Month: April 2022

Since elections for the developed world’s largest local authorities in May 2022, there’s been much debate about coalitions and control. But there’s a bigger question – are Scottish councils with an average of 175 thousand inhabitants really local at all? And why does that not seem to matter? The EU average council has a relatively meagre 10 thousand inhabitants. And Vágur, on the isolated southern Faroese island of Suðuroy, has just 1377 folk. But they’re doing pretty well, self-building a 50m swimming pool to honour their local swimming champion, a Sports High School and witnessing a population boom after 70 years of decline. All pioneered by their ultra local municipality. And although the Faroes is tiny (just 55k population) and has its own devolved parliam...Read More