This article explores a prominent cluster in the Swedish capital Stockholm and its surrounding region: the ICT (information and communications technology) cluster. In particular, the article focuses on the issue of the extent to which labour market and labour mobility are the most likely channels for local and extra-local sources of knowledge and ideas. Thus the article positions itself against a growing literature that focuses on rather diffuse and vague notions that knowledge and innovation reside 'in the air' or in the 'buzz' of urban life. Instead, the underlying hypothesis is that in many sectors and industries such things as a cosmopolitan street life or accidental face-to-face encounters play relatively little part in the flow of experiences, knowledge and innovation. Rather, it is in the workplace that these exchanges and flows are located and it is thus through labour mobility that intracluster exchanges occur. The article tests such ideas in relation to the ICT cluster and the Stockholm region using a uniquely detailed time-series data-set. The data-set used is based on official taxation and civil registration records and contains complete details on everything from education to career changes to income levels for every individual resident in Sweden. The detail of the individual records and the complete nature of the data-set mean that it offers a unique possibility to examine, on a large scale, the micro dynamics of individuals in the labour market and in clusters. The data are used to examine whether there have existed over time higher levels of labour market mobility in clusters as opposed to the rest of the urban economy. The article empirically verifies the idea that labour market mobility is significantly higher in the cluster than in the rest of the urban economy.

Acknowledging no political or administrative borders, the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHG) has to be handled on different scales through multilevel governance. The Kyoto Protocol and subsequent international agreements constitute a general framework of commitment for the signing states. National policies based on this agreement are crucial in terms of enacting legally binding codes with regard to energy, transport, and other relevant sectors. However, an adequate response to climate change must also include innovative action taken by governments, private companies, voluntary organizations, and individuals at the regional and local levels of society. Representing sites of high consumption of energy and high production of waste, towns and cities are crucial study objects when it comes to mitigating climate change (Betsill and Bulkeley, 2007; Low et al, 2000). The control of local authorities over these processes varies with national circumstances but may include energy supply and management, transport supply and demand, land-use planning, building requirements, waste management, and advice to the local community. Local authorities cannot undertake these activities in isolation. Rather, the capacity to address GHG emissions within cities is shaped through public and private actors, and through different levels of governance. Thus, across the world many cities have developed initiatives to reduce emissions of GHGs, either on their own or as members of city networks. Although the exploding worldwide worries about climate change in the last few years have mainly triggered research on national and global scales, there has also been a growing research interest in urban initiatives and programmes to address climate change, their progress, and the problems they have encountered (see, for example,

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This paper explores whether the concept of counterurbanisation, expanded with an international dimension, offers a valuable framework for understanding recent migration flows from the Netherlands to Sweden. Using a geo‐referenced database comprising demographic and socio‐economic variables, the post‐migration employment status, employment sector and settlement location of Dutch migrants in Central Sweden are analysed. In addition, results from observation, interviews and a survey during emigration fairs are employed to describe the motives for migration from the Netherlands to Central Sweden. We argue that counterurbanisation is not an exhausted research topic, when international political, economic and socio‐cultural factors are added to the study.

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