Stockholm Municipality Research Articles

SubCity: Planning for a sustainable subsurface in Stockholm

With an expected increase in urbanisation and low-carbon transition efforts, the planning of cities is becoming more challenging, and societies need to rethink how urban infrastructures will be constructed in the future. There is a growing recognition that the use of space below the city will need to be significantly enhanced. However, once transformed, underground space becomes a permanent feature, and major metropolitan areas worldwide are gradually acknowledging the subsurface as a valuable, non-renewable resource, emphasising the necessity for long-term, comprehensive, and sustainable planning of its utilisation. Sweden, including the Stockholm region, has favourable geological conditions for building underground facilities and a long tradition of subsurface engineering. Despite these advantages, Stockholm lacks a comprehensive, long-term underground plan or strategy. For years, major subsurface projects have been driven by short-term needs, potentially hindering the optimal use of space below the cityscape. The overall purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we explore the nascent area of scholarly work concerned with the case of Stockholm’s subsurface. We do so by evaluating the current status and potential of urban underground planning in Stockholm municipality. Second, we seek to advance existing planning knowledge and practices concerning Stockholm’s subsurface by identifying several distinct but interrelated gaps and challenges that impede the immediate integration of urban underground space into strategic decision-making for the future of underground planning in Stockholm. We suggest that further research is necessary in several key areas to facilitate the effectiveness and sustainability of long-term urban underground use and planning in Stockholm City and its metropolitan area.

Who Owns the City, and Why Should We Care?

Who owns the city, and why is it important to know? The city constantly makes decisions that affect municipal residents regarding municipal services, land use, and financing. The cost is often linked directly to the municipal residents, but the benefits of some decisions directly affect the property owners and only indirectly affect the municipal residents. On the other hand, the property owners can be residents in the city or the country, but they can also be foreign property owners. Therefore, the distribution of costs will differ from the distribution of benefits. The study aims to investigate and analyse real estate owners in some focus areas in the Stockholm municipality in terms of nationality, patterns of real estate usage, area of properties, and the nature of ownership.

The golf course as an outdoor classroom—A proof of concept project

AbstractPupils’ learning experience can be improved if part of the teaching takes place in a natural outdoor environment. Golf courses and the land that surrounds them as outdoor classrooms could become particularly important at a time when most of the world's population lives in urban landscapes and when local areas suitable for outdoor activities are becoming scarce. A consequence of the Coronavirus crisis is higher demand for outdoor activities in the urban landscape, including outdoor teaching. The Swedish National Curriculum advocates the development of cognitive as well as affective competencies and skills, which makes outdoor teaching a natural and integrated part of today's school and education, where outdoor and indoor learning activities complement each other. In this project, at Motala Golf Club, in collaboration with the Smedsby School in Motala, methods for outdoor teaching on golf courses and the most suitable areas of the golf course for use as an outdoor classroom were investigated. A training course for participating teachers was held in autumn 2017, and the children visited their new classroom at the golf course in spring 2018. Through this project, Motala Golf Club has become a pilot model for outdoor teaching on golf courses. The concept of the golf course as an outdoor classroom is being implemented in Stockholm municipality and Jönköping municipality.

A framework for the assessment of electric bus charging station construction: A case study for Stockholm's inner city

Electromobility has gained momentum in the last years following the efforts to reduce transportation-related emissions. In this context, efficient charging infrastructure is vital to foster the expansion of electric vehicles. This paper presents a standardized framework for micro-scale analysis of potential charging locations for electric buses aiming at easing the analysis process and promoting the expansion of electric buses. The framework is tailor-made for the Municipality of Stockholm and tested in two city-centre public transport hubs, namely Odenplan and Slussen. However, the framework can be used in other locations by implementing minimum changes. Connecting charging stations to the power grid is identified as the main drawback in city-centre locations due to their high impact on the grid. Lack of available capacity at nearby connection points results in long distance connections, reaching up to 1 km in some cases. Such connections impact the overall cost of electrification directly, as they may account for up to 63% of the total cost. Although other issues regarding space availability and operational efficiency also need to be addressed, such as the lack of enough dwell time to charge the batteries, the framework proves the suitability of these inner-city locations as charging points.

