In many Western countries larger cities expand geographically and smaller surrounding communities (i.e. hinterlands) become integrated into a larger city-region. In the first years of the 21st century there were more than 300 city-regions across the. An argument for city-regions is to ease and promote labor market interaction, i.e. to balance geographic mismatch of labor supply and demand. Consequently, a rationale for growth of cities and regions (into city regions) is to accomplish territorial entities that will be competitive, economic strong and part of important global networks. A consequence of interaction between people and businesses in different parts of the region is increased transport and travel. A large number of people travel long distances to work. In Europe, commuting times are increasing; 15 percent of the employed have travel times of 60 minutes and more to work, and the trend is that distance as well as number of people engaged in long-distance commuting is increasing. This means that for many people the working-hours are spent in another municipality or city than the residential municipality, i.e. an increasing number of people spend their awaken time outside their residential municipality. In order to manage the puzzle of daily activities within the individual’s time-space frame, a number of service and leisure amenities might have to be carried out outside the residential municipality. Municipalities provide basic services (education, care, infrastructure, residential planning etc.) to its residents and exercise taxation power. Public participation is thus restricted to residency, and frequent visitors (e.g. in-commuters) lack the possibilities and rights to participate in politics and decision-making. At the same time, living in one municipality but spending a large part of the active hours in another limit the time available for participating in different social and political activities in the residential municipality. Being non-present for long hours can influence the citizens’ identity and responsibility to the residential municipality. This raises the questions if commuting (in this case within the city regions) strengthens or weakens attachment to the residential municipality and city-region respectively, and if the propensity to migrate is affected by commuting? The empirical results in this presentation are based on a questionnaire survey in two city-regions in Sweden. The survey was carried out in 2010, and directed to citizens in the larger Göteborg region in the south, and the smaller Umeå region in the north.