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Neoliberal urban planning in Sweden, 1990-2020ff: History, conflicts and segregation

Here are good sources to understand the neoliberalization of urban planning and urban life in Swedish cities from 1990 to 2020. This is a set of articles that provides a good overview and detail and helps you to develop a historical and geographical understanding of why, for instance, segregation has increased steadily, why certain areas and elite groups have become extraordinarily wealthy in Swedish cities, and why others have become poorer and more exposed to the forces of the market.

The articles have been sourced by asking experienced urban studies scholars in Sweden or working on Sweden or Scandinavia. The list will be added to. Some of the first ones have been sent to me by Associate Professor Dr Lina Olsson at the Department of Urban Studies at Malmö University. Later I have also received contributions from Dr. Ståle Holgersson at Institute for Housing and Urban Research at Uppsala University.

If you haven't already read these and similar articles, I can assure you a high quality reading experience and that you will gain new perspectives that will assist you in becoming an urban thinker!

Summary of neoliberalization of Swedish housing and urban planning

Before the list of literature, here is an excerpt from page 5-10 from a report by our SUPD KTH students Julia Baczyk, Alvina Rwaichi Minja, Charbel Toma, Josefina Vives Martens, and Michiel Vandenbussche, which effectively summarises parts of this literature. Make sure to cite if you use this text: Baczyk, Julia, Alvina Rwaichi Minja, Charbel Toma, Josefina Vives Martens, and Michiel Vandenbussche (2023) ADEQUATE HOUSING FOR JÄRFÄLLA, PROJECT REPORT, KTH Course AG2129 Project Sustainable Urban Planning.  
https://www.kth.se/social/files/65dc9841571bce96e0e64905/adequate-housing-for-jarfalla.pdf

"The 1980s marked a significant shift in Sweden's housing policy, moving from a state-dominated approach to one that embraced neoliberal principles. As Henriksson (2018) points out, the market was deregulated and companies were offered cheap loans for housing developments. Consequently, housing was no longer treated as a distinct entity, but rather as a regular commodity. This shift was further exacerbated by the financial crisis of the early 1990s, which resulted in the transfer of the responsibility and risk of financing housing from the state to the private sector. [...] Between 1996 and 2011, subsidies to construction were reduced from 60 billion SEK to just 10 billion SEK and real estate taxes were raised. This posed challenges for municipal real estate companies, especially those in economically disadvantaged areas facing higher housing demand due to immigration. It partly caused public landlords to sell parts of their stock, leading to a drastic decrease in the share of public housing units in the overall housing supply from 22% to 16.5% between 1990 and 2013 (Henriksson, 2018). This, combined with the reduced construction of new housing by municipal companies due to the elimination of subsidised housing loans, worsened the situation of rising housing prices and extended waiting lists.

A significant development occurred in 2002 when private actors in the rental market filed a report to the European Commission, claiming that subsidies directed to public housing conflicted with European legislation on competition. The state responded by removing these subsidies in 2011, transforming public housing into a market-driven actor and making the provision of affordable housing increasingly challenging (Wedepohl, 2023). The reform also implied that public landlords were now required to operate with a profit margin, shifting away from their previous non-profit status and their rents were no longer normative for the private rental sector either (Gustafsson, 2021). This caused further rent increases in both the public and private sectors, and the use-value rent is now mainly adjusted to the rents of other apartments of similar standards (Elsinga and Lind, 2013). It also caused public landlords to sell large parts of their stock. [...] Hence, Sweden's housing policies have undergone significant transformations over the decades, transitioning from a high level of state involvement to a growing dependence on private actors, with noteworthy implications for affordability, social equity and urban development."

Neoliberalization of urban planning in Sweden and Scandinavia

Baeten, G. (2012). Normalising Neoliberal Planning: The Case of Malmö, Sweden. In T. Tasan-Kok & G. Baeten (Eds.), Contradictions of Neoliberal Planning (Vol. 102, pp. 21–42). Springer Netherlands. http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-90-481-8924-3_2

Baeten, G. et al. (2017) ‘Pressure and violence: Housing renovation and displacement in Sweden. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 49(3), pp. 631–651. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X16676271.