Towards Differentiated Energy Renovation Strategies for Heritage-Designated Multifamily Building Stocks

The historic building stock is not homogeneous, which implies a need for differentiated energy renovation strategies in order to balance energy efficiency requirements and building conservation goals. This paper presents a new method for developing a base for differentiated energy renovation strategies for heritage-classified multifamily building stocks. Our suggested method combines different building databases using an extract, transform and load (ETL) technology. The method for this study was tested on the available information for heritage-designated and -classified multifamily buildings in the municipality of Stockholm, Sweden, and in the county of Halland, Sweden. The two cases reflect the heterogeneity of the Swedish Building stock. An important achievement is that the results visualise the relationship, not detectable before, between energy use, energy performance, year of construction and heritage classification within each of the selected building stocks. A specific result is that the energy-saving potential in the older building stock is insignificant in relation to the entire stock. The results contribute to an improved understanding of relationships both within and between the two historic building stocks, which is useful for developing differentiated energy renovation strategies.

Groups' contribution to shaping ethnic residential segregation: a dynamic approach

Some have argued it is possible to infer different groups’ contributions to ethnic residential segregation from their individual neighborhood preferences. From this perspective, natives tend to be more segregation-promoting than non-natives, since they prefer neighborhoods where they are the majority. It remains unclear, however, whether this holds when one evaluates their contributions to segregation within a dynamic perspective. Using register data from Statistics Sweden, I define and model ten different groups’ residential behavior based on their ethnicity and family composition. I thereby simulate the residential mobility of the full population of Stockholm municipality residents from 1998 to 2012. Even though my results at the micro-level are consistent with previous studies, the simulation results show that foreign singles’ mobility patterns are more segregation-promoting than any other groups, since this group shows a greater in-group feedback effect regarding choice of new neighborhoods, an effect that increases their flow from low-to-high segregated neighborhoods progressively. My results suggest that (1) integration initiatives would be more efficient if focused on this particular group and (2) a proper evaluation of micro-behaviors’ implications for macro-patterns of segregation requires a dynamic approach accounting for groups’ heterogeneous behaviors and their main interdependencies on shaping segregation over time.

The Association between Parental Support and Adolescents' Psychological Complaints: The Mediating Role of a Good School Climate.

Parental support is an important factor affecting young people’s mental well-being, but the school climate also plays an important role. However, few studies have previously examined whether the school climate serves as a mediator for adolescents’ mental health problems. This study aimed to investigate the association between parental support and students’ psychological complaints, while also examining the possible mediating role that a good school climate may have. Data derives from 5783 senior-level students (age 15–16) distributed over 152 school units in Stockholm municipality. Regression linear analysis was used for the analysis and Baron and Kenny’s four-step mediation model has been applied. Sobel’s test was conducted in order to test the significance of the mediation effect. The results show that there is a significant negative association between parental support and students’ psychological complaints, and that school climate has a mediating role in this association. It can be concluded that school climate has a partly mediating role in the association between parental support and students’ psychological complaints. Therefore, it seems important to develop the school climate in order to strengthen this source of support to reduce mental health problems among adolescents.

Do segregated housing markets have a spillover effect on housing prices in nearby residential areas?

