Season 3 Episode 10 - NATURE
My city of New York is known more for it’s skyline than its outdoor offering. But in Stockholm, nature seemed to appear out of nowhere, intertwined within the city fabric. Even neighborhoods constantly labeled “dangerous” have pretty stunning views. How has Stockholm grown, and keeps growing, with natural spaces in mind ?
Script
[INTRO]
JONAS 0:01
A guy from up North who comes to the big city who comes to Stockholm to visit and they're standing on the cliffs at Södermalm, looking out over the islands with the city on it and his Stockholm friend is like, you know, hey look out, or have a look like isn't it beautiful? And he's like, yeah, it's beautiful, it's a pity they built a city there though.
[Music]
Jess 0:47
Welcome to Here There Be Dragons. This season, I’m taking you to Stockholm. I’m your host, Jess Myers.
Episode 10: Nature
... and goodbye.
[Quotes] 1:01
“…all the different species sort of do the jobs for us…”
“…the whole archipelago with lots of different environments on the island. So they're…”
“…almost rural, in one way…”
“…certain kind of wild quality to it…”
“…but they're still very much connected to Stockholm…”
“…although it's completely tamed…”
“…urban environments really entwined with natural habitat…”
“…there's so many things about nature that I mean it's the place where Swedes relax, it's where they go skiing in the winter…”
[Music]
Jess 1:44
To report this season, I spent November, December, and January of 2019 in Stockholm. Three months of damp darkness, with only a few hours of daylight and even fewer of sunshine.
Yet, despite the bleak winter days, the park on the banks of Södermalm, near my apartment, was never empty… people went on walks, grabbed coffee, brushed the snow off of benches, and chatted. During the weekends, friends took me out hiking along with their kids.
In my city, New York, is known more for it’s skyline than its outdoor offering but there is Central Park, and my neighborhood spot Prospect Park in Brooklyn. You can have some access to nature in New York, but within a very specific and defined perimeters… To get out of the city and onto wilder trails is more of a trek.
In Stockholm, nature seemed to appear out of nowhere, intertwined within the city fabric. Even neighborhoods constantly stereotyped as “dangerous” have pretty stunning views. How has Stockholm grown, and keeps growing, with natural spaces in mind? That’s what we’ll dig into this episode.
[Music]
To me, strolling on a dirt path along the banks of Lake Mälaren just around the corner of my apartment was very exotic. But as I talked to Stockholmers, I quickly realized that to some locals… those paths barely registered as “nature”.
TANVIR 3:17
For me, just, especially the worst thing about living at Södermalm was, as soon as I stepped out of the door, I was in the city. There is no transition period.
Jess 3:28
But many Stockholmers I met agree that nature is abundant in the city. It bursts out of unexpected corners, where a trip on the subway can quickly turn from city square to forest views. Of course, the geography of the city lends itself to this…
If you look at a map, Stockholm is where Lake Mälaren, Sweden’s third largest lake, merges with the Baltic sea, and the city as a whole is more like a myriad of little and not-so-little islands… Water represents 30% of the urban landscapes… and parks and green spaces? Well, that’s another 30%.
And that definitely makes Stockholm stand out.
OLIVER 4:07
Even in the most urban areas there's still nature if you know where to look, even though it's can be quite difficult. I think Stockholm has like like a proper forest, you can have trees that have been lying there for some time, you know, without being removed or you know, brought into the paper industry or whatever. So you still have these really old forests I mean, and that's something that's unique for Stockholm I guess.
In other states when they sprawling out a lot of these areas get you know, there's no place for them. I mean, the cities have to grow but in Stockholm, we have preserved quite a lot of them. And some of them are on islands you have Ørstaholmer, which is just here between the Ørsta and Södermalm over here, which are two islands that have just been made into a reserve, a nature reserve. And if you go there, it's you also get a pretty amazing kick out of it because it is like, proper nature, you know, as you can see on the map is just in between a lot of pretty urban areas.
So there are some refuge places for animals to thrive. And so I would say, I mean, I think it's more accessible. I think people in Stockholm have if they want to experience nature, they have a better opportunity than other cities.
VIDE 5:28
I love the contrast where you have urban environments really entwined with natural habitats. And that's really something that Stockholm has a lot of. It's in a big part thanks to the geography and that we have Lake Mälaren going through the city, and also, you know, we have quite a lot of natural areas preserved, especially around the little tiny lakes around the city as well.
