1840, the Kockums shipyard was founded and it eventually became one of the largest shipyards in the world. Between 1856 and 1864 the Southern Main Line was built and enabled Malm� to become a center of manufacture, with big textile and mechanical industries. In 1870, Malm� overtook Norrk�ping to become Sweden's third most populous city and by 1900 Malm� had strengthened this position with 60,000 inhabitants. Malm� continued to grow through the first half of the 20th century. The population had swiftly increased to 100,000 by 1915 and to 200,000 by 1952. By 1971, Malm� reached 265,000 inhabitants, but this was the peak which would stand for more than 30 years.
By the mid 1970s, Sweden experienced a recession that struck especially hard on the industrial sector; shipyards and manufacturing industries were hard hit, which led to high unemployment in many cities of Scania. Kockums shipyard had become a symbol of Malm� as its greatest employer and when the shipbuilding ceased in 1986 the reassurance for the future of Malm� plummeted among politicians and the public. In addition, many middle-class families moved into one-family houses in surrounding municipalities such as Vellinge Municipality, Lomma Municipality and Staffanstorp Municipality which profiled themselves as the suburbs of the upper middle class. By 1985, Malm� had lost 35,000 inhabitants and was down to 229,000.
The Swedish financial crises of the early 1990s exacerbated Malm�'s decline as an industrial city; between 1990�95, Malm� lost about 27,000 jobs and its economy was seriously strained. However, from 1994 and under the leadership of the new mayor Ilmar Reepalu, the city of Malm� started to re-conceptualize itself as a center of culture and knowledge. Malm� reached bottom in 1995 and the same year marked the commencement of the massive �resund Bridge project. A new university college (Swedish: h�gskola), Malm� University College, was opened in 1998 on Kockums' former dockside and further