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to analyse the trends regarding housing segregation over the past 10–20 years and determine whether housing segregation has a spillover effect on neighbouring housing areas. Namely, the authors set out to determine whether proximity to a specific type of segregated housing market has a negative impact on nearby housing markets while proximity to another type of segregated market has a positive impact.Design/methodology/approachFor the purposes of this paper, the authors must combine information on segregation within a city with information on property values in the city. The authors have, therefore, used data on the income of the population and data on housing values taken from housing transactions. The case study used is the city of Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. The empirical analysis will be the estimation of the traditional hedonic pricing model. It will be estimated for the condominium market.FindingsThe results indicate that segregation, when measured as income sorting, has increased over time in some of the housing markets. Its effects on housing values in neighbouring housing areas are significant and statistically significant.Research limitations/implicationsA better understanding of the different potential spillover effects on housing prices in relation to the spatial distribution of various income groups would be beneficial in determining appropriate property assessment levels. In other words, awareness of this spillover effect could improve existing property assessment methods and provide local governments with extra information to make an informed decision on policies and services needed in different neighbourhoods.Practical implicationsOn housing prices emanating from proximity to segregated areas with high income differs from segregated areas with low income, policies that address socio-economic costs and benefits, as well as property assessment levels, should reflect this pronounced difference. On the property level, positive spillover on housing prices near high-income segregated areas will cause an increase in the number of higher income groups and exacerbate segregation based on income. Contrarily, negative spillover on housing prices near low-income areas might discourage high-income households from moving to a location near low-income segregated areas. Local government should be aware of these spillover effects on housing prices to ensure that policies intended to reduce socioeconomic segregation, such as residential and income segregation, produce desirable results.Social implicationsFurthermore, a good estimation of these spillover effects on housing prices would allow local governments to carry out a cost–benefit analysis for policies intended to combat segregation and invest in deprived communities.Originality/valueThe main contribution of this paper is to go beyond the traditional studies of segregation that mainly emphasise residential segregation based on income levels, i.e. low-income or high-income households. The authors have analysed the spillover effect of proximity to hot spots (high income) and cold spots (low income) on the housing values of nearby condominiums or single-family homes within segregated areas in Stockholm Municipality in 2013.

Elite Schools, Elite Ambitions? The Consequences of Secondary-Level School Choice Sorting for Tertiary-Level Educational Choices

Abstract We ask if school choice, through its effect on sorting across schools, affects high school graduates’ application decisions to higher education. We exploit a school choice reform that dramatically increased achievement sorting across secondary schools in the municipality of Stockholm, employing a before–after design with a control group of students in similar schools located outside this municipality. The reform had a close to zero mean effect on the propensity to apply for tertiary educational programs, but strongly affected the self-selection by achievement into the kinds of higher educational programs applied for. Low achievers increased their propensity to apply for the ‘low-status’ educational programs, on average destining them to less prestigious, less well-paid occupations, and high achievers increased their propensity to apply for ‘high-status’ educational programs, on average destining them to more prestigious, well-paid occupations. The results suggest that increased sorting across schools reinforces differences across schools and groups in ‘cultures of ambition’. Although these effects translate into relatively small increases in the gender gap, the immigration gap, and the parental education gap in educational choice, our results indicate that school choice, and the increased sorting it leads to, through conformity mechanisms in schools polarizes educational choices of students across achievement groups.

Health economic assessment of a scenario to promote bicycling as active transport in Stockholm, Sweden

ObjectivesTo conduct a health economic evaluation of a proposed investment in urban bicycle infrastructure in Stockholm County, Sweden.DesignA cost-effectiveness analysis is undertaken from a healthcare perspective. Investment costs over a...

Future orientation, gambling and risk gambling among youth: a study of adolescents in Stockholm

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to analyze the association between adolescents’ future orientation and their engagement in gambling and in risk gambling, respectively. The data used come from the Stockholm School Survey, collected in 2016 among students in the ninth grade in elementary school (15–16 years) and in the second grade of upper secondary school (17–18 years) in Stockholm municipality (n = 11,661). The results showed that adolescents who expected their future to be ‘much worse’ than that of others were more inclined to engage in gambling and in risk gambling compared with adolescents who expected their future to be similar to that of others. Furthermore, adolescents who expected their future to be ‘much better’ than that of others had an increased likelihood of engaging in gambling but not in risk gambling. The results are discussed in the light of elements from rational choice theory.

