The Politics of Housing in Post-War Sweden
Since December 1948, the right to housing has been universally recognised by Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The Declaration unanimously ratified by 48 of the 58 United Nations General Assembly members, including Sweden, sought to be a non-biased, international consensus on human rights, with Article 25 stating: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, and necessary social services.”
Unprecedented economic and social crises in capitalism, however, triggered by the severe global market crash and subsequent recession of the early 2000s, have exacerbated the long-term housing shortage created by an unequal market of public and deregulated systems across the supranational European Union (EU), of which Sweden has been a member since January 1995.
Gundström & Molina (2016) of urban research studies at Sweden's Malmö University and Lund University, respectively, identify housing in Sweden as “an important component . . . in shaping the Swedish welfare state.” The policy of Folkhemmet (the People’s Home or Home of the People), the Swedish welfare state, became the very symbol of 44 years of unbroken Social Democratic Party (SAP) government and formed the nation’s modern identity. Housing would play a pivotal role in Sweden’s advancement towards a socially egalitarian society. Its highly organised implementation by the state in design, construction, and supply, adhering to the motto ‘good housing for all’, attempted to shape society’s view of the home expressed by Folkhemmet’s chief architect Per Albin Hansson in 1928: “In the good home equality, thoughtfulness, cooperation, and helpfulness prevail.”
In literature and research, Sweden’s modern housing crisis is repeatedly traced to the country’s financial crisis between 1990 and 1994, when a credit crunch, similar to the global crash in 2008, caused widespread impacts in banking, real estate, business and commerce (Jaffee, 1994; Jonung, 2009). The long-term political and social consequences of this housing bubble burst have often been described using the term “system switch” (Clark & Johnson, 2009, pp. 179–180), when traditional state intervention, known as ‘the Swedish model’, experienced significant reforms, noticeably the New Public Management (NPM) reorganisation, which has greatly influenced the function of government. Neoliberal market intervention in the delivery of goods and services has transformed the public into a consumer (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992).
Consequently, there is a contradiction: housing, a right enshrined in the Swedish constitution, is now a commodity in Sweden’s competitive economy.
Using three distinctive periods of Swedish post-war housing policy as a template, identified and discussed in depth by Grundström & Molina (2016) (1930-74, 1974-2006 and 2006-2016), this article will give a general, chronological overview of the ideology and politics of the home and housing in Sweden. These themes have been shaped by deeply rooted social democratic politics from 1945 - when the country experienced a strong welfare state and rapid urbanisation and economic growth - until its demise in the 1990s with the financial crisis and election of a centre-right coalition. Subsequent neoliberal reforms implemented by successive centre-right and left governments continue to shape public attitudes towards housing, home ownership, and renting.
Folkhemmet
Amid historic shifts in Sweden’s social democratic democracy with the business like New Public Management (NPM) reforms implemented in the 1990s and the 2022 election of the conservative Moderate Party, supported by the right-wing Swedish Democrats (SD), the importance of the state providing housing as a social need and for personal wellbeing continues to be enshrined by Article 2 of the 1974 Swedish Constitution (rev. 2012): “Public power shall be exercised with respect for the equal worth of all and the liberty and dignity of the individual. The personal, economic, and cultural welfare of the individual shall be fundamental aims of public activity. In particular, the public institutions shall secure the right to employment, housing, and education and shall promote social care and social security, as well as favourable conditions for good health.”
The drive to provide public housing and liveable conditions for Swedish citizens accelerated with an urbanisation trend following the end of World War II in 1945. The Social Democratic policy of Folkhemmet, beginning in the early 1930s, sought to deal with a national housing shortage while simultaneously demolishing the existing slum housing with living conditions considered one of the worst in Europe (Maudsley, 2022). With state intervention and regulation (Castell, 2010), Folkhemmet’s ambitious target of housing for all, a principle tenet of a cradle-to-grave welfare system famously envisaged by the Social Democratic Party leader Per Albin Hansson in a January 1928 speech, not only eliminated the country’s housing shortage but created a surplus of well-built housing units by 1974 (Nesslein, 1982, p. 241).
