State and Market Forces in Swedish Infrastructure History

Scandinavian Journal of History
ISSN: 0346-8755 (Print) 1502-7716 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/shis20
State and Market Forces in Swedish Infrastructure

History
Hans Westlund
To cite this article: Hans Westlund (1998) State and Market Forces in Swedish Infrastructure
History, Scandinavian Journal of History, 23:1-2, 65-88, DOI: 10.1080/03468759850116025
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03468759850116025
Published online: 05 Nov 2010.
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State and M arket Forces in Swedish Infrastructure
History
Hans W estlund
1. Introduction
Ever since the birth of literature and written historical narrative – and probably
long before that – there has been a noticeable difference between the idea of
spatially stable activities such as dwelling and producing on the one hand and of the
transport of people, goods and services over distances on the other. O ne of the most
important basic themes of the work which, along with the Bible, has most
influenced the spiritual and intellectual life of the W estern world, viz. Hom er’s
O dyssey, may be said to be the contrast between travelling – in which the only
permanent feature is change, shifts of scene, transformation – and settled residence,
where everything, including Penelope’s shroud for Laertes, is rewoven day after
day.
The Odyssey is the first expression preserved in writing of the conception of
travelling still espoused by the majority of people today – save perhaps our most
hardened business travellers – viz., as something exciting, bringing encounters with
new surroundings, something out of the ordinary, perhaps unknown even, opening
hidden possibilities through these encounters. W e associate transport and
communications with change and transformation, in the same way as we associate
“immobile” activities, on the other hand, with stability and the maintenance of the
prevailing order. From the tales of Marco Polo to the sailors’ waltzes of Swedish
folk music, there are innumerable examples of how travelling has been bound up
with adventure and romance.
Thus the problems discussed in this article – infrastructure, communications and
the development of Swedish society – are linked to a W estern tradition dating back
many thousands of years. The question arising out of this tradition is simple, in a
way: it is a matter not of whether but of how infrastructure and communications
influenced the development of society in various respects. But there are good
reasons for modifying and even enlarging the framing of the issue to include
questions concerning what factors influenced the spatial deployment of the
communication networks. Is it also the case that national, regional and local factors
have exercised influence over the layout and design of communication networks?
H ans W estlund, born 1957 , PhD, Research Conductor at the Swedish Institute for Regional Research. Published
works include Kommunikationer, Tillgänglighet, Omvandling (1992); Infrastruktur för strategisk regional utveckling
(1995); Infrastruktur i Sverige under tusen aÊ r (1996, 1998); Contribution of the Social Economy to Local Employment
(co-author: Stig W esterdahl) (1996). H e is currently engaged in research on regional development during the Soviet epoch
and on border regions.
Address: Address: SIR, Kyrkgatan 43b, S-831 34 Östersund, Sw eden.
Scand. J. H istory 23
66 H ans W estlund
The article is based on a larger work conducted at the request of the Swedish
Central Board of National Antiquities (Riksantikvarieämbetet). In terms of time it is
chiefly the period since 1850 that is discussed, i.e. the industrial epoch and the
inaugural stages of post-industrial society, along with the infrastructure and
communications that arose and were developed during that period. In order to
provide a longer perspective on the period, however, communications and the
development of Swedish society during earlier times will also be outlined by way of
introduction. This brief survey is confined mainly to a discussion of the transport
networks. This means that telecommunications, postal systems, newspapers and
broadcasting are dealt with only in passing or not at all.
2. State and market as builders of com munication networks
2.1. State-built communication systems

As far back in history as we can reach, communication networks have had a very
strong link with the politico-military power centre which today we usually call the
state. There are many reasons for this. O ne of them may be that this link merely
reflects the fact that our historical knowledge – despite the development of research
on “people’s history” in recent decades – is decidedly greatest in relation to the
ruling classes of society and their means and methods of exercising power. In that
case the connection would merely be a consequence of its being mainly the history
of power and conquerors that gets written. But there are several reasons for a link
between government authorities and communications, reasons which suggest that it
may not be merely the result of the way the writing of history is orientated. For the
link between government authorities and communications is easy to discern from
an examination both of need/utilization and of the ability to build/maintain
communication networks.
The primary task of the state can, in simple terms, be said to be to maintain itself
within its territory. This may appear self-evident, but it is important to call attention
to the fact that power over a territory requires communications if maintenance of that power
is to be possible. It is for this reason that the history of Europe always shows us the
state in some form developing and maintaining communication networks above the
purely local level. O f course the Rom an Empire is the foremost example of this,
with a long-distance road network which was not really surpassed until the 20th
century, but it does seem to be a constant tendency in European history that where
central powers have been strong, communication facilities have been improved,
only to deteriorate again during periods of particularism.
The second important link between the state and communications is inherent in
the fact that communication structures and installations are costly to establish and
require long-term upkeep. W ith the exception of the English toll-charging turnpike
roads – which went into operation from the 1660s onwards and were of great
importance right up to the rise of the railways – there are very few examples of
communication networks having been built up and maintained by private interests
prior to the rise of industrial capitalism and economic liberalism. (The vigorously
flourishing road and river tolls which existed under the ancien régime in France and
G ermany in particular, the revenues from which were utilized for purposes quite
Scand. J. History 23
State and M arket Forces in Swed ish Infrastructure 67
other than extension and im provement of the communication networks, are

examples of destructive exploitation of existing infrastructure rather than of
revenues from investments made.)1 High capital costs of building and high
transaction costs of collecting dues were the economic factors that generally caused
the state alone to have sufficient resources along with the willingness to pay the cost
of investing in an infrastructure over and above purely local works. The state was
also generally the only actor with sufficient power actually to enforce adequate
upkeep of the works. 2
As far as Sweden was concerned, works for communications became an
important part of the state’s building policy which was shaped during the 17th
century Age of Empire. Functioning communications were indispensable in order
to control the extensive territories under the Swedish dominion and to wage the
recurrent wars. The provision of roads, transport facilities, inns and postal systems
became organized into a key component of the accumulation of state machinery,
which in part still forms the basis of present-day government administration.
In this respect Sweden was not an exceptional case in Europe, although Swedish
measures happened to be concentrated in the 17th century to a higher degree than
in many other leading countries. O f course the steps taken by the various states to
improve communications were an element in the raising up and strengthening of
the new national states. The economic ideology which burgeoned during this
period has been termed mercantilism and contained at its heart the conception that
all economic activities ought to be conducted with the aim of strengthening the
power of the state. In Sweden, the improvement of communications became an
integral feature of the organization of county administrations for the collection and
control of taxes, the establishment of towns, government economic policy, and the
system of military supply. It was in the state’s direct interests that the urban system
which was built up from this century onwards should be bound together as tightly
as possible.
2.1.1. Roads
The situation with regard to roads was already regulated by law to some extent
during the Middle Ages, but our knowledge of how the laws were applied and of
the appearance of the roads is very limited. However, all observers seem to be
agreed that the standard during the summer half-year was more or less that of
heavily trodden forest tracks. O nly small, light vehicles could get through on these
routes, where roadway and ditch were as one. Horseback was usually a better
alternative than a carriage for longer-distance personal transport.
The situation in winter, on the other hand, was quite different. W ith the ground
frozen and a covering of snow above, and with ice on the lakes and watercourses,
Sweden undoubtedly enjoyed better transport conditions than C ontinental Europe.
Moreover, the road tolls so common in Europe were also very difficult to enforce; if
a road was blocked it was easy to find another one in winter. In consequence of the
1
E. F. H eckscher, M erkantilismen (Stockholm , 1931), pp. 37–41, 59–60.
2
A. K aijser, I fädrens spaÊ r. Den svenska infrastrukturens historiska utveckling och framtida utmaningar (Stockholm ,
1994), p. 147 .
68 H ans W estlund
Fig. 1. The extension of the m ed ieval royal progress (eriksgatan). Source: Stora Focus (1987).
enormous differences in transport conditions between summer and winter, heavy