ERIK 6:00
The forest that I was in these days was Tiyersta, it's called. Just south of here, it's a natural park that has a really old forest that it has almost no, there's almost none of those forests that south in Sweden. We have them up in north. So that's really impressive area.
And we also have the whole archipelago with lots of different environments on the islands over there, and there's a lot of like bird lakes and lot of small forest areas in really close to the city center.
There are also a lot of nice fields and like more open areas. And we also have this Notmalstats Park that's a national city park, and I think it was the first in the world here in Stockholm, that's a really important green area in the center of Stockholm.
OLIVER 6:54
That's one thing that's good about Stockholm is I guess is you don't have to go very far to find areas like that, which are almost rural in one way but they're still very much connected to Stockholm. It's pretty unique.
So for me it's I guess being out there really shaped my view and I think I appreciate that being able to live in that world and then coming back to Stockholm in the city, then you can sort of take a lot more if you have that relaxing countryside rhythm to go back to.
Jess 7:33
The western-most part of the city is even known as “the archipelago”, it’s mostly fishermen and country houses for more privileged Stokcholmers, but some people live there year-round…
GUSTAV 7:47
The Stockholm archipelago has 30,000 islands, and then there's more if you go up and down. But the part of the archipelago that's closest to Stockholm is inhabited all year round, but then a vast number of islands is not. If you want to try to live there all year round, you will have to use helicopter service. Because you know when the boats doesn't go all year round, because of the ice and stuff.
So it's it's- that's also something that fascinates me in a way. That you can be quite close to in the city of Stockholm in a way, but you can be very far from civilization in a way.
Jess 8:31
But most green spaces are tucked within the city itself.
MARIE-LOUISE 8:35
I live next to a golf course, it's also a really nice bay there's lots of forest areas.
YASMEEN 8:44
I go for long walks, like two hours, three hours… And I don't like to walk around in pavements and buildings. It feels too depressing. So if I'm walking, I like to walk in nature, and like Karholmann is a really big nature reserve there. So when I"m walking I walk there, 'cause I think it's really… I mean I feel more at peace. And you get rejuvenated.
Jess 9:12
To Gustav, it's even what makes Stockholm a little bit more interesting.
GUSTAV 9:18
So in a bigger city you would have constantly new areas to explore. Endless, if you talk about London.
In Stockholm, you don't have endless. Like you walk around in the center part of Stockholm for like 8 months, if you do it diligently and you have a lot of time like I did, then you realize pretty soon, ah that's it. It's a disappointing moment you know.
So after that what you can do is you can continue discovering the kind of wildness around the city which is also very exciting, but different, different way, I guess.
So I don't know if the access to nature is in particular important, but the access to something to explore is important, I guess.
[Music]
Jess 10:32
But there’s a “culture of nature” that’s ingrained from a very young age. It’s even taught in schools.
TANVIR 10:39
So in school orienteering is that you walk around with a map in a forest, and then you have to find, like, different checkpoints, and you find the different checkpoints on the map. And that's how you learn to navigate both with a map and like how to understand elevation and, and all of this, so we do that in school to learn how to navigate. I don't know what it's like today, when we have GPS and stuff, but, but as a kid, that was part of our school, and then you get, like, a broader sense of nature.
You know, like, we would go with the after-school programs, to go into the woods, get, you know, mushrooms or blueberries, pick mushrooms and blueberries, things like that. And I'm, I can't talk about like every suburb kids experience. But my experience, growing up was very, very close to nature.
And you know, like, in the winter, we have hills where we go, sledding.
Jess 10:36
Stockholm is the first city I’ve lived in where leisure in nature has the same amount of weight as other urban activities. It was nothing to residents to get out of work and hit the forest.
BJORN 11:50
We did all the things that most like typical middle-class Swedes do. I mean, we went skiing, we went out sailing. And I mean, there's like this program that you should do as a Swedish, ordinary normal citizen. Sort of like...
Yeah, so I mean, we did all those things. And, and with that comes the package of nature, I would say.
JACQUELINE 12:18
The sauna culture here is very special to me. And there's a sauna on on the water. This floating sauna that is next to my home.