Folkhemmet advocated Swedish society behaving like a good home based, primarily, on Hansson's beliefs of equality and social cooperation (Bergman, 2007; Feltenius, 2007). With unbroken Social Democratic Party control from 1932 to 1976, the policy became symbolic of a modern, egalitarian, and democratic Swedish society as a whole, with housing continuing to play a pivotal role in social advancement and reform: “the social and economic gaps should be erased, social care would evolve and democracy implemented.” (Lövgren, 1999, p. 251, quoted in Baeten & Listerborn, 2015, p. 256).
The Discontent of Rising Expectations and Miljonprogrammet
In 1950, having avoided the bloodshed and crippling financial losses of two destructive world wars, Sweden was the fourth richest economy in the world. Economically and socially, the pre-war Swedish state had undergone a dramatic transformation (Tilton, 1990, p. 177). The wealth to implement social reforms had significantly raised the living standards of Swedes, but the lack of public housing still posed a problem to Folkhemmet’s core tenet. The Social Democratic Prime Minister Tage Erlander (1946–69) famously expressed the "discontent of rising expectations" to describe the new role of the state as a service provider required to satisfy the needs of its prosperous citizens (Tilton, 1990).
To deliver the pledge of good housing for all, the large-scale Miljonprogrammet (Million Programme or Million Homes Programme) between 1965 and 1974 continued the Social Democratic trend of Folkhemmet to provide modern, healthy public housing for a then-Swedish population of eight million. It proved to be an ambitious goal to tackle the country’s severe housing shortage.
While it coincided with a prosperous economy—the record years (rekordåren) in Sweden’s post-war economics (Mack, 2019)—reaching its peak by the commencement of the project in the mid-1960s (Castell, 2010), the Million Programme was a government initiative to tackle the rapid urbanisation and demands of a prosperous population with a sufficient housing supply. Albeit in response to an existing problem, the government’s reactive actions typified Folkhemmet's core belief in the social right to housing for all citizens (Baeten & Listerborn, 2015; Emilsson & Öberg, 2021) and not just those considered most in need (Terner Center for Housing Innovation, 2017).
The state achieved a total of 1,006,000 modern apartments (multi dwellings), 100,000 apartments per year (Borgegård & Håkansson, 1998; Borgegård & Kemeny, 2004), protected against speculation (Elander, 1991, p. 30) and distributed based on the principles of universalism, i.e., without discrimination. The ideology of housing policy in Sweden is described by Tilton (1992), Professor Emeritus, Political Science, as “public and cooperative building," which the architectural layout and societal template of Miljonprogrammet sought to achieve by providing estate amenities and services for all residents to work, socialise, and learn i.e. carefully-designed "folkhemmet urbanism”, a term of Dr. Ann Maudsley of spatial planning at Blekinge Institute of Technology (Maudsley, 2022, p. 106).
However, criticisms such as “monotonous design and technical defects” (Hedman, 2008, p. 16; quoted in Christophers, 2013, p. 891) continue to dominate the debate and public opinion over the legacy of the Million Programme (Hall & Vidén, 2005; Mack, 2019). A mere two days after the optimistic vision expressed during the inauguration of Skärholmen, a Stockholm suburb, in September 1968, the most vocal criticism appeared in the Dagens Nyheter national newspaper with the cry of “Demolish Skärholmen!” (Riv Skärholmen!) (Mack, 2019). Its stark statement about the architectural and social values of the new estate would characterise the heatedly debated housing policies (Skärholmsdebatten) of the future (Hall & Vidén, 2005, p. 46).