Variations on Modernisation: Technological Development and Internationalisation in Local Swedish School Policy From 1950 to 2000

ABSTRACTSince WWII, Sweden has had an international reputation for being modern and progressive, with schooling that provides equal opportunities for all children. Analysing local enactment of the national pursuit of modernisation in two contrasting municipalities, this paper offers new perspectives on Swedish education history beyond the image of schooling as a uniform national project. The concepts of technological development and internationalisation are applied to capture the ideas and visions inherent in this modernisation. The study demonstrates, through the example of the rural municipality of Tierp and the municipality of Stockholm, the complexity of the modernisation process and the interplay between divergent interpretations of national reforms and local enactment of modernisation.

Serum Markers of Methylation Status in Relation to Brain MRI Measures and Risk of Dementia

Objective: To investigate the association of markers of methylation status and sulfur amino-acids with risk of incident dementia and the rate of total brain tissue volume loss over 6 years in a longitudinal population-based study of Swedish older adults. Methods: From the Swedish National Study of Aging and Care in Kungsholmen (SNAC-K), 2570 dementia-free individuals aged 60-102 years at baseline were followed for 6 years, when incident dementia was diagnosed in 241 persons. Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to investigate the associations with incident dementia after adjusting for several potential confounders, including common vascular risk factors. Associations of methylation status (defined as serum methionine/homocysteine ratio) with the rate of brain tissue volume loss were examined in a subsample with repeated MRI measures during follow-up. Results: Elevated baseline serum total homocysteine was associated with increased risk of dementia over 6 years: for the highest homocysteine quartile, the hazard ratio (HR) (95% confidence interval (CI)) was 1.64 (1.03-2.60). In contrast, elevated concentrations of methionine were related to decreased risk of dementia (HR (95%CI) was 0.55 (0.37-0.83) for the highest quartile). Furthermore, higher values of the methionine/homocysteine ratio were significantly related to the lower risk of dementia (HR (95%CI) was 0.55 (0.36-0.82) for the third methionine/homocysteine quartile and 0.43 (0.26-0.69) for the 4th quartile). A better methylation status was associated with a decreased rate of total brain tissue volume loss during the study period. No relationships were found for other sulfur amino acids, vitamin B12 or folate. Interpretation: Markers of methylation status are associated with dementia development and structural brain changes over 6 years, suggesting that better methylation status may be important in reducing the rate of brain atrophy and decreasing the risk of dementia in older adults. Funding Statement: The SNAC-K is supported by the Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, Stockholm County Council, and Stockholm municipality. This work was supported by ALF grants (20130507, 20150589), Alzheimerfonden (Sweden), Center for Innovative Medicine (CIMED) at Karolinska Institute South Campus, Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (Sweden), Stiftelsen Stockholms Sjukhem (Sweden), Konung Gustaf V:s och Drottning Victorias Frimurarstiftelse, Fredrik O Ingrid Thurings Stiftelse, Capio Forskningsstiftelse, and Tore Nilsons Stiftelse For Medicinsk Forskning (Sweden). Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethics Approval Statement: The Ethics Committee at Karolinska Institutet and the Regional Ethical Review Board in Stockholm approved the protocols of each phase of SNAC-K and written informed consent was provided by all participants.

Assessing the quality of the indoor environment of senior housing for a better mobility: a Swedish case study

The aims of this article are to assess the quality of the indoor living environment of a senior housing (rental apartments for older adults aged 65+) in Hässelgården, Stockholm Municipality (Sweden’s capital), in 2014, in relation to their mobility, and to suggest improvement strategies. First, the physical indoor environment of older adults is examined via a fieldwork checklist devised in accordance with the principles of universal design (UD). Second, their indoor environment is assessed through a survey that includes subjective questions about seniors’ use of space, experience of falls, and safety perception. Third, the study explores whether the applications of UD in the seniors’ indoor living environment contribute to the understanding of their use of space, experience of falls, and safety perception. Fieldwork inspections and a detailed survey with residents are used as a basis for the empirical analysis. Overall, 27 out of 56 questionnaires were collected, and ten apartments have been visited in the fieldwork. Findings indicate that the living room has the highest UD score compared with those for the kitchen and the bedroom. The older adults spend most of their time in the living room and the kitchen. A low UD score (e.g. kitchen and bedroom) is associated with a higher number of falls but not with low levels of safety perception and use of space. The article concludes with suggestions to improve housing safety of Hässelgården’s senior housing, which may also help prevent falls in the older population elsewhere.