So it's called taltubastu. And there you can go as... Yeah, just like a member of the public to just go there. And then there's, like particular evenings or times during the day where you can just go and you pay like 25 crowns during the day or 50 crowns in the evening. And then you just get to sweat in this like wooden cabin, and then you take a dip in the water, you just like jump in the water and just kind of get this shock of coldness that just cools you down.
So yeah, for me, that is a particular spot to me. And it's a good way also to lower the stress level. So that is sometimes much needed. And so for me, it does have a particular kind of shining spot in my heart.
SAMUEL 13:22
Because the summer is everything here. [Laugh] It really is also the time where it opens up in a way that you don't see it open up. It becomes vibrant, alive. It becomes a matter of like that's when you know like, ok this is a moment of three months barely too, sometimes, that we can experience this certain, you know just having not to be cold all the time.
And it opens up the city so much in terms of where people hang out changes. That it's more open, it's more acceptable to you know, for like I think a lot of people from the suburbs come to town more in the summer to take part in certain things And because Stockholm has this beautiful, you know it's nature, it's beaches, it's lakes, and it's… You know, everywhere you go is packed with people. And you kind of feel like wow, we do share the city. That, those brief moments of encounters.
You know, we do share the city. This is beautiful.
Jess 14:33
Integrating nature into the daily fabric of their lives was something almost second nature to Swedes.But it was also a surprise to Anass, who comes from Morocco by way of Paris.
ANASS 14:36
For someone who was living in the city all his life, and especially taking relying on taking transportation or being very close to there, walking in the nature to go to school was something really very strange and new for me.
Jess 15:00
At first, Anass first found nature's integration into city life a little bit weird.
ANASS 15:04
Being someone who lived in Paris, you always have my shoes on you, nice clothes on you, etc. So it was kind of weird to walk with these nice clothes and then end up somewhere with mud, for example. And then... because you know, we were walking to the university, it's not that I'm going to do sports or go to the gym.
So this was what was weird, like how you would adapt your clothing and your ways of, of going to the university. So for example, what people were doing is that they would put some big shoes adapted for this weather and then have their nice shoes in the bag, and then put them while they're arrived to the university or to work.
So this was what was felt weird for me how combine this nice looking aspect with still walking in areas that are like the jungle. I mean, not jungle in a bad way. But in safety matters. No, there was no issue at all, and there was always feeling very safe and comfortable walking there.
Jess 15:58
Most residents described feeling particularly safe in these areas, especially in the summertime when days are the longest and when the city comes to life for a few short months… But nature always has an edge that lends itself to the imagination.
Even when well-integrated into the city fabric, its emptiness and darkness can feel isolated and dangerous. Stockholmers, and especially women, often conveyed this dual relationship to these spaces.
NASIM 16:28
I would say more maybe places where there were a lot of people, we would always try to focus on parks more than forests, because you have your own like in the nature, surrounded by nature, but still with other people. So that was when I felt most safe when there was a lot of people around.
JACQUELINE 16:49
In the summer, I feel completely safe because it's much brighter and it's bright, pretty much all night, there's just few dim hours between I don't know, one and four in the morning. And then apart from that is pretty much bright. So you have a sense that it's still daytime basically. So it does definitely contribute to my sense of safety.
But then on the other hand, when it comes the winter, which is much darker than the sense of discomfort is much more present. But you do see the city occupied as well. Even though it's four in the evening, it's pitch black, you do still see a lot of people. So it's a reminder that that it's not that late yet.
But yeah, this kind of buzzing feeling in your stomach, you do get it maybe a bit more actually in the winter than summer, I never experienced that sense of discomfort.
Jess 17:47
The isolated dense green spaces can trigger a sense of vulnerability in some people, and in particular in older women and women of color… Jaqueline was often aware of what, or who might be lurking in the shadows
JACQUELINE 18:02
Green spaces are larger parks or parks that do feel quite sort of- like keeping a certain kind of wild quality to it although it's completely tamed through urban planning.
For me kind of always had a dark corner that I could envision someone hiding like behind a tree or a rock or hill or- it has so much potential for different crime scenes to happen. And then those would often be the spaces where my imagination would just go wild in terms of being a woman- a woman of color- moving into these spaces.
