In the first case, it’s all about the building and the exclusive design, form over function, more ego, less empathy. In the second case, it’s about the effect the design has on people, how it improves their lives, how inviting and inclusive it is. And affordable. Designing for the 1% doesn’t do much for the world.

Since moving to Stockholm I started noticing how much thought has been put into the built environment. I’ve been paying a lot more attention to the urban design and the ways we interact with it, and I started photographing in a more architectural style, but really being interested in the everyday life and the human-centric design examples. So there will be a focus on urban mobility and placemaking, not just on the building itself. See below a selection from my portfolio and let me know if you have something beautiful to photograph!

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If you’re looking for a wedding photographer in the Nordic countries, or elsewhere in Europe, maybe we should talk.
It’s something that I always loved doing, especially when couples take the time to enjoy their special day, doing things slow, intentional and mindful. Those simple, authentic moments, that allow love to shine through, will stay with you forever.

I work mostly with natural light and I capture weddings in a documentary style, with the occasional playful portraits where we take the time to create a beautiful moment between the two of you. Yes, you can call that editorial, but the truth is I photograph guided by the locations, the moments and the light. It’s always a unique, unpredictable, artistic play.
I bring with me years of experience, genuine interest, image quality, a friendly and relaxed personality and dependability. And backup cameras.
So take a look at some the photos here (and overall in my portfolio) and don’t hesitate to ask for more images and details. A dedicated wedding photography website is in the works.

Remote destinations with weird weather only make it more interesting to me, so if you’re planning an adventure elopement, hiking on top of a mountain or a destination wedding exploring some romantic place off the beaten path, I’m ready. I have photographed weddings in Spain, the UK, Romania, Sweden and Italy and I travelled throughout Asia and parts of South America.

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So I’ve been wandering around Stockholm talking to the bike shop owners to get a sense of the local bike scene and today’s interview features Mambona from Cykel Mecken. This is one of the newest bike shops in Stockholm, right? 
Yeah. We opened, what was it? Spring 2021. So, soon it’s been open for two years. And before this, I worked as a chef for 25 years, but I always had a passion for bikes and motor bikes. 

Wow, quite a change of careers. How did that happen? How did you or why did you change from being a chef to working on bikes? 
I think it was now, during the pandemic, I saw the restaurant was crashing and also I’m getting old, I’m 41 now, and I thought “If it’s sometime in life that I should do something else, it’s now.” And I just had the feeling to leave the restaurant business. I was pretty fed up with it and tired and I wanted to try something new. 

And you decided to get into bikes right into the middle of the pandemic, when everything was quite hard to predict, everything was chaotic. How was that? How did that go? 
I believe if you are a small shrimp in a society when everything gets put on hold, then you can push forward, but when everything is fine in the society, rents are high and everything, it’s hard to get the foot in. So I saw the gap and said okay, if it’s any time you should push forward it’s now, when everybody backs. And so we started this, we were two persons from the beginning, me and another guy. But after I think six months he jumped off. It was a journey. We had the contract on the 1st of May and we rebuilt the whole place in one month. So, we opened on the 1st of June.
The main focus we had was to have a nice atmosphere, a vibe that we missed in some other bike shops. But I was also inspired by EttEttSex, on Asögatan. It is closed now. Because when I was there, I was like yeah, nice feeling and it had the atmosphere. Also, I was inspired by my mentor in Fruängen, Thomas from Custom Cyklar. So we wanted to do it a bit different and also have a nice meeting point, where you can meet other bike people. And also, we wanted to just work with used bikes. 

I wanted to ask you about that, because this is the most interesting part of your concept. You are working exclusively with used bikes. So you are taking old bikes and you are repairing them, you also make some custom paint schemes, so why this concept, how did you end up with this idea? 
Because when I was working in restaurants, I was pretty fed up with all this throwing food and all this waste and I was working pretty much against zero waste. And this idea followed me to the bikes. I think in Sweden, every year, there are about 600.000 bikes sold, both new and used ones, and 100.000 get stolen every year. But I don’t know why people buy new bikes all the time, because you have so many bikes in the society.