Impact of environment on people’s everyday experiences in Stockholm

In order to construct urban environments that limit negative impacts for global sustainability while supporting human wellbeing, there is a need to better understand how features of the environment influence people’s everyday experiences. We present a novel method for studying this combining accessibility analysis and public participatory GIS (PPGIS). Seven environment features are defined and accessibility to them analysed across Stockholm municipality. We estimate the probabilities of positive and negative experiences in places based on these environment features, by using spatial regression to extrapolate from the results of an online PPGIS survey (1784 experiences of 1032 respondents). Six of the seven studied environment features have significant impact on experiential outcome, after accounting for spatial autocorrelation among the data. The results show that number of residents and proximity of nature environments and water, all common quality indicators in urban planning and research, have weak statistically significant effects on people’s experiences. However, areas dominated by large working populations or proximity to major roads have very low rates of positive experiences, while areas with high natural temperature regulating capacities have very high rates, showing that there are considerable qualitative differences within urban environments as well as nature environments. Current urban planning practices need to acknowledge these differences to limit impacts on the biosphere while promoting human wellbeing. We suggest that a good way to start addressing this is through transformation of negatively experienced urban areas through designs that integrate closeness to urbanity with possibilities to have nature experiences on a daily basis.

School Leadership and Cyberbullying-A Multilevel Analysis.

Cyberbullying is a relatively new form of bullying, with both similarities and differences to traditional bullying. While earlier research has examined associations between school-contextual characteristics and traditional bullying, fewer studies have focused on the links to students’ involvement in cyberbullying behavior. The aim of the present study is to assess whether school-contextual conditions in terms of teachers’ ratings of the school leadership are associated with the occurrence of cyberbullying victimization and perpetration among students. The data are derived from two separate data collections performed in 2016: The Stockholm School Survey conducted among students in the second grade of upper secondary school (ages 17–18 years) in Stockholm municipality, and the Stockholm Teacher Survey which was carried out among teachers in the same schools. The data include information from 6067 students distributed across 58 schools, linked with school-contextual information based on reports from 1251 teachers. Cyberbullying victimization and perpetration are measured by students’ self-reports. Teachers’ ratings of the school leadership are captured by an index based on 10 items; the mean value of this index was aggregated to the school level. Results from binary logistic multilevel regression models show that high teacher ratings of the school leadership are associated with less cyberbullying victimization and perpetration. We conclude that a strong school leadership potentially prevents cyberbullying behavior among students.

A socio-ecological perspective of urban green networks: the Stockholm case

Landscape fragmentation threatens habitats, biodiversity and other ecosystem services. In tackling this threat, the dynamic processes of social-ecological systems should be recognised and understood. Although network analysis based on graph theory has been recognised as an efficient way of spatially understanding landscape or habitat connectivity, only few studies have offered specific approaches or suggestions for integrating detailed social-ecological values into geographical distributions. As a contribution to bridging this gap, this paper introduces a social-ecological network model for the issue of landscape or habitat fragmentation applied to the case of Stockholm, Sweden. Graph theory was used in combination with sociotope and biotope maps for simple visualisation of network situations in two-dimensional maps. The European crested tit (Lophophanes cristatus), European common toad (Bufo bufo) and human beings were selected as indicator species, based on a landscape ecology analysis in Stockholm Municipality in 2009. Slope, land use and human disturbance maps were assessed in order to decide cost values of travelling from node to node. Lease-cost-path accumulation was used to create ideal reference maps of green networks. Three separate maps were then developed for suggesting efficient routes for three indicators in city scale that mainly connect from the Royal National City Park to the other parts of the city. The model in Hjorthagen neighbourhood to highlight two practical paths that link this fragmented community to its neighbouring park areas. Findings make it possible to address two scales of network improvement strategies, namely first for the city-scale green network that connects geographical habitats (nodes) and the regional green wedges of the city, and the second that of neighbourhood links between habitats in detailed layers of green networks. Strategic improvement potentials are presented based on ideal reference maps of green networks correspondingly.