land traffic came to be concentrated almost entirely in the cold season, while
transport during the summer occurred only when it was absolutely necessary.
Heckscher points out that it is “difficult to imagine Sweden having attained
anything like so high and widespread a material level of civilization in former times
had not the ’winter roads’ been available.” 3
Most of the roads were local of course, and as time went on were denominated as
parish, district or village roads. However, a tenuous network of roads of a more
“national” character can be discerned from the medieval laws. The roads for the
newly elected king’s eriksgata, or royal progress, from U ppsala via Strängnäs, down
through Ö stergötland, SmaÊ land and Västergötland and then back to Uppsala
through Närke and Västmanland, were among these landskapsvägar, i.e. “provincial”
or, as we would now say, “main” roads. So were a number of roads which started
from the main centres along the route of the royal progress.
The old roads were adapted wholly to the geographical conditions. To a large
extent they followed the valleys of rivers and streams – which were the natural
“winter roads” – but during the summer half-year they were forced to make abrupt
bends and climb steep hills so as to avoid waterlogged and impassable low-lying
ground. In parts of the country where long ridges can be found the roads would
often run along them, since their good drainage offered a firm and naturally
drained roadbed. The upgrading of the road network which was initiated during
the 17th century seldom involved the construction of any new stretches of road, and
to have carried it out without excavations of land and ditches probably left much to
be desired, but there does seem to have been a marked improvement in at least the
major roads. A road network capable of coping with larger vehicles had been
established. 4 Road-building and upgrading continued throughout the 18th century,
during the latter part of which at least the Swedish main roads were even up to the
3
E. F. H eckscher, Svenskt arbete och liv. Second ed ition (Stockholm , 1957), p. 44.
4
E. Schalling, Utredning angaÊ ende väghaÊ llningsbesväret i städerna (Stockholm , 1932), p. 8.
English standard. Foreign travellers in Sweden around the turn of the century in
1800 are unanimous in praise of Swedish roads. The G erman Ernst Moritz Arndt,
for example, in his Resa genom Sverige aÊ r 1804 (A Journey Through Sweden in 1804)
declared that “In general no better roads are to be found in any country of
Europe”. 5
From having by all accounts held a leading position internationally, the Swedish
road network slipped behind during the first half of the 19th century. The reason
may have been that the need for roads was considered to have been satisfied. O nly
in Norrland did any real new construction of main roads occur. The government
gave priority to the expansion of the canal system instead. It was not until the
middle of the 19th century that road-building began to gather mom entum again,
even being conducted on som ewhat better-engineered lines inasmuch as
government appropriations for roadworks began to be voted in 1841 and the
National Road Board (Väg- och vattenbyggnadsstyrelsen) was established. During the
second half of the 19th century a vigorous expansion of the road network took
place. The driving force then was the development of the railway network, which
called for new and better roads to the stations in order to give the best possible
access to this new means of transport. 6
Roadworks, which included the upkeep not only of roads but also of bridges and
ferries on the public highway, was for practical reasons enjoined on the peasantry –
the occupiers of the land – who would carry out maintenance, and in some
instances road-building, in proportion to their holdings of land. This reflected the
fact that roads were principally a local facility for short-distance local transport. By
means of the system of “road allotments” (vägdelningar) the upkeep of roads was
shared out between individual peasants, villages, parishes, districts or even entire
provinces, depending on the scale of road-making or maintenance involved. Bo
G ustafsson contends that this system was clearly founded on an interest principle,
the basic conception being that the more property one had, the greater one’s
interest in the roads of the neighbourhood. The system probably functioned
tolerably well in the case of local roads which were used frequently. But when it was
a matter of main roads which a whole province sometimes had to look after, the
peasantry of remote parishes would try, for obvious reasons, to evade their road
maintenance obligations. O ne example is that of Norrstigen, which was supposed to
be maintained by the provinces through which it ran. “In Hälsingland, all inland
parishes were . . . obliged to look after their own sections of the coastal road. The
parish of Ljusdal, for example, had its section of road in RössaÊ nger parish. Journeys
of 100–150 km therefore had to be made merely to reach the site of the roadworks.
The consequence was that the peasants became refractory.”7 Fines, which could be
both individual and collective, would be imposed on a village or a parish in such
cases. Gustafsson’s conclusion is that “the constant interventions of the public
authorities indicate that the interest principle functioned badly or not at all as soon
as roadworks involved non-local roads.”8
5
C ited from G . Ahlström , Infrastruktur och kommunikationer. Sverige under 1700 - och 1800-talen.
(Meddelanden fraÊ n Ekonom isk-H istoriska institutionen, Nr 40, 1985). (Lund, 1985), p. 7.
6
Ahlström , op . cit., pp. 7–16.
7
B. Gustafsson, “H ur vägarna blev en kollektiv nyttighet”, in Över Gränser. F estskrift till Birgitta Odén
(Lund, 1987), p. 91.
8
G ustafsson, op. cit., p. 91.
70 H ans W estlund
Improved organization of the road system was called for in order to meet rising
transport requirements, especially to and from the railway stations, towards the end
of the 19th century. The response came in the form of Sweden’s first Highways Act
of 1891, the provisions of which included a classification into main roads (landsvägar)
10 ells (6 m) in width and local roads (bygdevägar) 6 ells (3.6 m) in width. W hat was of
greater im portance, however, was that government subsidies of 10% began to be
granted for the upkeep of roads. U nder pressure from the growing motoring
interest, important changes were introduced during the 1920s. Road funds were
established, which meant that it became possible for the highways district to make
use of a certain amount of skilled labour and sundry machines. Thereby the natural
economy of the peasantry became increasingly undermined. Car tax and petrol tax
were introd uced during the same decade, which brou ght a considerable
enhancement of the financial resources available for the upkeep of roads. The
ever-growing role of the state, not only in supervision but also in the financing of
the road system, along with the fact that the traffic no longer confined itself within
local and regional bounds and therefore was no longer a local or regional affair,
resulted in the nationalization of the road system in 1943. O nly after that was
comprehensive improvement of the road network really started, comprising not
only new works but also reconstruction, widening, straightening and paving of the
existing roads.9
2.1.2. Inns, transport facilities and postal system

