This paper focuses on the role of spatial imaginaries in Sweden’s transition to a fossil free society. Through focus groups and individual interviews in two Swedish communities, closely entangled with carbon intensive industries, we analyze the spatial imaginaries embedded in people’s stories about place and what they are doing to the local dynamics of the fossil free transition. Our findings show how othering, recognized as a forceful mechanism of spatial imaginaries, contributes to a starkly pronounced us-and-them dynamics in our case study locations where geographical divisions such as urban-rural, north-south and center-periphery shapes how the fossil free transition is understood and received. Our findings suggest that from a national policy perspective the greatest challenge ahead lies in “creating an us” in the face of transformation by designing policies that approach the transition to a fossil free society as a common concern met by collective effort. Moreover, our results confirm the vital importance of also treating industrial decarbonization as a process of place-making where communities and local citizens are at the very center of envisioning place-based desired futures.