Housing Decline
The termination of the Miljonprogrammet in 1974 came amid the "oil crisis" beginning the previous year. The unprecedented action of an oil embargo by the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) shook the global energy market and economy. The financial implications of the crisis in Sweden resulted in the cancellation of large-scale housing projects, a decision that “led to a marked deterioration in its much-lauded housing model” (Blackwell, 2021). The focus of the housing sector shifted from construction to reducing the oil dependency of existing buildings through substantial renovation and alteration (Femenías et al., 2023, p. 4). Government actions taken during the decade, notably the introduction of rent control legislation (Wilhelmsson, 2023) and a decline in the construction of multi-dwellings (Bergrenn & Wall, 2019), are considered by Gundström & Molina (2016, p. 9) as “the beginning of a process of neo-liberalisation of Swedish housing policy.” A similar view is expressed by Bengtsson (2016), today a Professor of Political Science at Uppsala University, Sweden, who describes a “corporatist system” of landlords in the “competition” of rent negotiations.
The initial achievements of the Million Programme—a plentiful and organised housing stock—would become synonymous with a failed state project that, by the 1980s, had been accused of creating ethnic segregation and social divisions of the growing number of refugees and immigrants arriving in the country who filled the many empty apartments (Egorova et al., 2020). By the early 1980s, 40,000 multi-dwelling rentals were empty: “Sweden was in the novel position of having too much housing, or, at least, too much of the ‘wrong’ type of housing” (Blackwell, 2019). Construction of new housing fell considerably “from 110,000 units in 1974 to 30,000 units in 1980," report Gundström & Molina (2016, p. 10), and attention shifted to the more profitable renovation of city centre buildings (Blackwell, 2019). Housing had become a lucrative investment.
System Switch of the 90s
By the beginning of the 1990s, further deregulation and dismantling of Folkhemmet policies were initiated by a centre-right coalition, formed after a dramatic ideological shift in the 1991 election with the conservative Moderate Party leader, Carl Bildt, becoming Prime Minister (1991–94). Although the Social Democratic Party remained the largest single party in the Riksdag (Swedish Parliament), their hegemony had ended.
Influenced by the divisive, neo-liberal policies of the UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1979–90) (Christophers, 2013, p. 892), the new government’s major reforms—a “system switch” (Clark & Johnson, 2009, pp. 179–180)—included closing the Department of Housing ministry (Bostadsdepartementet, Bo), in operation since 1974, and reducing subsidies given to the poorest households. Rising costs and the privatisation of essential public services had a noticeable impact on construction and housing (Blackwell, 2019; Gustafsson, 2021), with the number of new apartments amounting to just 10,000 by the middle of the decade (Hedin et al., 2012).
The Swedish property crash of the early 1990s and its economic repercussions accelerated the implementation of New Public Management (NPM) reforms in the Swedish administration (Hall, 2013), which continued with the Social Democratic administration elected in 1994. Today, NPM reforms greatly influence the political and ideological direction of the country (Wollmann, 2004; Lowndes & Pratchett, 2011; Karlsson & Montin, 2013).
Under the guise of “innovation” (Petersen & Hjelmar, 2014, p. 4) or “decentralisation” (Alonso et al., 2011), NPM aims to reorganise local authority public services and their delivery based on market procedures (Erlingsson et al., 2008). The devolution of Swedish municipalities meant they could easily convert public services into both municipally owned and private companies (European Commission, 2014). The Local Government Act 1991 gave local authorities greater freedom to decide how services ought to be delivered, with outsourcing being an option (Wollmann, 2004, p. 649). Sweden's municipalities were now subjected to the laws of the market, which increased their pressure to be more competitive.
Housing Today
The stay-at-home restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in early 2020, exposed Europe’s preexisting, multifaceted socioeconomic and health inequalities (Colomb & Gallent, 2022, p. 625) and inflicted further economic hardships and uncertainties, especially the prospect of unemployment. For low-wage earners and renters already struggling with wage stagnation, this worst-case scenario would increase the struggle to afford the decade-long rent increases in the EU, nearing 20% by late 2022, or to buy affordable housing.
