The Stockholm Metropolitan System of Innovation

Abstract

The metropolitan region of Stockholm has essentially a polycentric structure in which the city of Stockholm itself, the Swedish capital, is by far the strongest player. The rest of the Mälar region can be said to constitute the hinterland of metropolitan Stockholm (see Fig. 4.1). The ample availability of land in Sweden implies that the pressure is not as large on scarce land resources for urban development as in other European metropolitan regions. Lake Mälaren is an environmental asset and a trade infrastructure, at the same time being the major supplier of drinking water to all the urban settlements in the area. For the moment there is no comprehensive physical plan that controls the future land-use in the region, which houses a number of small and medium-sized urban settlements. The hinterland of the Stockholm region used to be the core of the Swedish manufacturing industry.