Inns and transport facilities were two other necessary elements of the communication
system built up by the state during Sweden’s G reat Power epoch, although these
functions could claim ancestry considerably further back in time. As early as about
1280, the decree of Magnus LadulaÊ s Alsnö prescribed that every village, as a
protection against being descended upon by uninvited guests, should appoint an
“overseer”, so-called, charged with securing board and lodging for travellers in
return for payment. These regulations were renewed later on, and in 1560 it was
decreed that taverns (inns) should be established along the public highways for the
convenience of travellers. It was not until about the middle of the 17th century,
however, that the system of inns became tolerably well organized. A regulation of
1636 relating to inns created material incentives for a vigorous proliferation of inns
by conferring various benefits on the innkeeper, such as the right to serve and sell
spirits. A distance of 20 km was prescribed between inns. In 1649 it was enacted
that inns were to have one apartment for nobles, another for other gentlefolk, and a
third for “ordinary company”.
Another provision of the Alsnö statute prohibited officials from demanding
friskjuts, i.e. free transport, from the peasantry. The ban does not appear to have
been complied with to any notable degree, as is evidenced indirectly by the fact that
a new tax entitled skjutsfärdspenningar (transport money) was introduced in 1584 in
order to liberate country folk from having to provide gratis transport. However, the
growing body of officials during the Age of Empire demanded transport services to
an increasing extent, and gratis transport lived on despite protests from the country
9
G ustafsson, op. cit., pp. 92–101.
people. The Riksdag of 1642 abolished gratis transport by adopting a resolution

that transport services were to be paid for and that the inns should be responsible
for providing them. Only if the resources of the inns were insufficient would the
peasants be compelled, against payment, to provide reserve transport facilities
known as haÊ llskjuts. The “transport money” tax was nevertheless retained for the
funding of the Crown’s personal transport.
The postal system was the fourth component of the upgrading of communications
carried out during the Age of Empire. As with the other measures, it was the need
of the military and other state authorities for good communications that constituted
the driving force behind the 1636 O rdinance on Postal Service (förordning om Post-
Boden), which was the foundation on which the Swedish Post Office was grounded.
This ordinance laid down that peasants authorized under oath should be appointed
at distances 20–30 km apart along the main roads to be responsible for postal
transport. These “postal peasants” enjoyed certain exemptions, e.g. in respect of
transport facilities and the “transport money” tax. The system of “postal peasants”
lived on for over 300 years, not being abolished until the 1860s. By that time a
substantial proportion of transport of the mails had been taken over first by the
stagecoach, then by the steamship, but from 1859 onwards especially by the
railway.1 0
Burgeoning industrialization and the rise of the railways brought a veritable
explosion of the postal system. Even during the 17th century post offices had been
opened in the majority of towns, but by the middle of the 18th century the total
number of fixed postal establishments was still less than 100. By 1850 the number
had risen to 157. Fifty years later it was up to nearly 2700! 1 1
2.1.3. Canals and inland navigation

Sweden’s navigation has been dominated by coastal and seagoing shipping, for
obvious reasons. For a long time inland navigation was confined to navigable lakes,
rivers and streams, where rapids and waterfalls were serious obstacles. Even in
G ustav Vasa’s time there were plans for a canal system from Lake Mälaren via
Hjälmaren to Vänern, and a start was made under C harles IX on canalization of
the Eskilstuna river in c. 1596–1610. Fourteen wooden locks were constructed, but
these soon fell into disrepair. The “Hjälmare lock works” was constructed in their
place in 1629–1639, mainly along the present section of the Hjälmare canal
between Lake Hjälmaren and the Arboga river. Large-scale improvements to the
conditions of inland navigation were made during the closing decades of the 18th
century and in the first half of the 19th, when the southern part of Sweden was
experiencing its great canal age. The first large new project was the Strömsholm
canal, constructed in 1776–1792, 1 2 which effected a considerable improvement in
communications between Lake Mälaren (and thus Stockholm as well) and the
Dalecarlian part of the mining and metalworking central belt of Sweden known as
10
Ahlström , op . cit., p. 26.
11
12
T he literature gives different answers concerning when the canal was finished. Nordisk Fam iljebok
(1923–1937 ) and Ahlström , op. cit., p. 16, state 1792. H owever, Nationalencyklopedin (1995) and
U . H amilton. Teknik paÊ bönders villkor (Stockholm , 1997), p. 28, state 1795.
72 H ans W estlund
Fig. 2. The historically m ost im portant canals in S weden. Source: S veriges N ationalatlas. Klim at, sjöar
och vattendrag (1995).
Bergslagen. The Trollhätte canal between Lake Vänern and G othenburg was
opened in 1800. The Södertälje canal between the Baltic and Lake Mälaren was
built in 1806–1819. The western section of the Göta canal, linking Lakes Vättern
and Vänern, was opened in 1822, and ten years later 1 3 the eastern section
completed the long-desired link between the Baltic and the North Sea. Other large
canal projects included the reconstruction of the Hjälmare canal in 1819–1830 and
the establishment of the Säffle canal, which was opened in 1837. 1 4
In the 18th century and thereafter, the canals were operated mainly in company
form, but large-scale government subsidies were the engine that generated the
“wave of canal-building” described above. The great interest taken in canals by the
state authorities during this period is evidenced by the fact that more than 80% of
the funds appropriated between 1810 and 1837 for government investment in
infrastructure, including fortifications, were allotted to canals. Alongside this
commitment, coastal and inland ports were being enlarged, deepened and
equipped with wharves and docks. G overnment subsidies were provided for these
works, too. 1 5
The wide-ranging proliferation of canals meant that large tracts of Sweden’s
interior were opened to boat traffic. The improvement in transport conditions,
13
H ere, too, the figures in the literature are inconsistent. Nordisk Fam iljebok, op . cit., Ahlström , op.
cit., p. 16 and Nationalencyklopedin (1992) state 1832 , but H am ilton, op . cit., p. 28, states 1835 .
14
15
especially in the Vänern region and for the iron and timber exports of the
Bergslagen central industrial belt, caused traffic on the biggest canals to rise from
90,000 tons in 1830 to 240,000 tons in 1850. The first steam-propelled vessel in
Sweden went into service in 1818, but the steamboat’s main function during the
early decades was to carry passengers. It was not until after the middle of the
century that the steam vessel made its real breakthrough on the goods traffic side.
Because of its relative independence of wind conditions, the steam vessel was able to
establish liner traffic in many places, with fixed departure and arrival times. This
increased reliability of delivery was of great importance to the growing volume of
trade and the supply of raw materials to industry. Nevertheless, sailing vessels were
still accounting for about half of the inland water traffic around 1875.1 6
Despite the growth of inland navigation and the vital importance assumed by
steam vessels, waterborne traffic, especially on the canals, soon fell under the
shadow of an entirely novel means of transport – one with lower fixed investment
costs and considerably higher transport speeds, and not restricted to a few lakes,
canals and watercourses. The railway became the primary transport network of the
early industrial society. However, there is reason to consider the two types of
transport as not only mutually competitive but also as complementary. In broad
terms, waterborne traffic retained a strong position as carrier primarily of low-value
goods along the coasts and on the Trollhätte canal, while the railway took over the
major proportion of passenger traffic and the traffic in higher-value goods along the
coast, while also accounting for the vast bulk of all longer-distance transport inland.
Viewed as a whole, the great Swedish investment in canal-building fell victim to the
classic dilemma of national planning: the fact that it never turns out in quite the
way that was intended.
2.1.4. Statens järnvägar – Swedish state railways1 7

