Dan Smith is Director of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute which is hosting the conference. He said it is the first time that they talk about secure cities since sadly, more and more cities have come under attack by terrorists. London, Nice, Brussels, Oslo and even Stockholm have all seen such attacks.
"So I think there is an increasing recognition that there is a problem that is fundamental to the well-being of the people. More and more people live in cities than ever before. Now half the population is living in cities. We cannot ignore the issue of insecurity in the city. And we have to realize that it raises specific problems which we had not been used to dealing with before. "
Smith said over 150 experts from all walks of lives from Stockholm city as well as international cities like Chicago in the USA, Hamburg,Germany and Great Britain's Manchester gathered here to share their experiences and propose new ideas.
"We are living in a world where we travel a lot and we are interconnected to a great degree, so none of this is someone else problem, it is all everybody's problem. "
He said urban terrorism or violence is a new topic that we all need to increase awareness of and find solutions to deal with it. He thinks the idea of simply giving more warnings or scaring people is out of date, because we have to think of the balance between living securely and not sacrificing too much freedom to move and live freely.
"We are open minded about what can come about. There are 150 experts from police, from universities, from city administrations, from the private sector, from think-tanks, so we're open minded about what will come of this , research is necessary into life and safety in public places and to deter "lone wolf" terrorism.
Swedish King Carl Gustaf XVI and Parliament speaker Urban Alin as well as Stockholm Mayor Karin Wanggard also attended the conference.
