Sundbyberg Municipality is a municipality in Stockholm County in east central Sweden, just north of the capital Stockholm. Sundbyberg is wholly within the Stockholm urban area and has a 100% urban population.
Sundbyberg was detached from Bromma (which since 1916 is in Stockholm Municipality) in 1888 as a market town (köping). It got the title of a city in 1927. In 1949 parts of Solna Municipality and Spånga (when the rest of Spånga was amalgamated into Stockholm) were added. A proposed merger with Solna in 1971 was never implemented, making Sundbyberg, with an area of 8.83 square kilometres (3.41 sq mi), the smallest municipality in Sweden, but also the most densely populated. The municipality prefers to call itself a city, which, however, has no legal significance.
Economy
The roughly 50,000 inhabitants live in about 20,000 households. The industrial policy of the municipality is to provide one job opportunity for every household, with there being around 23,000 jobs in the municipality. So unlike other municipalities in Metropolitan Stockholm, Sundbyberg is not a bedroom suburb wherefrom people commute to Stockholm, but also a place commuted to from outside. In total, 19,000 commuters travel in each direction to or from Sundbyberg every day (in 2014). The unemployment rate in Sundbyberg closely tracks the average for Stockholm County and is generally lower than the Swedish average.
In the first half of its existence, Sundbyberg saw a strong expansion of industrial activity, and most residents were industrial workers, but in the 1940s the industry almost entirely disappeared from Sundbyberg. By the 1970s warehouses and IT businesses had established themselves instead, and an attempt to establish industry in Hallonbergen had failed due to high rental costs. Today the service sector dominates, with Sundbyberg having become a place with office workers, as a result of Sundbyberg becoming more central as Stockholm has expanded and public transport has been strengthened. The most common professions for people working in Sundbyberg are (in order from most employed): IT developer, banker, human relations, secretary, business seller/purchaser, accountant, retail clerk, truck/bus driver, teacher, tax collector. There are office districts in Central Sundbyberg (Sundbyberg centrum and Allén), Rissne (Ursviks Entré) and Hallonbergen (Sundby Park). In 2015 Sundbyberg centrum offices had rents (2,100 kr/m2/year) similar to Kista, Alvik and the adjacent Solna Business Park, while in Allén they a bit lower and similar to Lidingö Centrum and the nearby Solna Strand, and Ursviks Entré and Sundby Park both have further lower office rents similar to Farsta and Tyresö Centrum.
Unusually for Stockholm suburbs, Sundbyberg has a proper town centre, with plenty of nice shops in the Central Sundbyberg area, which makes the little city a bit independent. There are also smaller concentrations of stores elsewhere in the municipality, such as by the Rissne and Hallonbergen metro stations. The proximity of the shopping centres Bromma Blocks (1 km away) and Mall of Scandinavia (2 km away) has hindered establishment of a shopping centre in Central Sundbyberg. Businesses in Hallonbergen suffer from getting few customers from elsewhere due to the area’s poor reputation, whereas the area’s locals don’t mind going elsewhere, e.g. to cafés in Central Sundbyberg.
Public transportation
Sundbyberg is well served by the Stockholm public transport system. There are several metro stations as well as one Stockholm commuter rail station and plenty of bus routes. Even some main line trains call at Sundbyberg. The Tvärbanan light rail service was extended from Sickla Udde via Alvik to Solna centrum in October 2013. The line runs through Central Sundbyberg with tracks laid in the street and has two stops within the municipality. Construction of a northern light railway branch from Ulvsunda to Kista that will pass through Rissne and Stora Ursvik started in 2018