This is an article about the city of Östersund written in 2018, the few links between the Spanish flu and any reform are tenuous at best. Having said that, I g

This is an article about the city of Östersund written in 2018, the few links between the Spanish flu and any reform are tenuous at best. Having said that, I grew up in Östersund and found the article fascinating and a good read. One interesting thing is that now, a 100 years later, the tourism of the region once again brings a pandemic. Swedens largest ski resort Åre, an hour west of Östersund, has a bunch of Covid-19 cases that has spread through after ski parties (which has since stopped). Some context to the article not relating to Covid-19: Jämtland, the region where Östersund is located, is located in the geographic middle of Sweden, but is considered to be in the northern parts because the demographic of the country is heavily skewed south. In the west it borders Norway and in 1563–1677 it switched between being part of Denmark/Norway and Sweden 13(!) times. Perhaps as a result of this there is still a strong sense of regional identity. Among other things Jämtland is a "fake republic" with a "fake president" which gives a speech during the music festival once a year. This is just in good fun and the speech is mostly about peace, love and understanding, but hearing 15k people singing the regional anthem "Jämtlandssången" after the speech always gives me goosebumps. Östersund has always been strategically important militarily, in semi-recent times because the Soviet Union would have to pass it to take Trondheim in Norway and the harbor there. The article mentions the airbase closing down, but there were other military units that were disbanded as well. The article touches on this mentioning the university, but another reason the town is still successful today is that it also supported newly unemployed military personel in starting companies. Since one of the units that were disbanded(/moved?) was the military technical school, the city managed to keep a bunch of people with higher education which might otherwise have relocated and now has a few tech-companies and a somewhat entrepreneurial spirit. This is just some stream of consciousness stuff, while I live in Stockholm now I got excited "my city" was featured on HN. :) It is a beautiful city and region with fantastic nature and a very long and fascinating history, definitely visit it if you have the opportunity!