Note from Stockholm: Visit to Skärholmen, the Swedish “banlieu”

As part of my conversations during my sejour in Sweden, had asked a young Swedish woman whom was a sister of another acquaintance whom I had met through a networking session in NYC at the office space I rent, to tell me about the poor areas of Stockholm. She mentioned a few that are stops along the T13 subway line to Norsborg: Skärholmen, Fittja, one last one Rinbeby, this last one I could not locate in the map.

Since I had but a few hours to my plane, decided to go to the closest one, Skärholmen. I did not know what to expect, since I have gone thru shanty towns in South Africa, favelas in Brazil, vecindades in Mexico, and live in Harlem (not quite the Bronx) in NYC. Some better, some worse than others, overall marginal areas within their respective urban settings. Yet, my only comp as to what to expect was potentially some of the lesser visited areas from Narita to downtown Tokyo if one takes the train or maybe even some parts of little India in Singapore. None of them, what I would consider close to the Brazil etc in poverty. She had mentioned herself, from experience (having lived in Italy) that these Swedish neighborhoods were nowhere close to what was in the rest of Europe.

I went to see for myself.

I arrived in a quite empty train line, not particular to the destination, since I had not seen many people in the other lines or in the opposite landing. Yet, I knew I was heading towards the correct place when the “de-blondisation” began to happen before my eyes amongst the other commuters. 

From where I had boarded at Medborgarplasten to my change in Susslen and then continuing to Nosborg, I had only passed one station. The passengers here were a reflection of what I had seen my previous days above. Blonde women and men, both young and old, some with remarkably chiseled features, others not as remarkable yet with this particular Nordic phenotype readily apparent. Within 2-3 stations in the T13 line, however, that population had vanished. I recognized 1-2 chinese speakers in the train, a northern African man to my right (could not tell if Somali / Ethiopian). Exciting, I arrived into a small square with two reflecting pools. A church on my right, and a vegetable stall on my left. There were people here, but very sparse. Wanted to look for more.

I took the first flight of stairs leading to the dense buildings above the station following one of my Chinese co-passengers of the train. There was a lift up various sets of stairs and joined there too. Looking thru the windows of the lift, noticed the empty streets. Alighted the lift.

Emptiness except for 3-4 people walking. The buildings looked high-density, 5-7 stories tall, with various apartments per floor, yet, no people in sight. Calm.

Complete lack of heavy graffiti (I saw 2-3 places where there were some scribbles) on the buildings and common areas. Thrash collected, debris-free floor, ordered homes and windows. Even as some old furniture rested in some of the bottom flats, there was nothing of the sort one observes in some of the mostly minority neighborhoods in Los Angeles, loitered with old ventilation, car parts, furniture etc. I pleasantly walked amongst the buildings, without any youth loitering in corners, eyeing me suspiciously. Was this the worse I thought then? Uncertain given my short time there.

Yet, there was much more to learn in this short stroll. Open spaces, lined with trees amongst gardens with generously planted flowers, games for children.

Set amongst the greenery, there were sculptures, art.  Exquisite bronzes, none of the generic colossal engineering type adorning sometimes the entrance of a development in Latin America; art an afterthought of the developer.  These pieces had been carefully selected and positioned; amongst two benches, in the corner near a passage, at the top of a flight of stairs. 

Particularly relevant and telling of urban planning bureaus and or developers or whomever initiated construction. The majority of cities would not have taken the time, given the population and relative lack of wealth.  I kept thinking back of the developments I had seen in Mexico City, Monterrey of the “caseros”, the new massive housing developers that have recently taken off in Mexico’s own Real Estate boom.  I will not criticize them fully, since they provide a far better service and performance than the government owned authority has done in order to close on the Mexican housing deficit.

 Yet, within those developments, the generic blocks with developments named after flora, none abounded. Maximization of space is not necessarily conducive to aesthetic beauty. Aesthetic beauty that in my own opinion transcends the ethereal or transient. Aesthetic beauty that is imbudes the human with appreciation for its surroundings, itself.

Here, in this particular development in Sweden, beyond aesthetics and art, what was strongly felt was the availability of space. Space between one building and the next. Space between people (“lack” of them everywhere!). Silence, space for reflection. A quiet day in NYC or in a medium sized metropolis does not yet compare.  The suburbs with its subdivisions in the US don’t give the same sense of community, hence in my view they are not comparable.

The sense of space led me to the question on population; so dear to my heart. How does one change a country to reduce its number of people by the volition of its own population?  What if Mexico had only 10mm and Brazil only 20mm? Today they both have approximately 110mm and 190mm, respectively, and growing. Imagine the quality of life?  The reduction (and here will just hypothesize so please let me continue in my fancy) of problems caused by overcrowding, pollution, resource consumption.  Ten million Mexicans (or even less??), I think such a population would hardly cause a dent in the country’s overall resources (resources would still be there regardless of population levels and with all the technology available today it would be a panacea). The level of education that one could give to the children, the current # of schools in the country would be sufficient, same with housing and arable land etc.  The “value” of each individual would increase (today it seems like not every life in this planet seems to be worth the same, some are more equal than others).

Can this be possible? Can our society lead this? I thought back at Bill Gross’ (of PIMCO, more below) words this week as they were quoted on Bloomberg. The article read:

“Without acceleration of population growth, developed countries finance more consumption to maintain economic growth, the world’s biggest bond-fund manager wrote in his August commentary today in Newport Beach, California-based PIMCO’s website.  Leveraged spending, he said, is not a substitute for demand created by people.

‘I will go so far as to say that not only growth but capitalism itself may be in part dependent on a growing population,’ Gross wrote. ‘Production depends on people, not only in the actual process, but because of the final demand justifies its existence.’”

So, can this be possible? Unsure. But surely strong forces are at work against such a solution, explicitly or indirectly.

I truly enjoyed Sweden, along with the wedding festivities of my very good friend, I had been eager to come, curious to learn more.  The visit made me dream of the possibilities with humanity. At the same time, one becomes aware of the huge hill to climb and the challenges ahead. Will there be enough time? Not sure, we still have to try though.

Note: my analysis is incomplete, my point of view biased by the people I met, by my deep ignorance in the country and by my short stay. The above is just what I saw, cannot represent any more beyond that.