Are area-level effects just a proxy for school-level effects? Socioeconomic differences in alcohol consumption patterns among Swedish adolescents

AimsAlthough recent studies have found significant variations in adolescent alcohol consumption across neighbourhoods, these investigations did not address another important context in adolescents’ lives: schools. The purpose of this study was to not only simultaneously assess variations in adolescent alcohol use and binge drinking at the city district level and the school level but also analyse whether any such variations could be ascribed to the socioeconomic characteristics of the examined city districts, schools, and students. DesignCross-sectional study. SettingStockholm, Sweden. ParticipantsNinth-grade students (n=4349) attending schools (n=75) located in the city districts of the Stockholm municipality (n=14). MeasurementsTwo measures based on information regarding alcohol consumption were constructed: alcohol use (no or yes) and binge drinking among alcohol users (ranging from “very seldom” to “a few times a week”). A wide range of socioeconomic characteristics was included at the city district, school, and student levels. Alcohol use was analysed using mixed-effects logistic regression, whereas binge drinking among users was modelled using mixed-effects ordered logistic regression. FindingsThe results indicated that the school was more important than the city district in assessments of contextual variations in adolescent alcohol use in general and binge drinking in particular. Moreover, proportions of well-educated parents and high-performing students accounted for part of the school-level variation in alcohol use but not binge drinking. ConclusionsFailure to account for the school context may have caused past research to overestimate city district differences in alcohol consumption among adolescents.

Ability Grouping’s Effects on Grades and the Attainment of Higher Education

To test the effect of ability grouping on grades and the attainment of higher education, this study examines a naturally occurring experiment—an admission reform that dramatically increased ability sorting between schools in the municipality of Stockholm. Following six cohorts of students ( N = 79,020) from the age of 16 to 26, I find a mean effect close to zero and small positive and negative differentiating effects on grades. With regard to the attainment of higher education, I find a mean effect close to zero, the achievement group gap was unaffected, the immigrant–native gap increased, and the class background gap decreased. These results are consistent with much previous research that has found small mean effects of ability grouping. They are inconsistent with previous research, however, in that I find ability grouping’s effects on gaps are rather small and point in different directions.

The effect of the indoor environment on the fate of organic chemicals in the urban landscape

To assess the effect of the indoor environment on the urban fate of organic chemicals, an 8-compartment indoor-inclusive steady state multimedia chemical fate model was developed. The model includes typical urban compartments (air, soil, water, sediment, and urban film) and a novel module representing a generic indoor environment. The model was parameterized to the municipality of Stockholm, Sweden and applied to four organic chemicals with different physical–chemical characteristics and use patterns: formaldehyde, 2,4,6-tribromophenol, di-ethylhexylphthalate and decabromodiphenyl ether. The results show that emissions to indoor air may increase the steady state mass and residence time in the urban environment by a factor of 1.1 to 22 for the four chemicals, compared to if emissions are assigned to outdoor air. This is due to the nested nature of the indoor environment, which creates a physical barrier that prevents chemicals from leaving the urban system with outflowing air. For DEHP and BDE 209, the additional partitioning to indoor surfaces results in a greater importance of the indoor removal pathways from surfaces. The outdoor environmental concentrations of these chemicals are predicted to be lower if emitted to indoor air than if emitted to outdoor air because of the additional indoor removal pathways of dust and indoor film, leading to loss of chemical from the system. For formaldehyde and 2,4,6-TBP outdoor environmental concentrations are not affected by whether the release occurs indoors or outdoors because of the limited partitioning to indoor surfaces. A sensitivity analysis revealed that there appears to be a relationship between logKOA and the impact of the ventilation rate on the urban fate of organic chemicals.