Samhällsplanering och lokalsamhälle : en sociologisk analys av den sociala samhällsplaneringens möjligheter och begränsningar, illustrerad av tre ortsstudier i Norrbottens län

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this dissertation is to make a contribution to the creation of more efficient social planning. It has been formulated in the following way: 1. To describe how social planning has developed in Sweden and what role sociological knowledge has played in this process. 2. To analyse thè social causes of this development. 3. To illustrate the development of our society througt the study of three communities in the county of Norrbotten. These empirical studies serve a double purpose. They are examples of the kind of planning-tools for which this dissertation argues. They are also meant to throw a light on the specific social evolution, which has created different forms and contents in the planning process. A tangible starting point for the dissertation is to establish the fact that social planning has expanded rapidly after the inter-war pe-riod-both in form and substance and the development is characterized by centralisation and division into sectors. In other words, it is distinguished by increased vertical and horizontal division of labour. During the seventies, however, a growing criticism of this process was articulated, particularly from two directions: agencies in the social sector and districts in the periphery-areas which begin to experience the consequences of structural rationalisation. Among other things they want more social and qualitative planning to take place. An increasing interest in sociological knowledge can be seen as a response to this criticism. After that three normative possibilities of development is presentated on the assumption that social planning for the time being is characterized by centralisation as well as division into sectors. The argumentation aims to show how one of the normative possibilities, a co-ordination between de-centralization and a reduced division into sectors, can make public planning more effective. Furthermore two aspects of the^efficiency problem are discussed. The first perspective is based on productivity and deals with the question to what extent social planning activities are producing optimum knowledge from investigated resources. The other perspective focuses on the ability of social planning to help citizens form an opinion of political decisions. This discussion is a theoretical background to the normative recommendations for planning methods (community studies as a complement to social planning)which follows. The planning methods are illustraded by three community studies carried out in Korpilombolo, Seskarb and Rosvik, all three communities in the most northern county of Sweden, Norrbotten. The collection of data took place within the framework of the pilot project: Social development planning in the county of Norrbotten. The theoretical frame of reference of these studies is based on the concept 'Way of Life', which is defined as the totality of peoples' destinies, activities,everyday life and relationsship. The way of life in the three villages is outlined and compared in three dimensions, activities, needs and resources. Finally future studies following on from this dissertation is suggested, for instance, 'ex-post' estimates regarding actual consequences of applied com-munity studies.