There are obvious parallels between, on the one hand, the organization of the
urban and administrative systems of the 17th century and the communication
establishments they required and, on the other, the great investments in state
railways – the trunk lines – of the 19th century. In both cases, the investments took
place in a country that was not first in the field with the innovations in question 1 8
and which therefore had a degree of foreign experience to build on. In both cases,
too, it was a country which, feeling itself to have lagged behind in development
compared with the civilized countries of the Continent, made a great effort to make
up the lost ground quickly. But even if Sweden was not first in the field with its
investments there is good reason to argue that it was among the most resolute of
countries when it came to consummating them, 1 9 that this consummation was
16
T . T horburn, Sveriges inrikes sjöfart 1818–194 9 (Uddevalla, 1958).
17
T his section is based chiefly on H . W estlund, Kommunikationer, tillgänglighet, omvandling. En studie av
samspelet mellan komm unikationsnät och näringsstruktur i Sveriges mellanstora städer 1850–197 0 (U m eaÊ studies
in econom ic history 16), (Um eaÊ , 1992), passim .
18
C f., e.g. H am ilton, op . cit., p. 69, who show s that Sweden was am ong the last European countries to
start railway building.
19
At the outbreak of W orld W ar I, Sweden had alm ost twice as m uch railway per inhabitant than any
other European country.
74 H ans W estlund
accomplished not by copying what foreigners had done but by taking account of
Swedish conditions, and that the investments were thereby of greater efficacy in
Sweden than in most other countries. Last but not least, it should also be observed
that both “projects” were aimed at building up national systems which improved both
the conditions for developing trade and industry and the efficiency and strength of
the state power. W ith respect to this latter point, the railways differed in part from
the canals. Even though the latter were of decided importance to settlement and
economic life in the districts through which they ran, they were few and far from
capable of forming a national network that would improve conditions over the country
as a whole.
Faith in the capacity of the new form of communication to create settlements was
also so great that the trunk lines were usually laid a fair distance away from existing
towns, by-passing existing communication centres of waterborne traffic. Apart from
national centres such as Stockholm, G othenburg and Malmö, which the trunk lines
were primarily intended to link, trunk lines were laid only to six major towns south
of Stockholm (Örebro, Karlstad, Norrköping, Linköping, Jönköping and Lund).
The situation changed somewhat after the private west-coast line was nationalized
in 1896, but towns such as Kristianstad, Trelleborg, Karlskrona, Kalmar, Växjö,
BoraÊ s, Trollhättan, Västervik, Eskilstuna and VästeraÊ s only had private railways
until the interwar period, when nationalization of the private railways was initiated.
Prior to this, all the “historical” towns of southern Sweden were connected to more
private railways than trunk lines.
In his dissertation of 1907 “O n the importance of railways to Sweden’s economic
development”, Eli F. Heckscher cited with approval the assertion that the layout of
the trunk-line network was characterized by a “horror of watercourses and towns”.
The trunk lines, quite simply, were that epoch’s great instrument of regional policy
for spreading industrialization and economic development to new regions. Places
which had not existed before or, at best, had been small villages suddenly became
stations and railway junctions of the national network. Vännäs, LaÊ ngsele, AÊ nge,
Hallsberg, Flen, Katrineholm, Mjölby, TranaÊ s, Nässjö and Hässleholm are only a
few examples of places which in effect were either created by the coming of the
railway or changed to such a degree that they can still be said to have been built by
the railway. The argument, in brief, was that already-existing towns and industries
were judged to have sufficient resources to be capable of building branch lines for
themselves to connect with the trunk lines, along with supplementary local and
regional lines. A licence to build and operate these was granted on application, and
government subsidies were also available for their construction. Thus the structure
of the Swedish railway network was created by means of a state planning principle
and a private market principle in combination.
The real start of the Swedish railway network is usually reckoned from 1856
onwards with the inauguration of the first sections of the Southern and W estern
trunk lines (Malmö–Lund G othenburg–Jonsered respectively). The period up to
1875 witnessed the completion of the trunk lines of southern Sweden, i.e. the
W estern trunk line (Stockholm–Gothenburg), the Southern trunk line (Falköping–
Nässjö–Malmö), the North-western trunk line (LaxaÊ –Norwegian border) and the
Eastern trunk line (Katrineholm–Nässjö). The Northern trunk line had by that time
reached O ckelbo in G ästrikland. In the second half of the 1870s state railway-
building was concentrated on Norrland, and ten years after that the Northern trunk
line had reached SollefteaÊ , while the transverse Sundsvall–Ö stersund–Storlien–
(Trondheim) line had been completed. The trunk line reached Boden in 1894, and
by the end of 1902 the ore-carrying railway had reached the national frontier,
where it linked up with the Norwegian line to Narvik.
The Swedish railway network has already undergone one large -scale
modernization process prior to the reconstruction currently under way for high-
speed trains: this consisted of electrification. The process began with the heavily
used ore-carrying line. The first section, between Kiruna and the frontier with
Norway, was opened for electrical operation in 1915, and by 1923 the entire line
was electrified. Three years later, in 1926, the W estern trunk line (Stockholm–
G othenburg) was electrified. But the great decade of electrification came in the
1930s, when all trunk lines in southern Sweden and the northern trunk line/
transverse-line up to Östersund and LaÊ ngsele were equipped with overhead
transmission lines. Electrification of the trunk line up to Boden, and a number of
minor sections of line in southern Sweden, was completed during the 1940s. In the
1950s electrification became concentrated on former private lines in southern
Sweden which had been nationalized during and after the 1930s as a result of the
increasingly severe profitability problems arising from competition with the motor
lorry. Most of the private railways had been nationalized by the 1950s and those
with the sparsest traffic were not upgraded but closed down during the 1960s.
2.1.5. State and infrastructure – conclusions

