8 Million
City
“Part-funded by the EU, the Scandinavian 8
Million City will similarly link
the capitals of Norway, Sweden and Denmark
with a 600 kilometre high speed rail line. This US$24.6 billion initiative aims
to enhance sustainable economic growth by reducing travel time, and providing
closer business and academic cooperation that will help these
countries punch above their weight
globally” (KPMG).
Why that particular region? The reason is
because that corridor is the most densely populated stretch of Scandinavia,
home to 8 million of the region's 20 million people. This Scandinavian region
is growing dynamically. In the past decades, this growth has become
concentrated around the cities along the railway corridor. Currently, it
consists of a number of large labor markets totalling ca 3.5 million people.
The labor force has, collectively, an increasing level of expertise and
education in parallel with the structural reforms at the industrial enterprises
in the area of the corridor. Currently, along the Oslo – Gothenburg –
Copenhagen route, there are 29 universities with 260,000 students and 14,000
researchers. With its 22 research parks and innovative incubators, the corridor
is becoming a cohesive Scandinavian belt of knowledge.
An
ambitious plan aims to link up its cities, medium-sized by global standards,
across three different countries to form a single megalopolis - '8 Million
City'. A high-speed train link would reduce rail travel time between Oslo and
Copenhagen from 7.5 hours today to 2.5 hours by 2025. Hence, all these efforts
are justified to create such a project!
(Image credits: Big Think)
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