Territorial cohesion and balanced development are key goals within regional development policy in the Nordic countries. In order to better understand progress towards the goal of a more balanced regional development, this project analyses regional disparities in the Nordics from the perspective of accessibility to services. The point of departure in this study is to use a GIS based approach to map, analyze and visualize the degree of disparities in this regard.
The project will develop a tool that can provide aid for determining the optimal locations of different public and private services in relation to the spatial distribution of the population. There are a number of different tools and systems that can be utilized for this type of analysis and Nordregio has prior experience with similar projects (i.e. health facilities in Iceland). The methodological design of the study will also take into consideration existing tools such as the Pipos tool, developed by the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth, that can be used to model the supply and accessibility of services.
The project is a part of the Nordic Thematic Group for Sustainable Rural Development.
