Can digitalization be a tool to overcome spatial injustice in sparsely populated regions? The cases of Digital Västerbotten (Sweden) and Smart Country Side (Germany)

ABSTRACT

Many sparsely-populated regions in Europe are or perceive that they are left behind because of a reduced presence of public and private services in the area in comparison to more densely-populated urban areas. One solution that has been proposed to overcome issues of spatial injustice in these areas is the digitalization of public services. The use of new technologies can be a means to provide similar services in rural as in urban areas and to reduce costs. However, when services are becoming digitalized, in regions with ageing populations, spatial and social digital divides might increase. Could policies that deliberately involve local knowledge and stakeholders overcome such divides? This article analyses how far place-based strategies for the digitalization of services can overcome (perceptions of) spatial injustice in rural and sparsely-populated regions. It is based on findings from a Swedish and a German case study and raises the need to give more attention to social and organizational aspects in rural digitalization policies. We argue that place-based digitalization policies can make a difference if planned in a fair, transparent, and inclusive way and considering local communities’ perceptions of injustice.

KEYWORDS:

• Rural development
• digitalization
• place-based policy
• spatial justice

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank our interview partners in Västerbotten (Sweden), Lippe and Höxter (Germany) for participating in the research, and specifically the project managers of the two digitalization projects for granting us insights into the working of the projects.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Smart Country Side is the proper name for the German project under study in this paper and not a scribal error.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, under grant agreement No. 727097, project RELOCAL (Resituating the local in cohesion and territorial development), 2016–2021.