And most of the old bikes you can find in really good quality in the frame sets, wheels and other components, but people just throw them. And for me, if everybody gonna try to do something, you need to start somewhere, you know, and I think this is a good start, to recycle bikes and get people to understand that an old bike can be as good as a new bike. Or even better, if you have the right components, the right frame sets. And also I like the way you can personalize it more.
For me it’s a handcraft. I like to work with my hands. A monkey can order exclusive parts from internet and mount them on a bike. But to take the bikes apart, to sort the parts, to sandblast them, restart over, paint all this and get them as new again. It’s more work to do that than to order from China new. 

I think this is one of the strong points of your business model with used bikes, because you can make some custom modifications for people which they will not find from the big production companies. So that is definitely an advantage, something unique to your shop. And tell me if I’m correct and people react positively to this idea. How do they like this whole concept of second hand bikes? 
When you explain it to them, because today everybody wants to do good things for the world, you know, people go and recycle stuff because they realize we need to do something and we can’t rely on the governments. You as an individual need to do, you need to have some measurements in life that you follow. 
So, I think many people who come here are connected, so they want to make this statement, to get the used, cool, unique bike, instead of getting a shitty bike. Maybe it’s cheaper, the shitty new bike, but it’s gonna rust in two years and has no personality. And I think people are more and more tired of this. People want to show, especially people who like bikes, they want to express themselves through the bike. And often you can see on a person’s bike who this person is, you know, I can see on a person’s bike if he has dishes home, you know. When I see the bike, I can imagine his living room.

Most of the responses have been positive. Then of course we have some people that don’t understand how a used bike can be more expensive than a new bike straight from China. A shitty brand or something. But then when you explain: so this bike, first we went and picked it up, then we spent time to pick it apart, then we sandblasted it and then we painted it, we grind it between the layers of paint, and then we assembled it, for you to get a kickass bike. Then most of the people understand. 

So do they come with crazy ideas for designs and paint schemes? 
Yeah, myself, I love pink, pink is my color. And I think I painted bikes in all of the rainbow’s colors and we had many custom paint works, both old bikes and new bikes. Everything from brake calipers that we painted in fluorescent yellow or something, or whole bike frames. Some people don’t want to paint the whole bike. Maybe just want the steering or the the seat post or the the crank set. So this is also an idea I try to present to people: if you just change a bit of the bike, it will be unique and cool. You don’t need to redo the whole bike.
But then of course, we have the ordinary workshop, mechanic workshop, where we do punctures and all these ordinary service works. So, it’s like, three legs this Cykel Mecken has. So the biggest leg for the moment is the mechanic workshop. Then, we sell many bikes, this is the second leg. And then it’s the paint shop, the third leg. It’s the paint that I want to develop even more and get even more crazy, to get this vinyl that you can put on and different patterns and stuff. 

This was one of the things that really got my interest when looking at your shop because, following other frame builders online, I see that frame painting is an actual profession in itself, so it’s something that can be separate. And you do everything here in the shop mechanical stuff, paint stuff. Also, I noticed you managed to have a 4.9 rating of Google Maps. What’s the secret? 
I think the secret is that I came from the restaurant business. And the restaurant business is service business. In all the restaurants I have been working in, good and bad, service is number one. So we treat all the customers who come here with open arms. And this is what I felt many times, when I came to a bike shop and I didn’t know exactly which part I needed, then I was the stupid guy. But hey, I come to your shop, I want to spend money, so why can’t you behave and be nice? Why should you be like “Ah, you don’t know that?” Just help me, man. 
So this, I think, is the big difference we made here, everybody is welcome. Most of the people is your mom and dad and kids, and everybody, and then you have the professionals, some bike messengers. But I think the social part is a big thing, to treat everybody the same, you know? 

How do you see the evolution of cycling here in Stockholm and in Sweden in recent years and especially since you opened the shop. What kind of people do you see coming? Do they change from year to year and is it growing or not? How do you feel everything looks like?
I think the bike community in Sweden increased every year, because more people see it’s the fastest way to get around in Stockholm, with all the traffic jams and everything. And also you get the exercise of biking. This is what I like. You don’t think that you exercise, but you do it. I think that in just 10 years it increased really much. Before I opened the shop, I counted in Stockholm there were around 40, 48 workshops that worked on bikes. But I read there were 120.000 people that bike every year. And then, I counted that the total was 48 workshops, and you see, it’s going to increase, so of course, there’s a market for it. 

