Around 1250 AD the land uplift had made Mälaren a fresh water lake with a streaming outlet into the Baltic both sides a small island, a hill of an esker running south-north across the water. The strategic island was fortified, a city founded. It grew to the biggest one in the realm already before 1300AD. The foundation falls into the period of hanseatic town foundations around the Baltic based on sea trade and the German influence was strong. Stockholm controlled the trade of the old provinces around Lake Mälaren including a number of medieval towns, agricultural areas and the main mining and steel producing area, Bergslagen. 

In late medieval time the whole island was occupied by the city, today ‘Old town’, where two generations of city walls had to be removed. The city began to spread also north and south of the island in irregular patterns. 

In the 17th century a new phase of rapid growth began as a consequence of Sweden’s expansion under king Gustaf II Adolf into a multinational Baltic empire, Stockholm being the capital, where the nobility, the military as well as civil servants built private palaces.. Stockholm’s control of the foreign trade was extended to all ports around the Bothnian Sea and Gulf. 

From 1620 to 1680 the number of inhabitants grew from ab.10000 to ab. 60000. The small wooden or half timbered houses of the city gave place to 5-6 storeyed stone buildings on the medieval stone cellars. After a fire in the 1620s the western part of the Old town was rebuilt in a rectangular pattern, the beginning of a modernisation of the town plan also north and south of the island according to renaissance ideals. Drottninggatan, Regeringsgatan, Storgatan and Hornsgatan were main axis. 

After 150 years of stagnation a third phase of rapid growth began when the first main railway line reached Stockholm, 1855. 1870 the main lines south and north of Stockholm were knit together through the Old town. Stockholm maintained the position as the biggest industrial town of Sweden. Since 1855 the population of Stockholm/Greater Stockholm has grown by 2% a year. A townplan, dated 1866 and inspired from Paris surrounded the older quarters of the city with a ring of urban 5-6 storeyed blocks with a new kind of broad streets with trees, ‘boulevards’, even a ‘Place de l’Étoile’ (Karlaplan). 

The business life grew out of the Old town to the north, where the Central station was built. 1850 Stockholm had ab. 100.000 inh., 1920 500.000. With the Royal Palace as its historic centre the organs of government with the Riksdag and the government offices are concentrated around Norrström. Commercial offices, banks and the largest retail stores form the city centre proper in Nedre Norrmalm. 

From 1930 planners thought growth was over and let the city be surrounded by vast areas of one-family houses with gardens. However the booming years of Swedish economy after WWII gave rise to the most dramatic period of growth in the history of Stockholm. In the period 1950-70 Stockholm grew yearly by 25.000 people. An outer ring of planned multistoreyed-house suburbs with metro-connection to the city centre was created on land owned by the city. Central place theory and modern architectural models were applied and a system of centers providing all sorts of services, industry, and housing of different character were created. (ABC-suburbs: A=work, B =living, C= services). Vällingby, inaugurated 1955, became a model studied by planners from all over the world. Parallell to this the city center was totally reconstructed and a new city centre, where metrolines met was built after removal of a cityscape from 17th to 19th centuries. Protest movements appeared and stopped continued demolition of old buildings and streets. 

A recent phase of growth began with the development of high tech industries (electronics and biotechnology) and IT-sector in the 1990s. The axis Stockholm-Arlanda airport (Kista) developed to an IT-centre of international importance, now severely hit by the ‘IT-crisis’. Greater Stockholm has now ab. 1,6 million inh. within a radius of 30 km,15% of them born abroad.

SNA 2004-07-19