12 / 24
Archaeology & Anthropology 2018
Global Journal of Research and Review
ISSN: 2393-8854
Page 38
October 01-02, 2018
London, UK
1
st
Edition of international Conference on
Archaeology and
Anthropology
T
hispaper isabout longwavesof urbangrowthandurbanization
in Sweden during the past two hundred years. Since an urban
breakthrough around 1840 Swedish urbanization has evolved in
cycles with a length of forty years. A combination of demographic
and economic factors is supposed to have generated this
pattern. Each long period has for example a specific set up
of dynamic industries which can be supported by favourable
urban demographic conditions. The expansive branches cause
rapid growth for some cities while others stagnate. A theory of
uneven urban development has been used to explain variations
in population growth between cities and regions as well as over
time. The first four cycles (1840-1870/80; 1870/80-1920/30,
1920/30-c.1970) form together a long wave of industrial
urbanization. They have been followed by post-industrial
urbanization (c.1970-c.2010) characterized by metropolisation
and urban shrinkage, and a second post-industrial cycle may
recently have started. The analysis is based on official datasets
for towns, boroughs and all other urban localities from the
Swedish Central Bureau of Statistics. These figures have been
careful revised to give reliable and comparable data. The short
term effects of changes in administrative urban areas have thus
been neutralized. Foundation of new towns and boroughs, and the
introduction of new urban localities into the official statistics have
been balanced in the same way. The revised figures have given a
more solid base for the analysis.
lars.nilsson@historia.su.seLars Nilsson
Institute of Urban History - Stockholm University, Sweden
Glob J Res Rev 2018, Volume 5
DOI: 10.21767/2393-8854-C1-003
Long waves of urbanization, 1800-2015