But also the city could do much more than they have done to get even more people to bike. Especially because most people start to bike in March and then 90% of the people, 80% quit maybe in September, October, when it gets cold. So the city could do more for the bikers to commute all year around. Especially this winter was a good example, when everything crashed. We had the first snow, 30 centimeters, you couldn’t bike, it was impossible. But if you look at countries that have a bigger cycling culture like Denmark and the Netherlands, of course, the bikes lanes are exactly the same priority as the car streets, you know? 

And even in Finland they keep biking in winter and they have a lot more snow than here. It has to be said that in Stockholm, okay, we had a few days of heavy snow, but it was just for a few days and most of the winter is pretty dry.
Exactly, but still, when the snow comes everything crashes. And this is what makes me a bit confused, especially when we are a Northern country like this and half of the year is dark and cold and icy. 

I don’t think it’s really the weather, because people here are used to this kind of weather. They have the proper clothes, you see them outside all the time, no matter if it’s raining or snowing. So, it’s not the weather per se. It’s just the lack of proper infrastructure maintenance. 
Yeah, exactly. It’s the infrastructure for biking. And now we see small electrical vehicles, cake bikes, electric bikes, that’s just going to increase. In five years time, we’re gonna see a lot more small small, electrical vehicles.

This was my next question: how do you see the evolution of the e-bikes now? How do you think they will change the landscape? 
I hope it’s gonna get more politicians’ eyes on this. Like, okay, we need to have a supplement for the car roads or should we make some car roads just for these vehicles? Because in the end, I think micro transportation is the best way for nature and for the society. Most of the time when you look in a traffic queue today with many cars, you see maybe one person in each car. And you see this big queue. The car is not the best [means of] transportation, especially in a big city.

It’s not efficient. That is a known fact. 
No, exactly. And if you compare all the energy you put in the car to drive one person, it’s crazy much energy you spend on this. Especially today, when everything is about saving energy and all this. politicians should see the connection much more. But also, I understand that Stockholm makes much money of all the cars, you know. So it’s a bit hypocritical, you say one thing, but in the end you don’t live like you want to learn. 

And I think it matters if politicians can look long-term because, yes, from from cars you make a lot of money right now, but on the long term you have many things to lose. 
Yes, and this is also with electrical vehicles. The thing I like with the electrical bikes and small electrical vehicles is maybe you steal some car people to do this instead. In the end this is better, but also the electrical vehicles are not totally eco-friendly. So the best way is a regular bike, if you want to contribute to the climate and everything. Of course, I understand some people want to be comfortable and I also use an electrical bike, I can’t lie about that. So it’s a smart way to have a small vehicle. I think we should start to think about what are we going to do with all these batteries and all this electrical vehicles when we can’t use them? So, before we invent all this stuff, we should also invent a way to recycle it. So we don’t just stand there in 20 years time and we have Mount Everest of batteries, but ok, what to do now, because then we are already in the problem. And this I think it’s always in the back, you know? 

And this is something that can be said about many industries and our general way of life.
I think the bike industry could take much more responsibility there also. You remember when the first the mobile phones came out, you had different chargers for all the phones. Now, 20 years later they realized and, ok, we have two charges. And this should also be adapted on e-bikes. It would be so cool if you could find a battery standard: you have one standard 20 Volts, you have one standard 36, 48, 72 Volts and then the bike brand has to build around this, because this is the case you can use and then you create the bike around it.

I hope we’re gonna get to that point because it’s a new industry and like every new industry, it has to find the best ways to do something, and then the standards will appear. 
Yeah, because this can develop much. Because now it’s a jungle for e-bikes and you already see a big waste. Also it takes much more energy to create the e-bike. So, for this zero waste policy and all this visions you need to set it, but then the industry has to take a bigger responsibility than they are today, because today they just spit out things, no question asked. 

I have a one final question for you. So, what’s your favorite type of bike that you use and why? 
For the moment I drive my fixie and this is my favorite bike for the moment. The geared bike has its charm, but I like the gears in the legs, you know, if you want to go faster, you push harder. And also I want to challenge my mind with the fixie. For me, it is the ultimate bike experience, because you need to be connected 100% with the bike, connected with the surrounding areas. You can’t just jump on it and think about what you’re going to eat to dinner, you need to be focused and this I like. So for me it’s also good training, but also mindful training and connection. 
Before I tried all types of bikes. And I’m 40, so this is my thing to, like, “yeah, I can still do it”. 

