Helsingborg

Helsingborg lies at the narrowest point of the Öresund, with Helsingør in Denmark on the other side of the strait, and is the main town of Helsingborg municipality. Just over 116,000 people live in the built-up area itself, in a city often counted among the most beautiful in Sweden.

Everyday life is urban and dense. The school is a couple of minutes' walk away, and the area has almost two hundred schools and preschools in total. The food shop is within walking distance but not close, while the café is already a couple of minutes' walk away. Around the centre there are about a hundred restaurants, about thirty cafés, a handful of museums and a handful of theatre stages, plus the cinemas Röda Kvarn and Filmstaden. The train station requires a cycle or car trip from the middle of the home, but the stations Helsingborg C and Ramlösa are both in the area.

The strait, the restaurants and the wind

Three things recur in descriptions of Helsingborg. First the location: Malmö and Lund are within commuting distance, and the ferry to Helsingør takes a short while, a trip across the strait with food and drink on board is a local trademark. Then the range of things on offer, with restaurant life around Kullagatan and Norra Hamnen, a city theatre, a symphony orchestra in the concert hall and nature such as Pålsjö skog, the palace park Sofiero and the open-air museum Fredriksdal in and around the city. Last the weather: mild winters almost without snow and a wind that hardly anyone fails to mention.

A divided city

The city is also markedly divided. The median income is slightly above the national municipal median and the education level clearly above, but unemployment is among the very highest in the country and employment among young adults among the lowest. Parts of the area, near the districts Dalhem, Drottninghög and Fredriksdal as well as Söder, are on the police list of vulnerable areas, and a fair amount of land in the area is classed as contaminated.

Malmö is reached in forty-five minutes by car, Göteborg takes about two and a half hours.

In the surrounding area a little over a third are between twenty and forty-four, and a little over half are unmarried.

Helsingborg suits people who want the range of things a big city offers without the big-city price and pace, preferably with commuting towards Malmö, Lund or Copenhagen. Anyone looking for a job locally without a strong education should expect it to be tough, and anyone who cannot stand wind should try a week in November here before deciding to move.