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The big city has had a long boom. This is true from a global perspective: in recent decades, the population of China’s cities has grown by more than one full Sweden each year. Western metropolises like New York have also had a cultural and economic renaissance. Crime has decreased and city centers have flourished.
This is also true in the main Swedish cities. One can even speak of a small new development in Sweden, especially in the capital. Since 1990, Stockholm’s population has grown three times faster than the rest of the country.
In the city center goes the economic boom to see it at a glance. The new SUVs of the German animal brands are crowded on the streets. Parking pockets are no longer sized for Stockholmers wallets.
The impression gradually changes when you take the blue subway line from the city. Income falls for each season. In Rinkeby-Kista they are half as big as in Östermalm.
However, the economic rebound in the region has been reasonably broad. Employment is the highest in the country. The Stockholm metropolitan area now accounts for 21 percent of Sweden’s population and 31 percent of the country’s GDP.
The city has been an unstoppable locomotive.
But then the pandemic came and abruptly stopped many large cities. London and New York, economic centers of every continent, are among the worst affected places in the world. Evil rumors say that they will never rise again.
In Sweden, nearly half of the covid-related deaths have occurred in Stockholm. Life in the city is impoverished.
How will you do?
The city is social phenomenon. It exists because people seek closeness to each other, shop with each other and work, have fun, experience culture.
When we avoid infection through social distancing, the city falls into a coma. It has eliminated the industries that rely the most on physical encounters. The nightlife, culture and entertainment are almost practical.
The fact that these industries are so heavily concentrated in big cities also explains why the economic impact has been felt more there. In Stockholm, the number of openly unemployed has increased by more than 70 percent between July last year and the same month this year. The increase is twice as high as in the most virus-free counties.
This is probably the first time in modern times that an economic crisis has hit Stockholm in the worst way in the country. The consequences for restaurants, hotels, stages and other entertainment will also be felt in the long term.
The economic framework in Stockholm, the office economy has performed better.
The most important activities in almost every major city revolve around skilled problem solving in various corporate bureaucracies. These are bank employees, lawyers, engineers, consultants, publishers, architects, publicists.
The most common profession in Stockholm is a programmer. The information technology industry is itself a major factor behind the reigniting of the city in recent decades.
All of these professions have in common that they are largely compatible with telecommuting. According to an OECD calculation, Stockholm is one of the cities in the Western world where the majority, more than half, can work from home. People have done the same. And it has worked. In the short term, at least.
But here we have also a paradox. If all urban worker ants can work at the kitchen table, why do they work and live in Stockholm? An apartment here costs imaginary sums. It is completely impossible to get a lease. Travel times are too long.
When there are meetings and zoom chats, why then have all the big companies and startups meeting their employees here, where there are so many people and it is so expensive?
The reason is, of course, that the office economy is also a social phenomenon. The pattern is very well covered in the research. Companies, employees, inventors and entrepreneurs achieve more when they are planted in the soil of the city. It’s the congestion, the physical density, that does everything.
The American Urban Economist Edward Glaeser has written extensively on most of the city’s merits. One of his most influential research studies is called “Learning in Cities.” In it, he has shown that a crucial reason cities serve such a special economic role is that people develop faster there. He is always close to some form of learning.
The city is thus a kind of open polytechnic. In the pandemic, distance education has been moved.
Did it really work?
In that case, it would be a threat to the city. If the technology of digital communication had gone so far as to allow us a total exchange between us, the city would no longer have much value.
The giant telecommuting experiment is not over yet. But a preliminary and completely anecdotal assessment says that it is too early to abolish the real human contacts that are the great advantage of the city.
Aftonbladet columnist Peter Kadhammar gave a concise summary after a few months of video conferencing: “I’m empty of the ball. My colleagues are also empty. “
It just means that people are seen. And perhaps not primarily in meetings. One working day is dozens of spontaneous micro-meetings. Speaking of nothing. Talking about something. Such things cannot be replaced digitally.
It will be the city To die? The more we advance with teleworking, the more it becomes exhausted. Nightlife and culture weaken.
But cities have survived wars, pandemics, and economic crises in the past. And amid the pandemic, internet giant Amazon has rented large offices in both Manhattan and Stockholm. That might say something about how the company thinks about the future of the city.
When the crisis ends, there will also be some traces. Now everyone knows how to videoconference. Sometimes it is practical.
There are also studies that show that people in certain roles, for example in a call center, are more productive when they work from home. For most people, it’s probably good for change too.
A possible consequence It’s because people see each other a little less in offices and meeting rooms. Some may walk away from work and travel less often. In that case, it can extend the extreme geographic limits of the city quite far.
If nightlife, entertainment and culture, which of course live in close interchange with the office economy, do not recover, the gravitational pull of the city will also be attenuated.
But maybe other places will also get stronger then. A small equalization between Stockholm and the rest of Sweden does not have to be bad.