It’s a personal challenge somehow. 
Yeah, exactly. 

Thank you so much for this interview and because you touched upon mindfulness I think this is going to be one of the next episodes, to talk about the connection between bikes and mindfulness. Thank you once again! 
You’re welcome!

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It’s called Bicification and it was tested in Braga – Portugal, Tallinn – Estonia and Istanbul – Turkey. Actors involved along with the municipalities: KTH Stockholm, EIT Urban Mobility, Pinbike, CERTH and Nextome. Yesterday, the final conference took place in Stockholm with some interesting findings presented.

Around 500 citizens in each city were selected from those who expressed interest and each received a sensor to mount on the bike and an app for their smartphone. The idea was for people to ride their bikes more and receive in return a certain amount of money per km, plus some monthly bonuses and also points or vouchers they could use in local shops that joined the program. The cities received valuable data about how the citizens cycled, where to and when, plus direct feedback on various issues regarding the experience of cycling in the city and the program itself. This data can be used by city planners to understand the needs of the people, popular places, routes and times. Having these, they can plan accordingly for new bike lanes, bike parking spots and assess public transport necessity or car traffic volume. And, of course, the city gets involved citizens with sustainable commuting habits, healthy lifestyles and more money to spend on local businesses instead of paying for cars and oil. And a better environment, that’s friendlier to people, quieter, cleaner and so on.

The municipalities can choose to reward people with a certain amount per km and can increase that amount in the morning and afternoon, to stimulate commuting with bicycles instead of cars and they can also offer things like public transport tickets or museum entrances or vouchers for local shops and all other kinds of rewards.

There were plenty of interesting details in the numbers, like the percentage of women cyclists in different cities and the possible cultural and technical reasons for that, the influence of weather ( more like lack of influence ) or the most effective motivators. This was interesting, different people are motivated by different things: some do it for the money rewards, some do it because they want to be part of a community, while some do it to reach the top of the leaderboard. And there were plenty of lessons in there for cities that wanted to shift the behavior of people in a different direction. The concept of behavior nudging through gamification employed here can be very effective and engaging if done right.

But the bigger picture is even more important. While it may seem like a financial effort for municipalities, the costs involved are actually modest and let’s not forget that car infrastructure receives billions every year and no one objects, even though it only produces more traffic and more costs while taking up very valuable space, just like the oil industry receives incredible amounts of subsidies and gives back pollution, health issues and climate warming. Making people’s behavior more sustainable deserves all the money in the world, because otherwise there won’t be much left anyway. I think programs like these can be a very efficient and cheap solution for cities worldwide to better understand the travel needs of their inhabitants, motivate them and plan better transport systems that are greener and a lot more efficient than car based transport. You are aware, I hope, that lanes dedicated to cars move fewer people per hour than any other type of transport. There is nothing less efficient in a city than a car lane in terms of moving capacity per space occupied per amount of time.

And society could use a different way of thinking about the habit of cycling as a transport alternative. It’s not just for recreation and it’s not supposed to be so full of obstacles. It should be actively encouraged by cities and it should be rewarded for all the benefits it brings. If more people understand this, than they will demand it and become empowered. For too long we have lived in a system that mostly rewards destructive behaviors: are you greedy and without morals? Great, you’ll become rich and society treats rich people a lot better than it treats everybody else. This has to stop if we want a future that’s sustainable, peaceful and accessible for all.

So, tell your city you want to ride and earn!

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How did you start working in this field? 
I have always loved riding bikes. I took my driver’s license when I was 27, because I had to. So that’s the reason.

What do you like most about having a bike shop? 
For me, personally, it’s just that I don’t like to have any bosses and I have some difficulty with totalitarians. So now I can run everything how I want it. And we also focus on selling stuff that we, both me and the staff members, want to have, like a personal choice. We don’t sell anything that we don’t like ourselves, so that’s why we are a bit nerdy at the shop. And also we export like 50% of what we’re selling. We import from the US a lot, because we like the craftsmanship from some companies and then we’re trying to get into Europe. 

And what’s the hardest part? 
Now, the hardest part is that there are really big disturbances in the bike industry globally. So we have a really hard time finding stuff to sell to the customers. And that’s a bit frustrating, when people are really eager. We have people that have been waiting almost a year for a bike.  

