Stockholm: The Tale of the Unicorn Factory

Once upon a time there was a city in a cold place a long way to the north. One day the city started to tell a story about itself. As the chapters unfolded, life in the city changed, and soon it didn't even seem so cold or far away any more. People listened to the story and realised that the city wasn't quite what they expected. They started to tell the story to each other about how the city had created a magical unicorn factory...

Here's how Stockholm built a narrative for itself – and backed it up with urban development that was innovative and sustainable.



Dr Emma Björner is a researcher and expert sustainability consultant. She works for Enact Sustainable Strategies and is an associate researcher at Gothenburg Research Institute at the University of Gothenburg where her focus is sustainable tourism. She is also senior expert at the International Organisation for Knowledge and Enterprise Development, working primarily with China-related projects, and URBiNAT, a Horizon 2020 project centring on sustainable cities. She has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals, edited a book and wrote her Ph.D. dissertation on the branding of Chinese mega-cities.

Olof Zetterberg has worked for the City of Stockholm since 1981, including as the city's refugee coordinator. He served at various times as director of Stockholm's departments of recreation, culture and sport, city planning, traffic, real estate and parks. He chaired the development of Hammarby Sjöstad and, from 2007 to 2018, he was the CEO of Stockholm Business Region. Since 2007 he has been chairman of the Stockholm business incubator STING and is currently a board member of Start-Up Stockholm, a foundation that provides free advice to new businesses.