Uppsala
Uppsala, Sweden’s fourth largest city, is located about 70 km north of the capital Stockholm. The city is in great growth and the number of inhabitants will surpass 200,000 by next year. Uppsala is a typical university city and the 40,000 students make a distinct mark in the streets. The large percentage of the population by foreign origin gives the city a international character. Uppsala is proud of its long tradition as a university city and archdiocese, with Scandinavia’s largest cathedral situated in the city’s historical centre. It is nonetheless important to broaden Uppsala’s image. To do this, the municipality is presently intensifying the city’s profile in fields like the environment, culture, sport, and the business climate.
Uppsala’s business community is especially strong in the spheres of life science and the service industries. The area of energy development is also expected to become increasingly significant, partly due to extensive research carried out at Uppsala University. The hospitality industry is also growing, and the creative sector, including the media, culture, art and design, has good potential. In 2007, the city’s new concert hall was inaugurated. The building has been object of a great deal of attention, and has become a central arena for culture and an important brick in the work of joining the eastern and western parts of Uppsala into one.
Major challenges
Uppsala is part of the Greater Stockholm region, with a third of the country’s population and the highest growth rate in Sweden. This leads to a considerable pressure on housing and public services. How can Uppsala maintain and strengthen the values that make it such an attractive city? The ambition of the municipal board is to improve city life by adding coherent architecture, a city nucleus of a distinguished character and close proximity to parks and public spaces of high quality, and by investing in public transportation systems that increase the appeal of everyday commuting as well as, in a broad sense, the entire city environment.
Projects related to the knowledge city
- New comprehensive plan
The new comprehensive plan for Uppsala prepare for for 25,000 new flats and 1.5 million sq. m. of new business space. It also aims to double the number of passengers by public transport by 2030, either by a trunk line system of buses and light rail trams or a podcar (PRT) system. Uppsala has applied for a podcar pilot track to be tested in the city, since the new system has not been put into operation anywhere.
- New Travel Centre
One of the biggest construction projects in Uppsala’s history have been underway since 2005, finally to be completed in 2011. The travel centre helps to connect the eastern and western districts of the city, seperated by the river and railway tracks. Uppsala has long been divided into two parts: an academic, university town on the western side of the river and a more working-class area to the east. The new travel centre will provide both sides a broad central passageway under the tracks, and contributes to the city with a new stationhouse, office and hotel buildings, public squares and parks.
- Dragarbrunnsgatan
The municipality works in close collaboration with local actors, building owners and the business community to make the city into an attractive meeting place. Among other things, the area along Fyrisån, the river that flows through Uppsala, has been restructured and enhanced. Another major project is to transform Dragarbrunnsgatan from a street with heavy traffic into an attractive urban thoroughfare, providing room for both pedestrians and cyclist. This will be a central step in broadening the city centre, where new mobility patterns and flows will facilitate increased urban activities and pulse.