The situation is desperate in Sweden’s urban centres of Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö, with the wait on housing waiting lists lasting years, especially for rental accommodation. Since the introduction of deregulation in the 1970s, “the neoliberalising wave has washed away most, but not (yet) all, of the regulatory frameworks put in place in the post-war era” (Christophers, 2013). Further criticism is given by Gundström & Molina (2016) who believe housing is now a “privilege.”
The enshrined right to be housed has become a dire situation of the need to be housed.
Bibliographical references
Alonso, J.M., Clifton, J., & Diaz-Fuentes, D. (2011, December). Did New Public Management Matter? An Empirical Analysis of the Outsourcing and Decentralization Effects on Public Sector Size (COCOPS Working Paper No.4). Public Management Review, 17(5), 643-660. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2013.822532
Baeten, G. & Listerborn, C. (2015). Renewing urban renewal in Landskrona, Sweden: Pursuing displacement through housing policies. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 97(3), 249-261.
Bengtsson, B. (2016). Adjustment, Resistance, or System Shift? The Swedish Housing Regime at the Crossroads. Retrieved from https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1407887/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Berggren, B. & Wall, M. (2019). Review of constructions and materials used in Swedish residential buildings during the post-war peak of production. Buildings, 9(4), 99. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings9040099
Bergman, A. (2007). Co-constitutional of domestic and international welfare obligations: The case of Sweden's social democratically inspired internationalism. Cooperation and Conflict, 42(1), 73–99. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45084439
Blackwell, T. (2021). Power, production and disorder: The decline of Sweden’s housing industrial complex and the origins of the present housing discontents. European Urban and Regional Studies, 28(4), 338-352. https://doi.org/10.1177/09697764211009570
Borgegård, L-K. & Håkansson, J. (1998). Population and Housing Dynamics in a Metropolitan Region - The Case of Stockholm. Retrieved from http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:130246/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Borgegård, L-K. & Kemeny, J. (2004). Sweden: High-Rise Housing for a Low-Density Country. In R. Turkington, R. van Kempen & E. Wassenberg (Eds.) High-Rise Housing in Europe: Current Trends and Future Prospects (pp.31-48). Delft: Delft University Press.
Castell, P. (2010). Managing yards and togetherness - Living conditions and social robustness through tenant involvement in open space management (PhD thesis). Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Christophers, B. (2013). A monstrous hybrid: The political economy of housing in early twenty-first century Sweden. New Political Economy, 18(6), 885-911. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2012.753521
Clark, E. & Johnson, K. (2009). Circumventing Cirumscribed Neoliberalism: The ‘System Switch’ in Swedish Housing. In S. Glynn (Ed.) Where the Other Half Lives: Lower Income in the Neoliberal World (pp.173-195). London, UK: Pluto Press.
Colomb, C. & Gallent, N. (2022). Post-COVID-19 mobilities and the housing crisis in European urban and rural destinations. Policy challenges and research agenda, Planning Practice & Research, 37(5), 624-641.
Egorova, T., Ivanova, N., & Varshaver, E. (2020). Formation of immigrant neighbourhoods in Sweden: A case-study of Rinkeby, Stockholm. Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences, 13(7), 1112-1125.
Elander I. (1991). Good dwellings for all: The case of social rented housing in Sweden. Housing Studies, 6(1), 29-43. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673039108720695
Emilsson, H. & Öberg, K. (2021). Housing for refugees in Sweden: Top-down governance and its local reactions. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 23, 613-631.
Erlingsson, G., Bergh, A., & Sjölin, M. (2008). Public corruption in Swedish municipalities - trouble looming on the horizon? Local Government Studies, 34(5), 595-608. https://doi.org/10.1080/03003930802413780
European Commission (2014). Annex Sweden to the EU Anti-Corruption Report. COM(2014) 28 Final Annex 27.