So you would have parks on Södermalm. You would have for example you have tanto, you would also have this kind of pedestrian space along the water that in the evening would sometimes make me feel uncomfortable, but a lot of joggers actually use it as their evening jogging route as well. So you're never completely alone, there’re these moments when you have this sense that you're completely alone in the darkness, but then quickly you see a jogger passing by, and it’s like, uh ok good.
In the evening there's this really steep hill that I need to kind of bike over that I'm never able to fully bike all the way to the top to reach the bridge to cross the water over to our place, so I always halfway on the hill need to get off my bike and walk with my bike in order to reach the bridge. And that particular spot which is in the middle of that forest like spot in the evening just kind of somehow freaks me out with the idea that it's somehow an ideal murder scene that could happen there or whatever kind of horror scene that potentially could happen.
But I think it's very kind of gender-informed as well- I would be surprised that a yeah other types of bodies experience the way that I experience that particular kind of hill that doesn't allow me to bike all the way to the top in one and forces me to get off the bike and walk with my bike that makes me feel just very vulnerable in that particular moment.
GUNILLA 20:22
Earlier I was taking the bicycle very much, but I lost my it was stolen my bicycle two years ago, so I don't buy a new one. When you were bicycling those... I was getting into town this way and it happened for me that... was accidents with people running on me or open the doors or the...
So it was unsafe to make bicycling in this era, so I don't do it.
[Swedish clips]
GUNILLA 21:53
I've been robbed once I was going to the tube. There is a tube station in the park here. And it was it was not late in the evening. But it was in the evening. And there was one man coming from back into my backpack and pushing me into the ground and taking my…things with money and things like that. I ran away with this.
So I feel unsafe in this because it's a park and it was not many people there and I could see this place…anything could happen. So I I don't like to go that way. But it's near to my... to the job. So...
Jess 22:56
The fears triggered by natural spaces aren’t that different from those triggered by urban spaces. A general sense of vulnerability, or the feeling that spaces aren’t quite designed to accommodate you can be overwhelming.
But this integration of greenery is there by design. Keeping natural spaces has also been a part of the city’s policies, even as it was urbanizing in the 1950s and 60s. Remember the Millions programs, these little beads strung along the metro lines? Well in between them, are park spaces. And if today, those can feel isolating, it was initially thought of as an asset.
ERIK 23:34
The Million Programs in Stockholm, there's a lot of them that are really close to great nature reserves. So, in that way I think that Stockholm is quite, equal, you can say, there's a lot of nature reserves for almost all areas that people are living in.
Jess 23:53
Of course, Stockholm faces challenges as a growing city, especially with a housing crisis that constantly pushes for the construction of more units. Yet in the last few years, Erik has noticed that Stockholmers have been really good at organizing to protect the environment from urbanization. That nature culture that was fostered in schools and through activities has really resonated with local concerns for wildlife and the threat of climate change.
ERIK 24:25
I wrote a book about Stockholm nature with two friends that came out last year and we talk a lot about 27 different places and also mentioned like 100 other places. And I would say that almost all of the places were mentioned in the book has been close to being exploited in some way. And they are still under threat from buildings, but a lot of them are now nature reserves.
There are so many people living close to these nature reserves. So a lot of people have some kind of connection to them. And I think that's really important. Because if you, it can be as easy as learning what the area's called. And when you know, it's all like Nakerasgotet. And if you read about Nakerasgotet in the newspaper, and you learn that there are some kind of building plans. That could be enough for you to, like, want to protest them, they want to keep this as a protected or natural sort of area.
That's something that's, that's really, really important in Stockholm.
Jess 25:29
I guess, what kind of pushback do people do to ensure that these developments don't move forward? And also, what kinds of developments do you feel pose the greatest threat to these areas?
ERIK 25:43
They're starting a lot of like Facebook groups about a specific area. And then there are a lot of people are helping each other out with like contacting politicians and contacting media and organizing different protests. And I think that's a lot of Stockholmers who are into nature has become really good at that.
It's also an important way to protect an area is to look for what kind of species are living in the area. So if there are like protect that species, there are there are some species that's not very common, or it's a bigger chance to save that area.
So I think that people in Stockholm has become really good at that. And also, there was a lot of people living here, and a lot of them are interested in nature. So I think that's a big thing for protecting nature.
