- Well, that was said a bit tongue-in-cheek, but in general people in the western part of Sweden have less of higher education than ‘average’ inhabitants of Stockholm. Especially Gothenburg/Göteborg (second largest city in Sweden), the place where I live, is associated with a typical working class mentality.
Cities like Stockholm and to some extent neighboring Uppsala (4th largest city in Sweden and home to the most reputable university in Scandinavia, together with The University of Copenhagen, and also to our arch bishop) is traditionally thought of as rather snobbish and inhabited by politicians, academics, bureaucrats, celebrities, successful businessmen, aristocrats etc.
However, I’d say the differences between Gothenburg and Stockholm were greater in the past. For instance, a lot of ordinary workers in Gothenburg of today have university education and one of the largest universities in Europe is located in my city (but it has produced only one Nobel laureate; Arvid Carlsson, Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine, 2000).
Again, welcome back to Scandinavia/Europe!
Based on your English, I would never know that you were not from an English-speaking country, but I suppose you can’t avoid the English language in Sweden.
I was one of those somewhat disreputable backpacking Americans when I was in Sweden in 1973, so I did pass through Gothenburg and Uppsala. (I remember that Gothenburg is pronounced more like Yertaborg in English.) The people in Gothenburg did strike me as being more relaxed and fun-loving than the people in Stockholm. For some reason, in Uppsala there was a police chase when I was there. A young man in a car screeching through the streets was being followed by a police car, but I did not assume that this was typical for Uppsala.
One Nobel laureate is not bad. I live in Richmond, Virginia. We have one Nobel laureate here in chemistry. You get more people like that in the big cities - Stockholm, Boston, places like that.