Johnathan Glancey in a recent article stated that Stockholm and Helsinki are under threat of getting the ‘world class city’ treatment. This of course is a bad thing because it means a kind of internationalized blandness in the pursuit of some imagined advertisers dream. I was just in Stockholm for the first time a couple of weeks ago and I really loved it, and it definitely qualifies as a ‘world class’ city, while having it’s own distinctive identity. I think its right to identify also that the life blood of a city is people and activity and to a certain extent a little mess, a little accommodation to climate, location and necessity, when someone tries to make your city perfect you know they have already screwed it up. Some of my Stockholm photos are here.