Earlier this year the OECD presented its Territorial Review of Stockholm, a report paid for by local and national Swedish authorities. Brita Hermelin, Associate Professor at the Department of Human Geography at the University of Stockholm summarizes the document for the Journal. In general, she agrees with some of the points made while also identifying errors generated by its rather unreflective usage of today's "taken-for-granted templates" for regionalisation and regional development. Had more attention been given to the multi-faceted qualities and particularities of the Stockholm region Hermelin argues, this would have led to a less superficial discussion.
Summary:
The Stockholm-review is preceded by a number of similar territorial reviews for other metropolitan regions. The overall aim here has been to define policy recommendations for the national governments concerned. The focus of interest is regional economic growth.
In chapter one, the report presents a picture of the Stockholm region as being strong economically. This claim is primarily made based on statistical data, where it is noted that in the Stockholm region the activity rate, productivity, and patent applications rate are all high. Large shares of the region's labour have undergone advanced education. The region houses competitive and innovative industrial clusters. International relations are intensive, with extensive export and import flows and high levels of foreign direct investment to the region.
The OECD report however also identifies a number of problems. These can be listed as follows, the spiralling cost of the welfare state in combination with an ageing population, high housing costs, housing scarcity, weak integration of immigrants into the labour market, high rates of workplace absenteeism, low rates of entrepreneurship and a scarcity of new fast growing enterprises, an overburdened transport infrastructure, a fragmented administrative and political structure for the organisation of the metropolitan region, high taxes and a poor international place-marketing strategy.
Chapters two and three elaborate on the problems identified above and on how they could be solved. The OECD recommends that central government reconsider its role in supporting the competitiveness of the country's major metropolitan region, where the Swedish welfare equalisation system imposes a significant financial burden on the Stockholm region. The report concludes that the best solution here would be a continuation of the regionalisation processes currently underway in Sweden, and more specifically that the counties of Stockholm and Uppsala together could consolidate into a region with an elected council and a president: "This solution seems to be the best" (p. 159).
Comments:
In general, the report is however too superficial. One reason for this is that the role of the capital is not discussed. What consideration has been made of the political and economic consequences of a capital region, in this case in Sweden, gaining a more independent status from the nation state? The OECD provides no answers here.
Secondly, the major questions surrounding the economic possibilities of culture, tourism and consumption are not examined in any great detail. What is the role of such activities for the competitive status of Stockholm? Again, the OECD provides no answers.
Thirdly, it is difficult to comprehend, in more concrete terms, how the OECD's recommendations can be matched to particular major problems in the regions.
There is however more to digest in a report such as this than it is possible to evaluate in the limited space available here. As such, readers of the report will doubtless identify various other issues of interest. For more details, see: www.oecd.org.