In recent years, the phenomenon of summer streets and summer squares has been a popular car-free street space intervention in Sweden. They are a good example of how municipalities plan and test new ideas in the transition from automobility to a sustainable city. In this thesis they are referred to as street experiments.

Previous research has focused a lot on these types of interventions as embedded cases with the intention of reframing the system. Discourse analysis as a method in transport studies is not that common, and I perceive discourses about street experiments as a research gap. The aim of this thesis is to critically examine discourses about street experiments in the Swedish context, specifically in Uppsala and Malmö, and identify the resonance and dissonance between the municipalities that implement them and the public that uses them.

There are three dominant discourses: the attractive and livable city, the green and sustainable city, and the politics of public space. Within these three discourses, different aspects nuance them, which shows the breadth and complexity of these experiments. The intentions of the Swedish street experiments differ slightly from the international academic debate; thus, they do not fully fit the definition. The municipalities’ discourse differs from the public as they are seen as embedded cases for their long-term goals, while the public sees them as a current change in their everyday lives. This finding shows the gap between the political and perception and opens up the need for self-evaluation by the municipalities and increased public participation and initiative in the public space.