The Swedish Bulletin - Archives: Meet the dynamic Mayor of Stockholm

Meet the dynamic Mayor of Stockholm
Two friendly monarchies

TEXT BY JANN MITCHELL PICTURE BY ANGELICA ENGSTRÖM - STARSTUDIO

Meet the Mayor, Annika Billström, a 49-year-old Social Democrat. She is no big woman but is undoubtedly Stockholm’s most powerful politician. Caring and determined, she doesn’t lack charisma. She has another year in office presiding over Sweden’s capital and its rich and well organized city government.

The little girl from Norrland learned the hard way how to solve problems. Brought up by a single mother working constantly to feed her six children, Annika developed persistence, self-reliance and confidence while being the youngest in the pecking order. Persistence has paid off for that little girl from the north. She is the first woman to steer Stockholm since its founding in 1252. Dubbed the fourth most popular mayor in the world (see www.citymayors.com), she is determined to run again – and win – in 2006. She’s set her mind on making Stockholm “the ecological capital of the world.”
Enter the regal Stadshuset through the employee entrance on a side tourists don’t see, obtain a visitors badge and take the hiss. Standing at her office door to greet guests, Billström could easily be mistaken for an aide as she ushers people in and offers them drinks. But this is the elected leader of Stockholm‘s 760,000 inhabitants, a fact which seems to delight her as she beckons visitors over to examine the best feature of her modest office – a tiny, triangular space which juts from the building, offering a view through vaulted windows of the building’s tower, Lake Mälaren and the heights of Söder.“My meditation room!” she says, a warm smile lighting a face framed by light brown hair cut short. Refreshingly free of political double-talk, she lists her priorities: “First, reduce the unemployment – low compared to other parts of Sweden at 3.8 percent – but you have to fight for it.Two, build a lot of new dwellings, much more than 20,000.Three, make Stockholm the most exciting region in northern Europe.”
The latter she plans to achieve through encouraging more IT and telecommunications firms to locate here, having the city go wireless, and increasing the biotech and biomedical research at Karolinska. Projects such as the current Year of Design also help.
But she’s not finished with her list, which includes renovating the old tax office on Söder into student housing, and building a new arena near Globen for concerts and sports apartments.Yes, and “making Stockholm an ecological and economical sustaining city – the ecological capital of the world,” by increasing public transportation, levying congestion charges, cleaning up building sites, making the water even purer, and building more bike lanes.
“She wants to do everything,” her press secretary, Claes Thunblad, says with some frustration.“I want to concentrate, and Annika’s ‘Do this, and this, and that!’ But she knows what she wants, and I don’t have any example where she doesn’t get what she wants.” Billström concedes that people wonder:“How can a working-class girl be the mayor of Stockholm? How is that possible?”
And she answers her own question:“I’m very hard on myself – I had a long training (growing up). It was really hard and tough, but it taught us to fight, to solve problems.”
Today, she reads a lot “to know what I’m talking about. First I read, then I use my civil servants’ advice, then I go out in the city looking and talking to people who have a realistic view of the problem.Then I start thinking about how to solve it.”
Putting in up to 78 hours a week – much of it at her Södermalm home – Billström concedes she has to know “exactly what to do or the men will take over again! They compare me with themselves and wonder how I can know anything about infrastructure, cars and buildings.” She proudly points out that in 1994 she was vice-mayor for traffic and real estate, and she draws on what she learned.Two days a week, she’s out of the office and studying problems close-up in schools, homes for the elderly, day-care centres.
Not that she’s all work.With husband Lennart Weiss, who owns a company working with management and leadership, and son Alexander, a 20-year-old economics major at Uppsala, she enjoys her Götland summer stuga. She’s an avid jogger and golfer, enjoys reading thrillers, and likes cooking and gardening. She takes tourist friends through City Hall, along the cliffs of Södermalm to appreciate the vista of lake and city, and the Vasa.

THE MAYOR IS STRAIGHT-FORWARD ABOUT CITY ISSUES:
Housing shortage: Determining that the promised 20,000 new units are not enough to meet the influx of 150,000 new residents projected by 2030, she’s pledged to build 80,000 new homes in the long term.“It’s already a success,” she says, “with 8,000 or 9,000 today and 10,000 in 2005.”
Driving tax: While the proposed toll for driving into the city had met legal challenges at the time of the interview, Billström said the tax would be during the morning and afternoon rush hours and lower at midday.There would be no toll evenings or weekends.
City income tax: “It was raised 50 öre - half a crown - this period and that’s enough. It absolutely will not go up!”
Immigrants: Some crime and then ethnic discrimination follows immigration, she acknowledges, and the answer is education and jobs. Over the next five years, 5,000 public employees will retire, and she hopes immigrants will help fill their shoes, as well as vacancies in the private sector. She urges newcomers not “only to live together with other immigrants, but be a part of different organizations, be a part of cultural life.That is real integration.”
Olympics: While the Mayor would love to host the games, it was necessary to have a majority in the City Council to support the decision. At present only the Conservatives and Social Democrats would like to offer Stockholm as a candidate.The other political parties are opposed to the idea.
Billström doesn’t intend to retire as a politician; she’d rather go into business. Nor does she care to climb the rungs of her party: “I’d never want to be prime minister- that’s not my place. Here (in city government) you can have the wishes and be concrete. If you are the mayor in the capital of Sweden, it’s one of the most important political roles you can have, every day. It’s tough – but fantastic.”