And when it comes to the threats to the different areas, I'd say that it's mostly about building housings for people to live in, since that's, I mean, there's a lot of people moving into Stockholm. So I mean, there's a big...
We have to build more houses. And it's a question about where to build them. And I think that most people are into nature, knows and understands that we need to build more houses. But I also think that people should listen to people who really knows about nature and listen to their views on where not to build, because there's a lot of interesting species that are living in Stockholm that needs to be protected.
Jess 27:19
Today, the city has other ways of designing nature into its city planning. Cities don’t usually think of other species as they expand, the’re built around humans and their needs… Yet, can urbanization be an inter-species project? I spoke to Oliver and Vide who work with the city of Stockholm to protect wildlife and in particular… lizards and frogs.
VIDE 27:43
The city had a project around, I think it was 2007. Where they built, I think, was 12 Ponds around the city. We went around sort of inspecting the ponds. And we did have some stuff to complain about, and we had some notes. But instead of going in with, like a negative attitude, we gave them a prize, like the yearly herpetological prize for good herpetological deeds. So they were happy about that.
And so we got more money or constructing more ponds.
OLIVER 28:18
In Skarholman, we've been working, making small ponds, you know for frogs and newts and salamanders, which is one way to get people to appreciate these animals.
And I remember when I was a kid, that was a pretty huge part of me growing up, being able to go to a pond or a lake, and you know fish up frogs, just put them in a small aquarium, watch them, and then release them. And being able to do that for a kid, I feel like that's an important part, if you grow up in a city without any connection to nature that's a pretty huge loss.
And in Skarholman for example, we've been doing, we've been actually adding these small ponds all over this map, so we have thirty-forty ponds being, that have been made. And they sustain themselves basically. If you dig a hole and you have water, the water doesn't drain if it's there all year round, you will get all kinds of you know wildlife, you get insects and then you get frogs, you have birds coming there to feed, so it does bring a lot of animals to the people of Stockholm, instead of bringing them out into nature.
VIDE 29:23
We rely on natural habitats for lots of different ecosystem services, like cleaning the water and purifying the air. And just sustaining biodiversity and all the different species sort of do jobs for us, and for themselves as well of course, but I mean…
We have all these reasons like, the term ecosystem services was sort of made up from an idea that we should calculate the economic value of nature and how it benefits the human society.
But then, there's a lot of truth in that. And it's a great motivation, but for me personally, it's more about these, like I said before, the feelings of interest and fascination and relaxation, or flow state that you can get into while in nature.
[Birds singing]
[Park noise]
[City noise]
[Music]
Jess 31:35
It's rare to think of a city as an inter-species project. City planning predominantly centers the comfort and ease of people, property, and cars. Stockholm faces challenges as a growing city, especially with a housing crisis that constantly pushes for the construction of more units.
Yet more and more, Stockholmers are beginning to challenge the idea of expansion as the solution rather than reinvesting in maintenance and public over private housing. You may have heard of Greta Thunberg, alongside local organizing, her weekly strikes have pulled attention to the city’s needs to develop for a sustainable urban future.
For me, Stockholm was a treasure. To leave my studio and get a little lost in nature was a delight. It’s been over a year since I left the city and I will always remember it for that particular wonder.
This is our last episode of the season, and to wrap things up, I’d like to answer some questions that listeners sent to us throughout the season…
One that comes from a debate that we had internally on the HTBD team is around our coverage or let's say non coverage of the Coronavirus pandemic. Now, we recorded our interviews with residents and 2019 and left Stockholm just weeks before lockdown started throughout the world.
Now, I think that Stockholm and Sweden in generals’ approach to the Coronavirus really demands some attention, especially in its treatment of older city residents and immunocompromised residents. But that reporting is something that you can find on sites like the local which I think did some really interesting reporting if you are an English speaker, but we did think about that very deeply. As we were building the season in our own lockdowns.
Listener 33:34
Hello from my closet to yours Jess. I have a couple of questions that are about the evolution I guess of the podcast as an entity over the past several seasons. And the first one is how do you production the organization the maybe even the funding structure of the podcast has impacted the storytelling from season to season.
Jess 33:58
This is a great question and you can hear it in the evolution of the three seasons.
