The Öresund Area: Pre- and post-bridge cross-border functional integration: The bi-national regional question

Copenhagen in Denmark and Malmö in Sweden were connected in 2000 by the 18- km fixed Öresund link. This meant that the time distance-barrier was reduced dramatically and that the land-sea bottleneck was eliminated. High-profile pre-bridge expectations of a new regional development regime towards a functionally integrated, bi-national region are assessed in this paper. The paper relates to the continuing discussion on development of border-regions and bi-national cities. Data on cross-Öresund flows of people and vehicles, together with data on migration and commuting, indicates a modest post-bridge shift in the development of functional integration. The Öresund Area development towards a bi-national, integrated, functional urban region is in progress, but the progress is much slower than expected.