“It Is a Total Drama”: Land Use Conflicts in Local Land Use Actors’ Experience

As land is limited, conflicts between uses, and, consequently, users about use inevitably arise. However, how these affect local actors has remained underexplored. The objective of this paper to provide a broad, cross-sectoral overview as perceived by and explore the actors’ experiences with conflicts. We conducted 32 semistructured interviews key (mayors, agencies, interest groups, boards, businesses) in urban-rural fringe region Schwerin, Germany. then applied qualitative text analysis identify region’s most relevant across all sectors (agriculture, settlement, infrastructure, forestry, conservation, tourism, industry, etc.) their impacts on daily experiences. results show that are aware many diverse conflicts, frequently regarding uses for housing, environmental/species traffic. Moreover, report work, perceive strain. Conflicts impede management processes; they tie up resources, often complex, can be experienced highly stressful—as summed an interviewee’s conclusion: “It total drama”. Thus, play important mostly negative role actors. These findings fill current gaps literature types which consequences also underline relevance addressing planning governance, need appropriate conflict management, necessity providing sufficient resources deal further identifies some starting points so enhance rather than communal life rural areas.