Digitalisering av medborgardeltagandet : En undersökning av Skellefteå och Sorsele kommuns arbete med digitalisering

Citizen participation is seen as relevant in today’s planning process, to let the people be an active part in the planning of the city and to strengthen the trust in democracy. Traditionally, the dialogue takes place in form of physical meetings, where planners and citizens meet face to face. But this concept might be changing. The ambition in Sweden to transition into digitalization is already in motion, where one of the goals is to see the use of digital communication expand. The main purpose for this work was to examine how two municipalities, one sparsely populated and one more developed, are working with implementing digitalization and what challenges they are up against, how it affects the participation of the citizens in city planning and development. For future Planning, the digital tools will generate greater citizen dialogue and participation since people will be able to participate without needing to leave their current geographical location. This means that the factors of time and space will be out of the question as people no longer will have to rely on resources to travel to be able to attend at meetings face to face, due to the space compression of digitalization. Still, there are risks and challenges that goes along with digitalization. The risk for exclusion of citizens due to lack of access to internet, low levels of use due to lack of competence and the resources to be able to work with the development of digitalization, which can leave municipalities left behind while other municipalities continue to strive forward and grow