Bernt Sverre Mehammer (Multiconsult), Erik Hammer (SNØporten), Bjørn Oscar Unander (Multiconsult), Mayor Ragnhild Bergheim, Camilla Håltem and Ragnar Christoffersen (Lørenskog municipality).

Lørenskog is Norway’s most forward-looking urban municipality

Lørenskog is Norway’s most forward-looking urban municipality in 2019. Municipalities in the Oslo region, Sola and Tromsø also performs well in this year’s edition of the City-index.

6. September 2019

“It is incredibly satisfactory to receive this award, which I regard as a recognition of the work we do to develop Lørenskog to meet future requirements, says Mayor Ragnhild Bergheim.

“A forward-looking urban municipality is well-prepared for the future. Lørenskog scores highly in a number of areas. The municipality is particularly good at developing a culture for value creation, with high employment growth in recent years. Thanks to this, and its location just outside Oslo, the municipality is able to attract a high-quality labour force. Important reasons for Lørenskog’s performance include its proximity to Oslo and successful policies to attract large businesses”, says Bernt Sverre Mehammer, Multiconsult’s head of urban mobility and value creation.

92 Norwegian urban municipalities were assesed on how forward-looking they are in terms of value creation, economic density and population.

“For us it is important that Lørenskog is a good place to live, even as we grow. That is why we believe in developing dynamic communities, where people can both live and work, while also having access to green spaces and leisure activities. We are making it easy for businesses to establish attractive workplaces in Lørenskog, and we are supporting that by building new schools and kindergartens, in order to attract families with children”, explains the mayor Ragnhild Bergheim.

The municipality of Lørenskog, with a population of just over 40,000, is located directly north of Oslo. Oslo comes in second place, with Ås, which is just south of Oslo, in third. Sola, in fourth place, is the first top-ranked municipality outside the Oslo region.

The 10 most forward-looking urban municipalities in Norway:

Ranking, Municipality, County, population

  1. Lørenskog, Akershus – 40.106
  2. Oslo – 681.071
  3. Ås, Akershus – 20.335
  4. Sola, Rogaland – 26.582
  5. Nesodden, Akershus – 19.488
  6. Bærum, Akershus – 126.841
  7. Rælingen, Akershus 18.161
  8. Ullensaker, Akershus – 38.234
  9. Tromsø, Troms – 76.649
  10. Asker, Akershus – 61.523

Value creation will become an increasingly important aspect of Norwegian regional planning. In order to meet future challenges, Norwegian municipalities must do even more to attract forward-looking companies and enable value creation.

“Measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will reduce value creation in the oil sector, and the ageing population will increase the old-age-dependency ratio. In order to maintain Norway’s position as one of the best places to live in the world, we must work harder to facilitate value creation, and towns are the key to doing that. Companies, as well as their employees and customers, are increasingly based in cities,” says Bernt Sverre Mehammer.

Quick facts about the City-index

  • The City-index ranks 92 urban municipalities in Norway based on their scores from twelve indicators. The twelve indicators cover patents, business creation, economic structure, employment growth, education, employment in knowledge industries, economic density, income levels, immigration and young adults. These indicators are split into four main areas: culture for value creation; skills; economic density (agglomeration); and population.
  • You cannot observe directly whether a town or municipality is forward-looking. The set of indicators used for the index is designed to pick up important parameters with respect to how well a city or municipality is prepared for the future.
  • The City-index was launched in 2018, with the municipality of Bærum in first place. This year several adjustments have been made to the methodology, and the number of municipalities in the index has increased. As a result, this year’s results are not directly comparable to last year’s.