Stockholm is a sports city without enough places to play. The capital suffers from inequality in sports facilities: 32,300 Stockholmers share one sports hall, compared with 12,700 Gothenburgers. That gap did not appear last year. The region has had a shortage of sports facilities for more than twenty years.
This post looks at what the gap means for a region that keeps growing, why it is a social question as much as a sporting one, and what a new kind of arena can do about it.
A growing region, the same number of halls
The Stockholm region is expected to reach 2.7 million inhabitants by 2030. Every new resident is a potential player, parent, coach or spectator. If the number of facilities does not grow at the same pace, the number of people per hall rises, waiting lists get longer, and the people who lose out first are those with the least time, money and transport.
Everyone should have the opportunity for physical activity. In a city that is growing, proximity to sports facilities must therefore be guaranteed. That is not an ambition for the sports movement alone. It is a planning question for municipalities and a public health question for the region.
Why this is a social question
A strong sports movement contributes to building social sustainability in society. The presentation behind The Dome Sweden lists the social dimensions plainly: it strengthens collective identities, brings people together and improves self-esteem, increases civic pride, inspires children, creates work experience in many fields, encourages volunteering, promotes well-being and healthy living, and promotes integration in general.
Stockholm faces the opposite pressures at the same time: poor integration of new Swedes, a rise in gang culture and crime, and the unfinished work of giving girls and women the same access to sport as men. A place where young people thrive through sport, meet, and learn the values of community life is part of the answer.
Physical activity has the potential to affect 13 of the 17 global goals, according to the World Health Organization.
What a new kind of arena looks like
Gathering many sports under one roof is the priority for the sports facilities of the future. One building that houses tennis, squash, padel, beach tennis, touchtennis, badminton and table tennis clubs, fitness and well-being, medicare and conference rooms uses land, energy and staff far better than six separate halls.
Add a 15,000-seat centre court and the same building hosts national and international competitions, concerts and cultural events, which brings sports tourism and business development to the region. Add a public sports park around it, with climbing walls, exercise machines, fields and a running track that is frozen for cross-country skiing in winter, and the arena serves residents who never join a club.
That is the concept of The Dome Sweden. It is based on a built, award-winning arena: the Bourbon Beans Dome of Miki City near Kobe, Japan, by architect Endo Shuhei, who is part of the team.
Who has to act
A private, purpose-driven company can raise the capital, design the programme and run the arena. What it cannot do alone is provide the site. That requires a municipality in the Stockholm region with the need, the land and the political will to solve the shortage together with a private partner.
The Dome Sweden is in dialogue with municipalities now, and is raising capital from investors who want a return that comes with measurable social and environmental impact.