How do you see the cycling culture here in Stockholm? Is it growing? Is it changing? 
It’s hard because of the COVID-19 situation, but I think that before it was growing, because it’s the fastest and simplest way to move around in the city. If you live in the city center or like six, seven kilometers away from the workplace, it’s the fastest way to get around. And you can also see that on Götgatan. I can’t remember the extract number, but it was like 9,000 cyclists per hour or something. Because everyone that’s living south of the city center goes over that bridge or Liljeholmsbron. And then everyone is pushed into a bike lane that’s 1.20m or something. It’s so annoying. And the traffic lights are also quite bizarre.

You have to push the button [to cross] all the time.. 
Yes, you need to push that and everything is focused on the car. You can be standing for six minutes [at a red light] and no cars are in insight. You can walk across on a red light in Sweden, but you can’t ride the bike. It’s not illegal to walk when it’s a red light as pedestrians, as long as you’re not disturbing the traffic. But for bikes, if you go against red, you are punished by the law, even if you want to turn right. 

Good to know. And what should the city or even the government do to improve things for cyclists and increase their number?
The government, I don’t think they have any saying regarding the city infrastructure. It’s totally regional and even Stockholm has a lot of municipalities and they’re running their own streets. That is a big problem, because some areas have good infrastructure and others have nothing. So there should be a next layer of governance that are taking a wider perspective of connecting everything. Because now it feels like no one has the big perspective. 

That’s why I mentioned the government, because I understand there is a national strategy regarding cycling and there are some climate targets. But they don’t seem to be going very fast. 
No, because you have the government and then you have the landscape and then you have the city and then, under the city, you have these small self-governing municipalities. So it’s hard. I think the only responsibility for the government is the big roads outside the centers. 
But there is no logic, because when you ride, a sign could say “Stockholm Center – 10k”, but it’s not Stockholm city center, as a car sign would indicate. For bikes, the sign could be either to the city center or the city border. The signs are not accurate. They don’t have a common legislation. If you used the same logic when you build roads for cars, everyone will be super angry and the politicians would lose the election. But for bikes, they just see them as a recreational kind of vehicle, not like a commuter or for your everyday use. And I really don’t know why. It’s like that everywhere in Sweden.

But it was the same in Holland, before the OPEC crisis, when the government said “okay, we’re not going to get gasoline to the cars, so we need to push everyone to start riding bikes and we turn some of the streets into cycling roads instead of bike lanes. But they also tried to change it back when the crisis was over. The state took away the lanes for the bikes and started to put the cars back in traffic, but then the people were really upset. Maybe it will be the same when the gas will become expensive, I have no clue.  
The infrastructure is really one of the main problems. In some areas it’s quite easy to ride, but if you go on a longer distance for commuting, for example, it could be quite annoying. Especially when I go out to visit friends that are living in the suburbs, it could take one hour extra because you just go around and suddenly you are in a dead end or in someone’s backyard or something. It’s not straightforward, not signed properly. The lane could stop in the middle of nowhere and I’m like “Okay, where am I going now?”. 

One last question: what’s your favorite type of bike?
My favorite? It depends on what you’re going to do. I have seven.

And which one do you ride most? 
I usually ride my daily commuter and that’s a fixed gear bike. But sometimes I ride my road bike to work. So I don’t have any preferences. As long as it’s light, well built and in good maintenance, every bike is fun to ride.

The post Cycling conversations – Ep. 6 appeared first on Doru Oprisan.

Could you tell me a little bit about this project that you’ve been involved with for the last 11 years?
It’s called DrottningH, it’s a very broad development approach of Drottninghög, which is one of Helsingborg’s most socially deprived neighborhoods, where we work together as a municipality with authorities, with inhabitants and with the businesses, both local businesses and external developers.

Where did you start from? What were the original aims and where are you now? 
Back when we started the development process of Drottninghög, we were both aiming to address the social issues of this neighborhood, addressing Helsingborg’s need of more housing, and the overall aim was to make Drottninghög a thriving part of the city, rather than this enclave in the central parts of the city, but with big problems, really.

What were the main blockages along the way?
The main challenges, except reputation, were a high unemployment rate, a high level of crime, we also had a very homogenic neighborhood with only large families, a lot of newcomers to Sweden. 70% were immigrants in Drottninghög, which makes it an area that’s challenging when it comes to integration. And there were also issues of mobility and connecting Drottninghög to the rest of of Helsingborg in a better way. And since today we are building on the former parking lots of the neighborhood, we have to address the mobility issue as well. 