Feltenius, D. (2007). Relations between central and local government in Sweden during the 1990s: Mixed patterns of centralization and decentralization. Regional & Federal Studies, 17(4), 457-474. https://doi.org/10.1080/13597560701691821
Femenías, P., Peter, S., & Legnér, M. (2023). Modern Heritage and Housing Renovation: Policy Development and Practical Experiences From Gothenburg, Sweden. Retrieved from https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1738949/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Gundström, K. & Molina, I. (2016). From Folkhem to lifestyle housing in Sweden: Segregation and urban form, 1930s-2010s. International Journal of Housing Policy, 2016.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616718.2015.1122695
Gustafsson, J. (2021). Renovations as an investment strategy: circumscribing the right to housing in Sweden. Housing Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2021.1982872
Hall, T. & Vidén, S. (2005). The Million Homes Programme: A review of the great Swedish planning project. Planning Perspectives, 20(3), 301-328. https://doi.org/10.1080/02665430500130233
Hall, P. (2013). NPM in Sweden: The Risky Balance Between Bureaucracy and Politics. In Å. Sandberg (Ed.) Nordic Lights: Work, Management and Welfare in Scandinavia (pp. 406-419). Stockholm, Sweden: SNS Förlag.
Hedin, K., Clark, E., Lundholm, E., & Malmberg, G. (2012). Neoliberalization of housing in Sweden: Gentrification, filtering and social polarization. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 102(2), 443-463. https://doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2011.620508
Hedman, E. (2008). A History of the Swedish System of Non-profit Municipal Housing. Stockholm: Boverket.
Jaffee, D.M. (1994). The Swedish real estate crisis. Retrieved from https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=15389&context=ypfs-documents
Jonung, L. (2009). The Swedish model for resolving the banking crisis of 1991-93. Seven reasons why it was successful. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/publications/pages/publication14098_en.pdf
Karlsson, D. & Montin, S. (2013). Solving municipal paradoxes: Challenges for Swedish local democracy. Panorama: Insights into Asian & European Affairs, 125-137. Retrieved from https://gup-server.ub.gu.se/v1/asset_data/97054.pdf
Lowndes, V. & Pratchett, L. (2011). Local government under the coalition government: Austerity, localism and the "big society’’. Local Government Studies, 38(1), 21-40. DOI: 10.1080/03003930.2011.642949
Lövgren, S. (1999). Den nya tidens samhällsplanering. Plan. Tidskrift för planering av landsbygdoch tätort, 5-6, 251-254.
Mack, J. (2019). Renovation year zero: Swedish welfare landscapes of anxiety, 1975 to the present. Nordic Journal of Settlement History and Built Heritage, 76, 63-79. Retrieved from http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1573245/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Maudsley, A. (2022). Swedish Planning and Development in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Routledge.
Nesslein, T.S. (1982). The Swedish housing model: An assessment. Urban Studies, 19(3), 235-246. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43191896
Osborne, D. & Gaebler, T. (1992). Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
Petersen, O.H. & Hjelmar, U. (2014). Marketization of welfare services in Scandinavia: A review of Swedish and Danish experiences. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration, 17(4), 3-20. Retrieved from https://publicera.kb.se/sjpa/article/view/15712/12724
Terner Center for Housing Innovation (2017). Housing in Sweden: An Overview. Retrieved from https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Swedish_Housing_System_Memo.pdf
Tilton, T. (1990). The Political Theory of Swedish Social Democracy: Through the Welfare State to Socialism. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press.
Tilton, T. (1992). The Role of Ideology in Social Democratic Politics. In Misgeld, K., Molin, K., & Åmark, K. (Eds.) Creating Social Democracy: A Century of the Social Democratic Labor Party in Sweden (pp.409-429). The Pennsylvania State University.
Wilhemsson, M. (2023). Demand for rent-regulated apartments in the Swedish housing market. Housing Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2023.2244908
Wollmann, H. (2004). Local government reforms in Great Britain, Sweden, Germany and France: Between multi-function and single-purpose organisations. Local Government Studies, 30(4), 639-665.
Comentários