Appendix 3. Defining remoteness: application of a 90-minute drive time threshold
Classification of the case study areas remains unchanged when using a 90-minute driving distance criterion. While the Icelandic case studies – Hammerfest, Gotland and Åland – do not have access to cities with 50,000 or more inhabitants within this radius, the case study areas of Stord in Norway and Skellefteå in Sweden partially do. However, based on the significant overlap of areas in the southern areas of Finland and Sweden, this threshold was considered to be too high.
Residents of sparsely populated areas may be more tolerant to long driving distances, so to test how the results change when allowing for a longer distance, the same analysis was performed using a 90-minute drive time from the city centre as the threshold.
Map 17. Application of Dijkstra and Poelman’s definition (2008) to Nordic local labour markets, using a 90-minute drive time threshold.
Map 18. Application of Dijkstra and Poelman’s definition (2008) to Nordic local labour markets using 1x1 km grid population data.