What was the mobility situation back then and what are you doing now? 
The parking situation was “Park wherever you like, how many cars you want, everywhere”. 

I’m soo familiar with that. 
So, going from there to having fewer parking space divided into different zones, depending on where you live, and also trying to get car ownership down and replacing it with bus traffic and different means of mobility. 

Was there any bus line or train line back then? 
There was a bus line, which was okay, but five or six years into this process, we managed to get a better bus line, more frequent and it’s also the first HelsingborgsExpressen. It’s an electric bus that has its own lane, so it’s quicker, more frequent and the route is longer. So Drottninghög has a better connection with the city and the outskirts. 

So now would you say the connectivity issue is solved or there is still room for improvement? 
There’s definitely still room for improvement and especially since Drottninghög is growing, we need to scale the collective traffic. If Drottninghög is going to be twice as big, with twice as many inhabitants, we have to have more services and we have to have more varied means of transportation as well. We can’t just look at one bus line and say this is the solution. 
We also have other target groups moving into Drottninghög now. Before we only had large families with the needs of large families, with family logistics, taking kids to and from school and so on. And now we have more elderly and more young people and they want different things and need different things when it comes to mobility. 

I had a question related to cars, but I’ll get to that in a bit. So, one way to reduce the need for mobility is to build inside the neighborhood the workplaces and everything else. Does this place has this?
A little bit, but we are adding workplaces now as well. If you compare the amount of flats or apartments to how many workplaces there were when we started, it’s way off. We need more businesses, local places to work and to study, as the community grows. And more varied businesses as well. Today it’s basically just shops or schools.

Some population groups are more attached to their cars than others. So how did you address that? Because you said you managed to reduce the number of cars. 
That is a big deal. Since we work so close with our community in Drottninghög, we’ve learned a lot about this and it has pros and cons. The fact that the car has a cultural value in certain cultures more than it does in Sweden, even if it does have a cultural value here as well. But actually a lot of our tenants have their own carpool: it’s within their family, like one has a car and then the family uses it. That in itself means that there are not more cars per family But it also means that the car is important for many people, for the entire family. And we had to really work with both push and pull factors, trying to introduce new ways of transportation, talking about it, pros and cons regarding safety for the children, traffic safety, climate as well. I don’t think we will ever get the car reduced to nothing, but definitely there’s a lot of potential in replacing most cars with other transportation methods. 

I’m curious if you’ve seen tangible differences, after all this work of explaining them and adding new transportation, if you’ve seen examples of people giving up their cars, or reducing their need for cars. What worked in that case?
I wouldn’t say that we have yet, to be honest. We have seen the results of women having to learn how to ride a bike, to get a job. And that combination of learning to ride a bike, having a bike and then having a job. And that’s a huge deal. That doesn’t mean that they have a bike instead of a car. The car is still in the family somewhere, but our work in the neighborhood has enhanced female mobility, because we’ve worked so much with women and with children regarding this. I think, when it comes to the cultural feelings for the car, we have to work more with the men. 

Your example is very powerful, because education starts with women and they have an important voice in every family. So, if it starts there, it can progress further. So it’s quite important.
What about the feeling of safety in the neighborhood, what changed since the project started?
It’s really interesting. I’m not sure if this is the same all over Europe, but back when these neighborhoods were built, there were many questions regarding traffic safety. And they built this tunnels and these bridges over these large roads that were just for cars. So that was a way of keeping pedestrians safe. However, moving into our time, those tunnels and bridges have become unsafe spaces, because the tunnels are dark and you can’t see everywhere, and the bridges also have turned into something negative, rather than something positive in means of transportation for pedestrians. 

They segregate areas because they are very large pieces of infrastructure that separate neighborhoods. 
Yeah, exactly. So, in working with HelsingborgsExpressen in that project, we had to redesign a street that was a 70 kilometers per hour street before and now it’s 40. So it’s really a lot reduced. And now there are also crossings along the way, so it’s much more connected to its neighboring area, Fredriksdal, on the other side of the street, which is hugely important. Before we had these trails where people found their own way to cross this 70km per hour street, and run over it and then go down into bushes and then into a parking lot. 

Sounds very unsafe. 
Very unsafe. Yeah. And we don’t have that anymore now. So that’s a very big step forward. 