W e can therefore sum up by saying that the state’s commitment in the sphere of
national communications has a tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages and is
based on the fact that improved contacts have increased the power of the state
directly and indirectly. Right up to the time of Gustav Vasa (1523–1560), the state
was in many respects a direct extension of the king’s private household, and royalty
therefore had purely personal interests in a strong state. The bureaucratic state
which emerged during the 17th century was one of the ways in which the
“socializing” of the state power then taking place expressed itself. Mercantilism was
the ideology which evolved around the political need for a strong state. The object
was to increase the strength of the state through increased population, increased
production and a favourable balance of trade. The method employed may be said
to have been to achieve maximization of growth through organization and
regulation of the forms of private prod uction and exchange. Improved
communications were far from the only method of facilitating military transport
and transmission of orders, tax collection, control of the common people,
development of the nation’s industry and trade, exports and the revenues
therefrom, and so on and so forth – but all of these elements were ingredients of the
strengthening of the state power and were facilitated by functioning communication
networks and organization.
It may be of importance to stress that the state’s “monopoly” of communication
facilities and their upkeep during the pre-industrial era was not aimed against
private industry and trade. Even though the networks were regulated by the state,
their existence was based on more or less explicit private incentives. The operation
76 H ans W estlund
Fig. 3. T he S wedish railway net 1876 . Source: Sveriges järnvägar hundra aÊ r (Stockholm, 1956).
Fig. 4. The railway net in southern Sweden 1916 . O nly a few short lines were built after 1916 . Source:
Sveriges järnvägar hundra aÊ r (Stockholm , 1956).
78 H ans W estlund
Fig. 5. The railway net in northern S weden 1916 . T he Inland line (Inlandsbanan) up to Gällivare was
not com pleted until 1937. Source: Sveriges järnvägar hundra aÊ r (Stockholm , 1956).
of the inns system was entrusted to private individuals in return for guarantees of
local monopoly of the sale of spirits, for example; roadworks functioned tolerably at
least on the roads which the peasants themselves used, and so on. The state’s
organization of roadworks, transport facilities, etc., was simply an expression of the
fact that “the market” was altogether too undeveloped to be able to accomplish
these tasks at anything more than the narrow local level. The state was the only
actor with sufficient resources – and sufficient interest – to create these national
networks. Not until the second half of the 19th century did economic development
alter, though it did not overthrow, this state of affairs.
Mercantilism’s “omnipotent” and at bottom unrealistic view of the state and its
tasks came constantly into conflict – as ideologies always do – with crass reality. As
the wave of industrialization swept over the W estern world, mercantilism came to
be displaced by a liberal ideology in which the state power played a considerably
smaller role in the national life. The practical result of this was an increased
freedom in many spheres of life, including the economic, and concentration by the
state on what may today be denominated in a broad sense as infrastructure
questions: essential issues such as external defence and the internal system of justice,
and in many cases education and communication networks. In quite a number of
countries, in other words, the state retained responsibility for the national
communication infrastructure and parts of its operations. 2 0 In Sweden this came to
apply both to the old networks and to the new ones such as railway trunk lines and
the telegraph and telephone network, and to the traffic on these new networks.
2.2. The growing markets’ communication systems

