At the end of the Second Protectorate War in 1812, Karlskrona was a city of forty thousand, the largest in Sweden by a narrow margin [1], but as ever, it was suffering from overcrowding, and it was felt that rather than the piecemeal expansion that had marked the 18th century, a comprehensive plan should be drawn up for the creation of new housing. The only major unexploited area within the city limits that wasn't too hilly to build on was Yttre Wämö (Outer Wämö), the mainland area to the north of Malmen. This area contains two large hills and a string of smaller ones lining the coast. In between these is a small plain, which at the time was home to two steadings (Mariedal and Gullberna) and a number of smaller farms and cottages, all of which have now been demolished [2]. This area, it was decided, would be perfect for a new suburb [3], with room for enough housing to accommodate a city half again as large as Karlskrona was at the time. The southern hill was to be built on (with a church at the summit), but the northern one was deemed too tall to be comfortably exploited, and was set aside for eventual use as a park.
The roads leading to Nättraby and Rödeby (the modern-day Sjövägen and Kungsvägen) were straightened, paved and trees planted in them, forming a V shape resembling the one in Malmen, but it was decided that the streets should follow a straight grid pattern in between the two. On the 14th of July, 1815, the new neighbourhood of Nordstaden ("North Town" as it might be rendered in English) was opened for settlement, and many citizens of the overcrowded city quickly seized the chance to spread out. The speed of settlement was impeded, however, by the considerable distance (some three and a half statute miles) between the central city and the new neighbourhood. In 1825, in an attempt to partially alleviate this problem, N.P. Nordström and associates opened the first ever public transportation system in Sweden, a horse-drawn omnibus [4] line running from Sunnaplan in Nordstaden to Narvatorget [5] on Trossö. The line quickly grew popular, in spite of the fact that most inhabitants who needed to commute to Trossö could and would do so in private carriages.
At this time King Charles XV [6] was growing increasingly unstable, and his dismissal of Realm Secretary [7] Erik Wilhelm Staël von Holstein [8] in 1829 marked the beginning of a period of royal tyranny of a kind unseen since the days of Baron Görtz. According to mainstream historiography the King took control of the press and the courts of law and used them to persecute his political enemies, among them liberals, Finnish nationalists and members of the free churches, and steadfastly refused to grant permission to any kind of industrial venture for fear of upsetting the balance of society [9]. It's worth remembering that the universities were dominated for decades by the same liberals who had been the victims of royal oppression, so the historical account of events during this period is more than a little biased, but whether balanced or not the sources do agree that the King's behaviour was authoritarian and reactionary, even for the Autocracy, and this is in any case shown by the events which proceeded next.
The Great Revolution (Stora revolutionen), as it has become known, was actually more of a coup d'état, and took place entirely in Karlskrona. At midnight on November 29th, 1837, a cadre of liberal officers at the naval base in Karlskrona swore an oath not to surrender until a new Instrument of Government had been promised. The plan was for them to simultaneously march marines into the royal apartments, the admiralty building, the courthouse and the meeting room of the Procurement Committee [10], removing the chance of any organised resistance, and then to present their demands to the King, who would in theory be unable to mount any kind of opposition.
In practice, events unfolded quite differently. The stormings of the courthouse and the admiralty worked flawlessly, although two men were shot dead in the latter case, but when the palace was to be stormed, the Life Guards, whose officers had been bribed to stay out of any conflagration, nevertheless put up a passive resistance by blocking the entrances, and a stalemate dragged on for almost two hours, with the rebels and the guards across the courtyard from one another, until the guards finally retreated across Prinsgatan to their barracks. The rebelling troops proceeded to storm the palace, but by the time they arrived in the royal apartments, the King was gone. It later turned out that he had fled the city, headed for Denmark, and by the time he was captured he'd already reached Karlshamn.
The King was subsequently taken back to the city, where he abdicated after renouncing the succession rights of his underage children, leaving the crown to his second cousin, Alexander Romanov [11]. Though the people and the clergy resisted the accession of a Russian king, Alexander dispelled the worst fears by converting to Lutheranism and immediately seizing upon the need for reform, calling an extraordinary meeting of the realm to establish a new constitution, and proved a far more capable, though hands-off, ruler than his predecessor.
The only real import these events had on Karlskrona, aside from the upheaval caused by the revolution, was the construction of a large number of new government buildings on Trossö, which resulted from the decision to reform the state administration into a series of departments, each led by a member of the Council of State (statsrådet) and headquartered in its own building outside the palace. Most of these sprung up around the Grand Square, including the Chancery Building, but the largest building by quite far was the new Parliament House, which was built at Karl Fredriks Torg [12] on the west side of Trossö. This placed Västerudd, formerly a housing area for shipyard workers and one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the city, right between the government quarter and the legislature, and as a consequence of this, the area was gradually gentrified, pushing the working classes off Trossö almost entirely and leading to an expansion of housing on Saltö to house the workers thus displaced.
However, by the time the new parliament building was completed, and the events mentioned set in motion, it was 1874, and a new technological development had reached the city. It would never be the same again…
[1] At the same time IOTL, Stockholm had almost 75,000 inhabitants, but Karlskrona's growth is relatively stunted in comparison, owing partly to the lesser prominence of trade and manufacturing in the city and partly to the lack of space into which the city could comfortably expand.
[2] This is the case IOTL as well, and the area is home to several residential areas along with Dynapac, one of Europe's largest makers of steamrollers (no, really).
[3] That is, in the sense of a faubourg-type development. Obviously, actual suburbs are still in the TL's future.
[4] The term "omnibus" is a bit convergent with a PoD in 1696, but I'm using it for convenience. To wit, it refers to a large horse carriage run as a public transportation service.
[5] Formerly Neptuni Torg ("Neptune Square"), this square (located at what is IOTL the northern half of Hoglands Park) was renamed in 1802 due to a drive to remove "pagan superstition" from the names of the city's public places.
[6] An entirely fictional character (more specifically, the grandson of Charles Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp, Charles XII's designated heir ITTL), Charles XV bears no intentional resemblance to the OTL king of that name.
[7] Essentially a sort of prime minister (although more like the Hand of the King from ASOIAF than anything we've seen IOTL), the office of Realm Secretary (rikssekreterare) is described in more detail in Makemakean's part of the TL.
[8] An alternate, considerably younger version of Erik Magnus Staël von Holstein, the Swedish ambassador to Paris whose wife ran the foremost political salon in the city during the revolution.
[9] To be fair, he did kind of have a point about that.
[10] The Procurement Committee (Upphandlingsutskottet) is a quasi-parliamentary body appointed by the King, whose approval is needed for any kind of tax to be levied. Something like Barebone's Parliament, to use the closest English equivalent. Again, Makemakean explains this in more detail.
[11] Charles XIV Peter, the king after Charles Frederick, has the same parents as OTL's Peter III of Russia, and as such the Holstein-Gottorp line is related to the Romanovs.
[12] OTL's Chapmansplan - the Riksdag is housed roughly at the location of the old city gasworks, which is long since demolished and today houses a hotel, but whose location is still known as "the gasworks".