Small cities: Regional motors or sponges? The case of Inland County, Norway

Abstract

AbstractIn the innovation and regional development literature, regional areas that lie between prosperous core regions and struggling peripheral areas have been largely neglected, both theoretically and empirically, in recent innovation and regional research. In this paper, we analyse the role that small cities play as agents in regional development in their hinterland. Are they catalysts for growth, or do they drain the surrounding cities and villages? One concept or analytical tool that deals with this issue more explicitly is ‘sponge cities’, which refers to small and medium-sized cities that appear to ‘soak up’ talent and resources from the surrounding hinterland. By adopting and expanding this largely unexplored concept, we analyse the role of regional cities in the Norwegian context. Building on the original concept, we believe that adding commuting to migration patterns provides a more nuanced and precise assessment of whether small cities and regional centres are a blessing or a curse for their hinterlands. Using regional data, we classify cities as ‘motors’ (those that positively affect the hinterland thanks to well-balanced commuting and migration patterns at various spatial scales) or ‘sponges’ (those that soak up people from surrounding areas through migration). Further expanding our analysis, we label a third group of municipalities as ‘local mobilizers’, as they seem to have the potential to influence positively the growth of adjacent areas, and a fourth group as ‘moderate attractors’, which show moderately positive external commuting and migration flows.