Towns and rural industrialisation in Sweden 1850-1890: A spatial statistical approach

Using a spatial statistical analysis we study the relation between rural industrial employment and distance to towns and access to communications in nineteenth century Sweden. Our results show that rural parishes with access to communications had a higher proportion of rural industrial workers than parishes without. In a region with few towns, the south-east of Sweden, parishes close to large towns had a higher proportion of industrial employees than distant parishes in 1850, while no significant correlation was observed in 1890. In a region with a relatively dense urban system, Malardalen, only in 1890 did parishes close to large towns show a higher proportion of rural industrial workers than did more distant parishes. However, the mean positive effect was negligible beyond 10 km. Thus, in the second half of the nineteenth century the immediate urban hinterland was industrialising prior to large scale urbanisation and urban industrialisation.