And have you seen an increase in outdoor activities or people meeting more outside because of that?
Yes, we have definitely seen more of Fredriksdal and Drottninghög coming together and seeing each other as one, much more than before. We have different clubs, which have members from both sides, and now they have their activities both in Drottninghög and in Fredriksdal. 

Nice. There was a lot of talk earlier about participation and convincing people to join all these activities. How is that working there after this period of time? Do you see that participation fatigue? Are they tired of this or not? 
If we hadn’t come as far as we have in the physical transformation and actually going from talking to action, I’m sure they would be so fed up with us. We would be done. But we’re six years into the physical transformation now, so they can really see that talk leads to action and they can see how they are a part of developing. Everything from rent level to park spaces, playgrounds, has this element of dialogue in it, where they can see they’ve been a part of the process. So we have to keep that pace in order to keep trust and to avoid this engagement fatigue in the neighborhood.

I imagine that, at least in some cases, their behavior changed, some of them are responsible now for some parts of the neighborhood, right? 
Yeah, and proud. And the way I experience it, they have more confidence in the dialogue process as well. You don’t see as much “I don’t know why you ask me, because I don’t have any education and I’m not your person to talk to”. Instead, now we have more proud and confident residents taking part in the development. 

And that’s important because pride is also part of identity and an important one. 
Yes, absolutely.

One last question and I think it’s the most important topic in the long term: how do you make sure we’re not repeating the same mistakes made 60 years ago, and in another 60 years, have the same situation where they’re gonna start all over again. And I think it has a lot to do with prices and the fact that we cannot control the house market. Which is a shame, I think there needs to be some discussion about the economic model. But how do you make sure that it doesn’t become another poor and problematic neighborhood over the years? Or, if you build new fancy places and the prices increase and you drive those people away, what happens? How do you avoid all this?
This is the million dollar question, I guess. I think one part of the answer is to stop building homogenic neighborhoods. Stop building one size, fits all neighborhoods. Because, when you take Helsingborg as an example, we have homogenic neighborhoods that are just expensive large houses, 10 million dollar homes only, and we have the socially deprived neighborhoods which are only rentals, only apartments for the poor. I think every neighborhood can have someone who’s really rich and someone who’s really poor and everything in between. We as a society, we can handle that, but we can’t handle everything there and nothing there. So, I think part of the answer is to not build too much of the same thing, as we densify our cities. But that’s only a small part of the answer, of course.
To a certain extent, we are more individualistic now than we were 60 years ago, but as  inhabitants we demand more to be a part of. We don’t put our trust into the municipal or authorities hands in the same way anymore. So I think there’s a potential there. If we can harness that and create spaces and platforms for collaboration over a long time, not just like “this is a project, let’s collaborate and let’s go create and then we leave”, but make it into a method that’s integrated into city planning. I think that’s also one of the key factors to avoid having the same problems. 

This now became another question.. Now people tend to be choosing their clubs more. They choose their own Facebook feed, they only see what they like. We are different groups and we only stay with the people we like and we tend to live in the neighborhoods where the people are more like us.
Yes, it’s definitely a problem. 

So, going back to homogeneity in the neighborhood, that’s clearly a good thing, to have mixed usage and mixed sizes. But how do you turn that into a reality? Because there are financial interests, there are also the people that would like to be with their own kind in terms of wealth and so on.
I think a large part of making that into reality is not only to address the socially deprived areas as a problem, but also addressing the thriving middle class and over, as a problem. And actually, in terms of an example, when we had the migration crisis, we decided to build temporary apartments very quickly for migrants in the most wealthy areas of Helsingborg.That was a tough decision. And, of course, Nimby: “Not in my backyard, put them somewhere else. I own a property here, don’t come here with that.” But as it turned out, since we did it small scale, it was only 10 or 15 apartments per place and that proved our thesis, that in small scale, socially deprived or socially challenged establishments are not problem. We can handle that. That doesn’t mean that someone is gonna set fire to your neighborhood or anything like that, but you have to make that decision and then you have to stick to it and also follow it up. That’s a good example, dare to do that. So don’t just talk about socially deprived areas as a homegeneity problem, but also talk about the wealthy suburbia. 

I think this is key, the small scale, because that way you kind of force them to integrate upwards and not the other way around.
Exactly.

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