Göteborgs universitet 2013:2