In 2018, the population of Stockholm County was approximately 2.3 million, a number expected to increase by over one million by 2050. This growth will place high demands on land use within the City of Stockholm and in Sweden’s other metropolitan regions. Additionally, the effects of future climate change and the already-decided transition to a fossil-free society will put further pressure on efficient and well-planned land use. In Stockholm, as in other major cities, the pressure on city centres will inevitably force attention downward—toward the space beneath the surface—to better address these challenges.

​

However, at present, the City of Stockholm lacks both urban planning and an overarching strategy for using underground space. Instead, its management can best be described as operating on a "first come, first served" basis. As part of the FORMAS-funded feasibility study “Urban Planning for Transition – Step 1”, we held two workshops with various private and public actors during the fall of 2020. These workshops clearly highlighted several challenges facing the underground planning process in Stockholm, including:

​

1. The absence of planning that integrates underground space as part of the broader urban puzzle (the underground “does not exist” in a meaningful way for planners and is thus not accessible in planning processes).

2. In the absence of established practices, underground space claims are handled on a case-by-case basis ("learning from mistakes" rather than knowledge-based planning).

3. A lack of clear purpose, leadership, and vision to anticipate demand and enable active value creation for underground space.

4. Poor access to and flow of geospatial information.

5. The complete absence of shared use of tunnels for infrastructure, even where such shared use would be possible, practical, and economically viable.

6. A lack of demand assessments and trade-offs related to underground development (e.g., no mechanisms for managing conflicts of interest between different uses, sustainability considerations, or climate change impacts).

7. Ongoing surface-level transformation in attractive locations, where low-value buildings are being replaced with high-value developments, but without underground planning—potentially leading to suboptimal long-term outcomes.

The purpose of this application is not to provide solutions for all the problems listed above. The central question is how we envision the cities of the future. We do not have the answer to this question, but what we hope to achieve is to bring attention to and accelerate the processes needed to gain greater control over the design of future cities.

​

Urban functionality is increasingly dependent on the growing complexity of underground infrastructure. The interplay between these rapid changes in physical infrastructure and current and future social structures in urban environments forms the foundation for designing the cities of the future. If underground planning is based solely on a technical perspective, with implicit assumptions derived from existing social structures, there is a significant risk that decisions will be made that, in the longer term, prove unsuitable. This not only risks generating substantial unnecessary costs but may also create, rather than solve, future challenges in both the physical and social functions of the city.

​

The goal of this application is to better understand this interplay and to highlight the opportunities and importance of integrating underground space into urban planning. In this project, we intend, among other things, to compile geological and geotechnical information alongside existing infrastructure. Based on this, we will clearly visualize opportunities for constructing, for example, larger underground cavities beneath central Stockholm. In the next step, considering given social and economic parameters—such as proximity to existing and future infrastructure—we will demonstrate the possibilities for different types of underground use based on spatial requirements.

​

We will pay special attention to the assumptions that underpin societal needs and choices, as well as how these intertwine with environmental and sustainability goals. Finally, we will develop a set of long-term scenarios for future underground use to identify various potential challenges and opportunities regarding underground development and the specific adaptation and forward-planning measures that can be implemented. Furthermore, we hope the tools developed in this project can serve as a foundation for further development toward achieving sustainable development goals.

​​​​​​​​