Rapid Latecomers: Growth, Crisis and Welfare in Northern European Cities

This chapter explores the cities of Northern Europe as a plethora of difference and similarity, first by considering the possibility of a Northern European region as it might emerge from climate, politics or urbanisation. It traces, a double process of urban material planning, growth and building and, on the other hand, an overall notion of a (Northern) European urban and regional identity. This plays out over a broad process from the liberal cities of the later 1800s, through the inter-war crisis and post-war changes (very distinct between Nordic and Baltic cities), to the post-Cold War period (where some similarities reappear).The chapter also focuses on the welfare period, where state and municipality enter into new negotiations. The social programmes of Nordic statecraft mean large-scale public housing, regulation and institutions, causing new cleavages between city and country. The new role of the market in urbanisation from the 1970s onwards is also considered, intersecting from 1989 with the end of the Cold War, and a reconnection between Baltic and Nordic cities. The chapter evaluates the influence of globalisation and the role of modernised cities both economically and culturally, and thus the notion and identity of Nordic and Northern European cities are connected with regional urban development.