So, if you go back and you listen to season one on New York, this is where the podcast is really at its scrappiest, me learning editing software on my own and kind of having very limited knowledge of how to get good field recordings and things like this.
So, I like to leave that season the way that it is, so that people can just see what it sounds like to sort of gain support or gain funding to be able to pursue more and more of the ideas. So the way the storytelling has changed over the course of the three seasons is that the main conceit of the show has remained the same. But how we're able to approach and really pull listeners into our stories has gotten so much more varied and diverse.
This season very much thanks to Adrienne for bringing her sound design background in, so that we can really lay a kind of soundscape in terms of music and the sounds of the subway or the sounds of nature that I hope you you know, heard in this episode.
We can really bring that in because we've had the support of the ground Foundation for Advanced Studies in the fine arts and we've had the support of Konstnärsnämnden, the Swedish arts grants committee, and what that support really does is allows us to push even further into different types of techniques and storytelling, where we can serve the voices of residents who spoke to us on just a platter of more elaborate and illuminating sound design. So I would say that that's how the seasons have changed over the course.
Listener 35:47
And the second question that I have is more about how contemporary events and how life itself, especially in the pandemic has impacted the storytelling. There's a certain urgency to each of the stories that you're telling, but you're also not telling them immediately as they happen. There's a bit of a delay that is built into the podcast setup.
And so, I'm curious to hear how your life as you're living impacts the stories that you're recalling and telling through the interviews that you have completed several months prior.
Jess 36:34
To talk about the urgency of stories, especially since we usually do a chunk of fieldwork and it takes us about a year to produce the show, to produce a season.
We don't set ourselves up as an of-the-minute sort of daily news show. A lot of the stories that we focus on are things that have to do with very long-term forms of history and policy and socio-political structures that are in place in the cities that we're interested in.
So it's not necessarily that we need to have a kind of 24/7 news cycle, approach the stories that we're telling because we're trying to embed them in a very long history. So the urgency, I’d say there's definitely an urgency to learn about these stories and to sort of frame the understanding of security and safety differently. I think that's very urgent that we think about our own narratives of security and safety in a different way. But it doesn't necessarily need to be that it's always from kind of snatched from the headlines, news reporting. We really want to cite that, and people's long-term lived experience.
So you know, even on the Coronavirus didn’t happen. Like after we got the tape as we talked about, we made the decision that you know, the show is kind of about the long-term experiences of residents and at that time they hadn't experienced the Coronavirus pandemic yet, so we really couldn't report to it.
So what we did in that case was just report to the stories that we had and frame those in the way that we usually do for the season which is in sort of a historical-, policy-based and sort of socio-political way.
So I hope that that answers your questions. and if you guys have other questions, please feel free to like reach out to us on social media, or on our Gmail account, which is htbdpodcast@gmail.com We're happy to take your questions and even though this is the end, the last episode of the season, maybe they'll appear in the next season.
So thank you for your questions and, you know, we're really really always very happy and lucky to hear from listeners.
Jess 38:46
This season we’ve had the pleasure of getting familiar with Stockholm, Sweden. Here we witnessed Stockholmer contending with what of the city was and was not accessible to them from housing to club scenes to train stations. We’d like to thank every songle interviewee on the season for giving us their time and perspectives. These interviews were the last we did in person before the coronavirus pandemic but we got to spend lockdown getting to better understand these voices and for that we are profoundly grateful. So for the last time this season:
We are produced with the generous support of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the fine arts and Konstnärsnämnden (The Swedish Arts Committee). Thank you to our senior producer Adélie Pojzman-Pontay and our team of graduate assistants from the architecture department at the Rhode Island School of Design: Bilal Ismail Ahmed, Daniel Choconta Guerrero, Kim Ayala, and Uthman Olowo. Fatou Camara consults for the show. Cory Jacobs does the music. And Adriene Lilly is our sound designer.
A special thank you to our Patreon supporters: Patricia, Brandon, Anne, Arvid, Jim, Blake, and Joey. If you’re interested in season mini episodes on everything from ethnography to drug policy or fish traffic you can now access them as a bundle on our patreon. Check it out in the show notes We’re @dragons_podcast, or check out our website and newsletter, all full of fun content like readings, maps, and videos.
[OUTRO]
SAMUEL 40:38
Like the beach is packed, did I say the bitch? [laughs]