Offer Master’s Thesis
Date
[2012-11-13]
Author
[Björn Berglund]
Material strategies for shrinking cities
Background
Due to planet Earth’s increasing degree of urbanization, half of the world’s population
now lives in cities. Meanwhile, a reversal trend has also been observed, so it is
equally true that every sixth city on the planet is shrinking. A result of this is that
industrialized cities are left with sub-optimized infrastructures of technical systems,
once laid out to serve a formerly larger population size. With a decreasing tax base,
the maintenance and operations of underutilized infrastructure might be an
unnecessary cost for the municipality. This master thesis will aim at reversing the
perspective, and assess the potential of recycling unused parts of technical systems in
shrinking Swedish cities. Could this hidden resource base provide the ground plate for
local material strategies?
Objectives
The nature of this master thesis topic is by nature cross-disciplinary, as it consists of
both quantitative and qualitative research components. The objectives must therefore
be (at least) threefold:
• Explain why there are shrinking cities in Sweden and the processes that lie behind
this urban trend. (Descriptive objective)
• Assess the potentially recyclable material stock of unused infrastructures in shrinking
cities in Sweden. (Quantitative objective)
• Suggest and discuss urban material strategies to handle this presumably costly
suboptimization issue. (Explorative objective)
Proposed Research Questions
• What’s the cause for shrinking cities in Sweden?
• How large is the potentially recyclable stock of sub-optimized technical systems in
Sweden?
• How can this stock be useful as a resource base for local material strategies?
Proposed Methodology
A literature review of relevant research articles and books shall underline the urban
shrinkage dynamics for the Swedish context.
The quantitative part of the thesis consists of a static material flow analysis, where
population statistics of Swedish cities will be compared and multiplied with
infrastructure dimensions (based on a infrastructure length per household multiple).
Last, interviews shall be performed with representatives from a number of shrinking
Swedish municipalities, for the thesis’ explorative and material strategy-oriented parts.
Environmental Technology and Management,
Department of Management and Engineering
SE-581 83 Linköping
http://www.iei.liu.se/envtech/utbildning/examensarbete
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Qualifications
We are looking for engineering students interested in cross-disciplinary research.
Knowledge in urban studies and statistics is also a plus.
Other information
Language: Swedish is required to perform the interviews
Proposed time: Five months
Number of Students: 2
Location of Research: Mainly Linköping
Examiner/Supervisor/Co-supervisor: Joakim Krook & Björn Berglund
Contact person: Björn Berglund, [email protected]
Department of Management and Engineering
SE-581 83 Linköping
www.liu.se/iei
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