Life in Skaraborg Stories Jonathan feels at ho...

Jonathan feels at home where town meets country

Jonathan Naraine is an architect from Gothenburg who swapped the tiny green spaces of an urban environment for Skaraborg’s sweeping countryside. Now he’s a town planner in Skara municipality during the day and enjoys being close to fields and forests in his spare time.

Who?: Jonathan Naraine
What?: Acting City Architect in Skara, relocated from Gothenburg

“It’s one of the most beautiful workplaces there is!”

This is how Jonathan describes his workplace in Skara City Hall. The building is a former school right across the street from Skara Cathedral. About a year ago it was carefully renovated to become today’s modern workplace in premises with a long history.

For Jonathan, who is the acting City Architect in Skara, the mix of old and new forms an important part of the cityscape. And it’s also what made him fall for the place when he visited it for the very first time – for his job interview.

“I had no links at all to Skaraborg; I knew no one here and had never been here before. I came to Skara for the first time when I applied for a job as a planning architect, and I fell in love with the place! I was completely bowled over by the city center and knew right away that this was where I wanted to be.”

I was completely bowled over by the city center and knew right away that this was where I wanted to be.

From Gothenburg to Skara

Jonathan is from Gothenburg, where he had lived all his life. Urban planning caught his attention when he was studying architecture at Chalmers, in particular the ways to incorporate green spaces in urban environments. After graduating, he started a business with a few friends.

“We focused on life between the buildings, urban cultivation on rooftops and green spaces in the city. We worked with various real estate companies but also a lot with co-creation processes for citizens. This included cultivation matchmaking, where we paired people with land with people who wanted to cultivate it.”

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After a few years at his own company, Jonathan wanted to resume his studies and he began reading for a master’s degree with a focus on urban planning.

“I wanted to do more than ‘merely’ design buildings, but to see them as part of a bigger picture. During those two years I not only focused on the wider context of community planning and ecological sustainability, but also on co-planning with city residents.”

“By the time I’d finished my studies I’d also had enough of the big city. I wanted to work with planning right across the board, both urban and rural, but in a smaller town. So I applied, successfully, for a job in Skara.”

Jonathan began as a planning architect but is currently acting City Architect, while the regular City Architect is on parental leave.

Town and country together

Skara municipality consists of a town with a thousand-year history, many small communities and villages, and above all sweeping farmland, forests and lakes. It’s a place where green industries enjoy an excellent logistics position right next to the E20 between Stockholm and Gothenburg.

“Town and country are perfectly integrated in Skaraborg! There’s even a major focus on things like cultivation and food production in central Skara, which suits me just fine! I could see a potential to take part in developing a town that prioritizes the very same things I do. There’s a great working atmosphere in Skara, there’s lots of headroom among colleagues, in local politics and especially the building we work in.”

While Jonathan is happy to work in a municipality where sustainability enjoys high priority, he’s careful to point out that it’s not his views that govern Skara’s development, but those of Skara’s residents.

They work a lot with citizen dialogs in Skara, something that suits Jonathan well.

“I learn things and gain inspiration by meeting residents. The more I meet, the more perspectives we gain, and the better our proposals will be! Residents not only mention green structures often, but also food and energy, the collaborative economy and social meeting places. The innovation bar is set very high when we get our residents on board right from the beginning.”

Residents not only mention green structures often, but also food and energy, the collaborative economy and social meeting places. The innovation bar is set very high when we get our residents on board right from the beginning.

Landed on his feet

So what was moving from Gothenburg to Skara like? Jonathan tells us that for him, the biggest advantages were the slower pace of everyday life and being so close to nature.

“I’m just a few minutes’ walk from the countryside where I get to inhale nature’s magic. I also appreciate the peacefulness in town, and the many friendly people who greet me when I pass them on the sidewalk.”

Jonathan tells us that getting to know people at work was easy, but that finding a social context outside of work did not go quite as quickly. But thanks to his interests, Jonathan has also landed on his feet socially. In Skara, horticulture has brought in new friends, but to practice another of his great interests, Jonathan had to look outside the municipal boundary.

“I enjoy Lindy Hop dancing and there’s a big following in Gothenburg. But not in Skara, so now I travel to Lidköping, our neighboring municipality to dance. Compared to Gothenburg, Skaraborg’s municipalities are a bit like the city districts there – it takes about the same amount of time to travel between the towns, but traveling through the countryside is much prettier than in the big city.”

Even if building a new social network took a little time, Jonathan has always felt welcomed in Skaraborg.

“There’s loads of excellent social contexts where people are very welcoming.”