Solid Block of Ise

I live in Sweden. Sweden is a fairly small and kind of oblong country. One of my constant annoyances is that those in the south often conveniently seem to forget that there’s an additional 70% country in the north that supplies them with timber to sell, minerals to mine and electrical power to use. Another constant annoyance is how the major Swedish media is always very Stockholm-centric and also seem to forget about the rest of the country.

But today I chuckled a bit when I read Svenska Dagbladet (major Swedish newspaper) and saw an article about the price of housing and apartments in Stockholm. Attached was this little websurvey:

The question posed was “Is the price of housing in Stockholm reasonable?”. Translated the options were:

• Yes, if you want to live in the inner city you have to be prepared to pay for it.
• No, the prices are absolutely outrageous.
• What do I care, I don’t live in Stockholm.

That last option was the reason for my chuckle. Normally in most every survey they post they forget that there’s a majority of people who don’t really care about Stockholm and what goes on there. I’d say that this is a small glimmer of hope that the large media in Sweden maybe finally get up their eyes that a country exists outside of Stockholm, and not just the “here be dragons”-mentality that seems to be the norm.

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