Local alternative development through a time-spatial lens : A case study of Ydre inspired by Hägerstrand

In the contemporary market-oriented society, we seem to be more globally interdependent. The market economy system enhances large-scale production where search for increased productivity strives to 'compress' time. At the same time, the market economy tends to expand in space, for example sells products over longer distances. A result of this 'space expansion' and 'time compression' through the conventional economic market system is that local small-scale production and trade have increasing difficulty in competing and surviving (Assmo and Wihlborg, 2007). Even so, conventional economic growth (valued in monetary terms) is commonly seen as the only way to cure any development problem arising from poverty, unemployment, crime, pollution and depletion of natural resources. In a provocative manner similar to Daly (1992), one can argue that this conventional monetary valued growth perspective is trapped in a terminal state of 'growthmania'. People's organization of daily activities to improve or sustain their livelihood is much more than what is generally calculated and thereby shown in monetary values.