A Decade of City-Leading Strategies in Sweden: 2004 − 2014

The early years of the 2000's were turbulent in most of the European countries. Even within a country, wide divergencies were found. The Scandinavian counties as a group managed the Austerities of 2008 and onwards fairly well, but taking a closer look at the Swedish case reveal interesting differences underneath the peaceful (and successful) surface. In this period, a large regional reform was widely discussed, but eventually thrown out from the political agenda. So, constitutionally, no fancy reforms were introduced, things stayed more or less the same in the country, constitutionwise. However, the new political party, the Sweden democrats, who entered the local governments with 2 mandates in 1991, and received 612 in elections 2010, are now in the national government with 12 percent of the votes. In addition, the three cities Stockholm (capital), Gothenburg (2nd) and Malmö (3rd) are the main economic drivers in the country, but throughout this period of time the rest of the country has to a great extent been "left on their own". The County of Jönköping was known as the industrial seedbed in the country, but here population numbers have not changed during the early 2000s, and the northern part of the country looses citizens every year, in favour of the largest cities. In this paper, I aim to develop on these internal differences, comparing GDP, immigration, political turnout and running coalitions, population numbers and the local housing markets (how much is built and housing types). This will be discussed across the "big 3" and the county of Jönköping and one of the northern regions; in order to discuss the role of the population issue in the light of Austerity. Relevant references will of course be used, as suggested.