Prior to the industrial revolution, local communication facilities, chiefly meaning
minor roads and harbours, were in principle the only ones which were established
and maintained by “the market”, i.e. by economic actors independent of the state,
such as the rural peasantry, the urban citizenry and the mining interests. The
explosive new economic life introduced by industrialization was obviously reflected
in a strongly increased demand for transport and exchange of information.
Through the agency of the new modes of communication which reduced both
transport times and costs, the markets of industrial and other firms were expanded
substantially, which in itself gave an important impulse to continued economic
development.
W hereas Sweden’s industrialization has been studied relatively intensively, our
knowledge of economic development during the early 19th century is relatively
limited. W hat clearly can be said, however, is that it was during this period that the
basic prerequisites for industrialization were created; increased population resulted
in a growing rural proletariat; modern urbanization was introduced; agriculture
was considerably improved through the enclosure reforms along with new crops
and methods of cultivation; the enclosure reforms in themselves generated
increased building activity and thus added to the demand for boards and bricks;
increased quantities of capital began to accumulate among the larger farmers,
foundry proprietors and merchants, and commercial banks began to be founded;
20
C f., e.g. S. O redsson, Järnvägarna och det allm änna. Svensk järnvägspolitik fram till 189 0 (Lund, 1969).
80 H ans W estlund
foreign, especially English, demand for wood products and wheat grew vigorously.
All these factors constituted signs that a market of a quite different order of
magnitude and importance from before was beginning to emerge. 2 1
Riksdag and government did not remain insensitive to the new economic forces.
The guild system, the compulsory staple and the ban on trade and crafts in the
countryside were abolished in two steps in 1846 and 1864. Concerning the ability
of the new forces to build up and operate a national railway network, however, the
view taken by the political organs was clear: only the state could furnish the country
with a national network. The same applied to telegraphs and later on to the
telephone.
The private railways’ pattern of expansion differed considerably from that of the
trunk lines, both geographically and in timing. As we have noted above, most of the
existing towns found themselves by-passed by the trunk lines, so that it was up to
local interests to take the initiative in establishing branch lines to connect with the
national trunk network or regional lines, linking the town more closely with the
countryside round about. The branch lines in particular tended to be built on a
narrow gauge for reasons of cost.
The first major private line was the G efle–Dala railway between G ävle and
Falun, which was completed in 1859. There was then a break of almost a decade,
however, before private railway-building got seriously under way. During the 1870s
large-scale expansion started over virtually the whole of southern Sweden. The
W est C oast line (Gothenburg–Malmö) was the last really large line to be completed,
and it was considered to be of such national importance that it was taken into
public ownership as early as 1896. The expansion of private lines continued into
the first decade of the 20th century, forming an increasingly dense network.
Private railways have been few and far between in Norrland north of G ävleborg
county. O ne early exception was the narrow-gauge Sundsvall–Torpshammar line
(completed in 1874), which was nationalized and widened in 1885 when it became
part of the transverse line to Trondheim. The Härnösand–SollefteaÊ line came
about on the direct initiative of the county governor in Härnösand and was
inaugurated in 1893. The first section of the LuleaÊ –G ällivare ore-carrying line is
interesting inasmuch as it is one of the few Swedish railways directly established by
foreign capital. However, the English company’s railway was bought out by the
state in 1891. The Kristinehamn–Sveg section of the present “inland railway” was
also comprised originally of a number of private lines which were bought out by the
state in 1917–1919. The East Coast line (Gävle–Härnösand) was begun in the early
1920s but not completed until 1933, being then nationalized immediately it was
ready.
The existing towns displayed a range of different strategies for linking themselves
to the trunk lines and developing regional lines. The action taken by Karlstad
exemplifies a method which may have gone to extremes but perhaps was not wholly
unique: The History of Karlstad (Karlstads historia) relates that when the north-western
trunk line was to be laid through Värmland, the proposal of the National Railways
Board (Statens Järnvägsstyrelse) and the government was that Karlstad should be by-
passed. “There was strong reaction in Karlstad . . . At a secret meeting the town
21
C f., e.g. L. Schön, Industrialismens förutsättningar (M almö, 1982).
council instructed its most influential members to travel to Stockholm and spend
funds as appropriate – though not exceeding 13,000 riks-dollars – to win a
sufficiency of votes to ensure that the trunk line should be laid through Karlstad.
Right up to the last minute the outcome was uncertain. The Estates were in
disagreement and the question was referred to a strengthened standing committee
of supply, which decided on 11 May 1866 that the trunk line should pass through
Karlstad. The decision was greeted in the town with scenes of joy . . . A military
band paraded through the town, flags were raised wherever they could be found,
and in the evening there was a fireworks display.”2 2
Linköping, Skara, Kristianstad and BoraÊ s are some examples of towns in a
variety of locations which became junctions for private railways, the three first-
mentioned as centres of prosperous farming districts. The private networks around
Linköping and Skara were narrow-gauge, whereas the majority of Kristianstad’s
lines were built to the standard gauge. A factor common to all three was that the
towns themselves were very active in starting up the lines and invested large sums of
money in them. There the resemblances end, however. W hile Skara and
Kristianstad have declined in relative importance since the rise of the railways,
Linköping has made vigorous strides forward. It is difficult to say without further
study whether this has anything to do with the fact that Linköping was the only one
of the three towns which was situated on the trunk line, but it is difficult to believe
that this factor was not a significant one.
BoraÊ s, the fourth example of a private-line town, differed from the others by
virtue of being an early, strongly expanding industrial town in which long-distance
connections were considerably more important than the links with its immediate
surrounding area. It is true that BoraÊ s’s first link with the trunk line at Herrljunga
was built on the narrow gauge, but it was soon converted to standard gauge and the
lines that followed were built at full width from the start. BoraÊ s differs from the
other three towns in that it was certainly a driving force in bringing the first line into
existence but that the people of the town also “had a feeling that a place which buys
much and sells much must be a desirable point for traffic routes, and it has
therefore allowed other interested parties to contribute in large measure to the
ordering of its communications”. 2 3 BoraÊ s therefore was aware of its importance on
the transport market and unlike most other places which were by-passed by the
trunk lines did not need to defray the major part of the cost of the investment in
railways by itself.
The infrastructure on which the first major investments were made by the
market, however, was the timber floatways, especially those in Norrland. The
impulse was provided by the growing demand for timber as a building material
resulting from Europe’s industrialization and urbanization. The virtually
untouched Norrland forests suddenly had an economic value if only the transport
question could be solved. A practicable transport network was created by getting
rid of rocks and other obstacles to the timber. Thanks to the low transport cost of
timber – only one-eighth of the railways’ freight price in the early 20th century –
carriage by lorry and railway did not begin to supersede floating on the minor
22
O . M oberg, Karlstads historia. Fjärde delen, Karlstad under fyra sekler (Karlstad, 1983), p. 110 .
23
BoraÊ s. Festskrift utgiven av Tekniska Förbundet i BoraÊ s (Stockholm , 1933), p. 317 .
82 H ans W estlund
floatways until the 1950s, and on the Klar river floating was not abandoned until
1990. Floatways as a solution to the transport problem were elementary and very
cost-effective – as long as there was no alternative use for the water power as a
source of electricity. But for decades the power companies were compelled to put
up with log flumes adjacent to the power stations.
The extent to which this growing market would have succeeded by itself in
building and operating the extensive national communication network built up by
the Swedish state after 1850 may be a matter for discussion. It is probable that the
national networks would not have become as extensive as they in fact became, and
probably not at the same speed. It is also probable that pure market networks would
have had a more conservative effect on the urban structure and less influence on
regional development than in fact happened with the networks created by the state.
3. Communications mould and re-m ould the cultural environm ent
3.1. The urban system and its communication networks prior to the railway
At the middle point of the 19th century Sweden was an agricultural society in all
essentials. As has been indicated above, however, it was not a static agrarian society
but one in which enclosure reforms, new crops, new methods of cultivation, new
implements and growing dom estic and foreign markets made agriculture a dynamic
force for economic transformation. The position of agriculture was also manifested
in the urban structure of the day. The degree of urbanization in Sweden compared
with Europe as a whole was extremely low, about 10%, which was the same
proportion as at the turn of the century in 1800. 2 4 In 1850 Stockholm had 93,000
inhabitants, G othenburg 26,000 and Norrköping, which was then the third city of
Sweden, barely 17,000. Most towns had between 1000 and 5000 inhabitants, but
some even had a population of less than 1000 persons. Side by side with the
localities and urban districts endowed with town charters there were also a number
of non-administrative population centres, mainly bruk communities (combining
metalworking with agriculture) and other such centres of manufacturing and early
industry. Most of these, however, had a population of only 200–400 persons.2 5
O ver large tracts of southern Sweden the lowest level of the urban system – the
villages – was in fact dissolving or had already done so. The enclosure reforms
introduced after the adoption of the Field C onsolidation Act (Storskiftesstadgan) in
1749 were certainly not implemented at the same time everywhere, but their effects
were the same everywhere: densely settled villages disintegrated and were replaced
by individual farms, often several hundred metres apart from one another.
The urban system, which had been shaped for some centuries in symbiosis on the
one hand with the state’s efforts to create economic centres and tax-collection
points and on the other with regional economic conditions, was thus at a very
undeveloped stage. The communication networks which bound the system together
consisted of main roads, on which the horse and carriage was the most efficient
24
L. Nilsson, Den urbana transitionen. Tätorterna i svensk samhällsom vandling 1800 –1980 (Stockholm , 1989),
pp. 129 –130 . W hile the period 1800–183 5 is actually characterized by a slightly reduced degree of
urbanization, the curve turns upwards after 1835 .
25
N ilsson, op. cit., pp. 315–316 .
means of transport; natural waterways along coasts and navigable watercourses and
lakes; the canals which linked up the natural waterways; and during the cold season
the “winter roads” over ice and by land. The only big innovation was the
steamboat, but sailing vessels had still not been driven out of business. A telegraph
network had not yet been established, and newspapers (most of them founded
relatively recently) existed only in ten or a dozen towns.
The 1850s mark a decisive turning-point in the transformation of the urban
system. From this decade onwards the degree of urbanization has risen steadily
from 10% to the 85% of today. The driving forces underlying this extreme change
are numerous and many-faceted. W hat is beyond all doubt, however, is that the
general explanations are to be found in the change of economic structure and
communications. The growth of industry and the modern service sector, and the
communications which fostered them, have completely recreated the Swedish
urban system.
3.2. The coarse-meshed railway network – the industrial epoch’s creator of population centres2 6
The unprecedented economic boom enjoyed by the W estern world over the past
two hundred years can be explained in many cases by invoking concentration/
centralization as the superior principle of organization. Capital was concentrated
among the capitalists; labour was concentrated in towns and population centres;
production was concentrated in factories with large-scale operations. Concentration
meant more goods at cheaper prices and therefore economic growth and rising
welfare. A necessary condition of this concentration has been communication
networks which – generally speaking – have made possible the spatial separation of
production and consumption. O nly in those instances where exchange of goods has
been made possible between points separated in space has a growth-enhancing
division of labour been able to take place.
In the case of Sweden it is apparent that the railway, more than any other means
of transport, was the factor that facilitated a strong increase in the concentration of
human production and consumption, and – as a necessary ingredient of the same
process – a powerful increase in the exchange of goods between different places and
regions.
The Swedish railway network was fashioned as a compromise between a “state
planning principle” and a “free market principle”, but inasmuch as from 1870
onwards the private network was twice as large as the trunk lines, it was the market
principle that was dominant. But the trunk lines were laid out in accordance with
clear political aims, viz. to link Sweden’s three biggest cities but otherwise to
nurture less developed parts of the country by routing the lines so as to by-pass the
existing towns to a large extent. However, the possibility for towns, other centres
and business firms to form private railway companies and build lines meant that the
railway network came to be adapted to where demand was greatest, viz. to large
and/or expanding centres. Places that functioned as regional centres usually had
sufficient resources or enough of a transport market to finance these investments. In
other words, what happened was that these places “propelled” the railway rather
26
T his section is based on W estlund, op. cit., chapter 14.
84 H ans W estlund
than the railway being an initial propulsive force for them. The transport market’s
critical level for railway investments lay in the smaller centres.
The railways filled a dual linking function. First,, they improved the inter-
regional links between different regions and between the capital city and the rest of
the country, and, secondly, they improved the intra-regional links between towns
and their surrounding areas, which strengthened the economic and cultural links
between them and gradually switched the countryside over to an urban tack.
At the national level, the railway swept away considerable transport-cost
obstacles and practical hindrances to a national market, thereby raising peripheral
regions for the first time up to a transport level almost comparable with that of the
key areas of the country. 2 7 C ompared with what had gone before, the railways had
considerably improved the conditions for economic development and industrializa-
tion in peripheral regions.
The mechanisms for the railway’s influence on regional development, however,
were at the local level – at the individual stations. Through these, rural areas not
only became linked to their own centres but also to “the whole country”. Railway
towns grew up around the stations, often with newly established industries as
important workplaces employing locally recruited labour. Many of these railway
towns underwent a stable growth process and were raised administratively to the
status of village community (municipalsamhälle), borough (köping) and even towns. O f
the 34 places which received town charters between 1910 and 1950, all had
railways (or in the case of Lidingö, a tramway into Stockholm), and several of these
newly established towns almost exclusively have the railway to thank for their
expansion (Nässjö, Flen, Katrineholm, Bollnäs, Hässleholm, Mjölby, inter alia).
In this way the railways created centres in the countryside with transport facilities
as good as those in the towns, which in turn created good incentives for
industrialization of the countryside. Nor were stations along the line at a
disadvantage compared with junctions in terms of freight rates. 2 8
It is important to emphasize that the industrialization and urbanization of the
countryside was not accomplished at the expense of the towns. More than a million
people left Sweden during the great wave of emigration. The ability of towns to
absorb this surplus population would more than likely have been even less if they
had not strengthened their links with the countryside in a physical and economic
sense. In other words, at the regional level the railways contributed to a relatively
stable process of demographic and industrial development. Underlying the building
of the trunk lines was an explicit goal of developing the whole country by
commercializing agriculture and broadening the markets for industry. It can be
claimed that – with the exception of the inland line in the wastes of Lapland – this
aim was achieved.
Because the railways, and later on the motor car, considerably reduced
hindrances to transport and thereby broadened the markets, they hastened the
27
C f. Adam S mith’s rem ark: “Good roads, canals and navigable rivers, by dim inishing the cost of
carriage, put the rem ote parts of the country m ore nearly upon a level with those in the
neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that account the greatest of all im provem ents . . .”, in A.
Sm ith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the W ealth of Nations, ed ited by E. C annan, (London,
1904), p. 146 .
28
E. F. H eckscher, Till belysning af järnvägarnas betydelse för Sveriges ekonomiska utveckling (Stockholm , 1907),
p. 77.
structural transformation from agriculture to industry and services. The “low level”,
and in a regional and local sense, scattered industrialization and urbanization
which took place around the railway stations was optimal in economic terms. It
availed itself of local raw materials which were more expensive to use in the towns
because of transport costs. It employed local labour and thereby avoided the
migration threshold which makes labour a relatively immobile factor of production
compared with capital. This optimal exploitation of resources was probably a not
insignificant factor underlying the growth, unique in international terms, enjoyed
by Sweden between 1870 and 1970.
In this way the railway came to influence different levels of the Swedish urban
system in different ways. Perhaps its principal effects were felt at the lowest level,
where the railway created a new (non-administrative) basic level of the urban
system, the railway town (stationssamhället), which became in large measure the
Swedish method of accomplishing the transition from rural locality to population
centre. The railway became the main factor in both the industrialization and
urbanization of the Swedish countryside and in commercialization. W hen the
railway opened markets for farm produce, Swedish agriculture switched over from
(mainly) self-sufficiency to production (mainly) for the market.
The influence of the railway on the three large metropolises must be emphasized
likewise. In addition to becoming the main nodal points of the railway network,
these were and continued to be the country’s leading ports. The improved
communications in which the railway was a chief factor gradually caused the
country to become divide up into three informal spheres of influence, each with its
metropolis as its key centre. To the regional centres, the railway meant that they
could extend their trading areas considerably. Improved food, fuel and raw
material supplies from the enlarged trading area created conditions for expansion
which had been lacking previously. W hen the enlarged trading area became drawn
into the monetarized economy of the towns, the trading area’s purchasing power
also increased, to the benefit of the urban merchants. Inasmuch as the railway
brought greatly increased access to the “world market”, imports and exports of raw
materials and finished goods were considerably facilitated.
W ith respect to intra-regional conditions such as the settlement pattern, the
railway secured a strong and in the long term concentrated influence. C oncerning
inter-regional development, most of the indications are that while on the one hand
the railway helped to enlarge the areas of influence of the three metropolises
enormously, on the other hand it exercised a strong levelling effect on the economic
and cultural differences between the regions. The railway drew “the whole
country” into the industrialization process, and the increased contacts between the
regions, to which the railway contributed, slowly homogenized many regional and
local cultural forms into a single “national Swedish” version.
The railway was also of crucial importance to the reorganization of Sweden’s
armed forces. The 200-year-old system of basing military establishments on land
tenure, known as the indelningsverk, had outlived its usefulness once the industrial
society began to emerge. Industrial progress had brought to the fore new types of
weapons calling for changed battle techniques and longer training of troops. At the
same time the need remained for geographically dispersed units capable of being
mobilized quickly. The solution arrived at was permanent regimental depots in
86 H ans W estlund
which training, administration, stabling and stores were concentrated. The new
military organization, with its greatly increased transport requirements, would not
have been possible without the new mode of transport furnished by the railway.
Boden, not far from the then Russian (now Finnish) border, became the number
one garrison town. Building of its fortifications began in 1901, after the railway had
reached the village in 1894.
Like the canals built earlier, but to a considerably greater extent than these, the
railway came to create artificial barriers in the landscape. Little by little, with
higher speeds and denser traffic operations, these barriers have become more
formidable. The most troublesome and problematical of the railway’s barrier
effects are on the urban landscape. Because the landscape’s topography and the
desire to minimize differences of height were guiding principles in the laying out of
the railways, they were usually led into the towns along a lake or watercourse. The
need to link the railway to the town’s harbour for trans-shipment of goods was also
a crucial factor determining the route of the railway and the locations of stations
and goods yards.
3.3. Roads and motoring – the industrial epoch’s fine-meshed transformers of population centres2 9
As already mentioned, railway-building became a crucial factor underlying the
development and improvement of main roads during the last decades of the 19th
century. The development continued after the turn of the century as well, and
during the inter-war period in particular the length of public roads within the
network increased significantly, from just over 60,000 km to more than 80,000 km.
O ne contributory cause was that relief works in the 1930s were concentrated on
road-building, and another was the improved financing of the road system by
means of car and petrol taxes. Nevertheless, the Swedish road network around
1950 still consisted of roads whose layout had been determined by the type of
transport and road-building techniques of earlier times. Curve after curve, up hill
and down, they meandered through the landscape touching every village and often
straight across courtyards.
This kind of road layout was highly suitable during the epoch of the peasant-
manned roadworks system and horse transport, when it was economically
expedient for the peasants who also maintained the roads to bring them as close
to the farms as possible and so avoid the need for access roads. Road standards for
horse transport were modest compared with those necessitated by motor traffic,
which was expanding during and after the interwar period. The growth of
motoring rendered the old road layout more and more of a safety problem, while at
the same time the increasingly heavy and dense traffic was demanding stronger,
wider and straighter roads.
The 1950s, and the 1960s, in particular, became the great decades of road-
building. Unlike the great railway investments of the 19th century, however, there
were no political aims to reinforce the economic growth that underlay the
investment in communications – of all the problems during this period, growth was
29
T his section is based chiefly on H . W estlund, Infrastruktur i Sverige under tusen aÊ r (Stockholm , 1998), pp.
72–75.
the least of them. Instead, it was “the market”, in the form of rapidly growing
private motoring, that forced the pace of the great modernization of the road
network. The grouping of the roads by levels, which had previously been primarily
administrative, now became a reality when the classification into county, national
and European roads was introduced and building of the first motorways began.
New national and European roads were built by stages, with their routes by-passing
villages and population centres. A clear measure of the improvement of the road
network is that the proportion of paved roads rose from 5.7% in 1950 to 26.9% in
1970. After 1970 investment in roads diminished markedly.
A peculiarity of many of the road improvements in Norrland during the 1960s
and 1970s was that they were financed by Labour Market Board funds and used as
an instrument of labour market policy (i.e. job creation). The primary factor was
not the cost-effectiveness or speed of the road projects but how many of the
unemployed could be squeezed into them. The focus on the unemployment level,
not the standard of existing roads or transport needs, also brought the consequence
that an extremely large proportion of these roadworks was carried out in North
Bothnia, where unemployment was highest.
The reconstruction of the Swedish road network accomplished during and since
the 1950s marks a decisive shift in the placing of roads in relation to settlement. The
huge scale and high speed of motoring has commandeered its own space in the
form of “corridors” which, in contrast to earlier forms of road transport, do not
readily unite with dense settlement and its local mixed traffic.
W hat has been said above could be interpreted to mean that motoring, by
turning away from the old routes, brought a new wave of centralization of the
urban system after 1950. However, most of the signs point in precisely the opposite
direction. W hereas the railway restricted access to a number of points along the line
– stations and halts – motoring gave unlimited access, in principle, to anyone on a
negotiable road. If we add to this the fact that the railway network at its most
extensive was only equivalent to one-fifth of the length of the public road network
(excluding urban streets and private roads!) we begin to realize the enormous
decentralizing power of roads and the vast improvement of accessibility which
motoring has effected.
Motoring must be regarded as the most im portant force underlying two entirely
new postwar phenomena in Sweden, viz. (1) the restructuring of towns/population
centres in residential districts/suburbs and business/industrial areas, and (2)
commuting to work between countryside and population centres and between one
population centre and another. Both these phenomena require a mobility which
only motoring has been able to confer. Even though these processes have been
supported by a vigorous expansion of public transport facilities, there is no doubt
that motoring has been the most important factor.
In this way motoring has been the decisive force underlying both the radically
changed residential pattern of the towns and the preservation of large parts of the
residential pattern of the countryside. The relatively large volume of housing
construction which took place in rural areas during the 1970s and 1980s was based
almost exclusively on commuting to work in population centres.
Analogous to the decentralizing effects of motoring on a local level were the
effects of air traffic on a regional level. The relocation of government offices and
88 H ans W estlund
private enterprises which has taken place since the 1970s would hardly have been
possible without the dramatically reduced travel times between Stockholm and the
periphery that air traffic has brought about.
4. A historic turning-point?
The heavy 19th century investments in canals and later on railways show that the
importance of the infrastructure to national development was probably apparent to
leading politicians of that century. However, one consequence of the railway
network having been sufficiently developed at an early stage and of the market itself
having in the end actuated a great improvement of the road network was that the
importance of the infrastructure slowly disappeared from the politico-economic
consciousness. After W orld W ar II, growth soon became a phenomenon that was
taken for granted, and economic policy was aligned towards the levelling-out of
minor fluctuations in curves which were still pointing upwards. O nly in the most
recent years – after nearly two decades of poor growth rates – has the importance of
a modern infrastructure to economic growth come under renewed discussion.
Since the latter part of the 1980s, investments in infrastructure for land transport
have once again become popular throughout Europe. In contradiction to the
market-led constructions of roads and airports during the postwar period, current
projects such as, for example, the Sound Bridge, can be regarded as a political
attempt to create symbols of integration and powerful measures against
unemployment and stagnating growth.
W hile the market by increasing extension builds the digital infrastructure in
which the expanding sectors of the economy are canalized, it is easy to get the
impression that the politicians are trying to repeat the successful railway-building of
the late 19th century. If the worst comes to the worst, this policy will only be a
tragic attempt to seek the future in the past.
If this is correct, this means that at the present, we may very well find ourselves at
a historic turning-point, when the infrastructure with the greatest impact on the
future of society no longer is built and controlled by the state.

State and Market Forces in Swedish Infrastructure History

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Scandinavian Journal of History

ISSN: 0346-8755 (Print) 1502-7716 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/shis20

State and Market Forces in Swedish Infrastructure

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03468759850116025

Published online: 05 Nov 2010.

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2. State and market as builders of com munication networks

2.1. State-built communication systems

other than extension and im provement of the communication networks, are

enormous differences in transport conditions between summer and winter, heavy

2.1.2. Inns, transport facilities and postal system

people. The Riksdag of 1642 abolished gratis transport by adopting a resolution

2.1.3. Canals and inland navigation

2.1.4. Statens järnvägar – Swedish state railways1 7

2.1.5. State and infrastructure – conclusions

2.2. The growing markets’ communication systems

3. Communications mould and re-m ould the cultural environm ent

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