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. https://doi.org/10.1111/geob.12079

Baczyk, Julia, Alvina Rwaichi Minja, Charbel Toma, Josefina Vives Martens, and Michiel Vandenbussche (2023) ADEQUATE HOUSING FOR JÄRFÄLLA, PROJECT REPORT, KTH Course AG2129 Project Sustainable Urban Planning.  
https://www.kth.se/social/files/65dc9841571bce96e0e64905/adequate-housing-for-jarfalla.pdf

Franzén, M., Hertting, N., & Thörn, C. (2016). Stad till salu: Entreprenörsurbanismen och det offentliga rummets värde. Daidalos.

Gustafsson, J. (2021). Renovations as an investment strategy: Circumscribing the right to housing in Sweden. Housing Studies, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2021.1982872

Hedin, K. et al. (2012) Neoliberalization of Housing in Sweden: Gentrification, Filtering, and Social Polarization, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 102(2), pp. 443–463. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2011.620508.

Holgersen, S. (2017). Staden och kapitalet: Malmö i krisernas tid. Daidalos.

Holgersen, S. (2014). Urban Responses to The Economic Crisis: Confirmation of Urban Policies as Crisis Management in Malmö. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38(1), 285–301. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12029

Holgersen, S. (2015). Crisis and the Post-Industrial City: Or is Malmö Building Yesterday’s City Tomorrow, Again? Tijdschrift Voor Economische En Sociale Geografie, 106(3), 231–245. https://doi.org/10.1111/tesg.12115

Holgersen, S., & Hult, A. (2021). Spatial myopia: Sustainability, urban politics and Malmö city. International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, 13(2), 159–173. https://doi.org/10.1080/19463138.2020.1855432

Holgersen, Ståle, and Andreas Malm. (2015). ‘“Green Fix” as Crisis Management. or, in Which World Is Malmö the World’s Greenest City?’ Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 97 (4): 275–90. https://doi.org/10.1111/geob.12081.

Jönsson, E., & Holgersen, S. (2017). Spectacular, realisable and ‘everyday’: Exploring the particularities of sustainable planning in Malmö. City, 21(3–4), 253–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2017.1325186

Olsson, L. (2018). The Neoliberalization of Municipal Land Policy in Sweden. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 42(4), 633–650. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12651

Pries, J. (2020). Neoliberal Urban Planning Through Social Government: Notes on the Demographic Re‐engineering of Malmö. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 1468-2427.12870. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12870

Wedepohl, P. (2023) Accessing Housing : How the political-economy of Sweden’s Housing Market impacts the accessibility for marginalized groups in Malmö. Available at: https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-60025

Housing politics and right to an affordable home in the Swedish city

Grander, M. (2020). Allmännyttan och jämlikheten: Svensk bostadspolitik vid vägskäl? SNS förlag.

Grundström, K., & Molina, I. (2016). From Folkhem to lifestyle housing in Sweden: Segregation and urban form, 1930s–2010s. International Journal of Housing Policy, 16(3), 316–336. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616718.2015.1122695

Listerborn, C. (2018). Bostadsojämlikhet: Röster om bostadsnöden. Premiss.

Lind, H. et al. (2016) ‘Sustainable Renovation Strategy in the Swedish Million Homes Programme: A Case Study’, Sustainability, 8(4), p. 388. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/su8040388.

Ärlemalm J, Resisting renoviction (2014) The neoliberal city, space and urban social movements. Arbetsrapporter, Kulturgeografiska institutionen, Uppsala universitet.

More on segregation

Lichter, Daniel T., Domenico Parisi, and Michael C. Taquino. 2012. “The Geography of Exclusion: Race, Segregation, and Concentrated Poverty.” Social Problems 59 (3): 364–88. doi:10.1525/sp.2012.59.3.364.

Ärlemalm J, Resisting renoviction (2014) The neoliberal city, space and urban social movements. Arbetsrapporter, Kulturgeografiska institutionen, Uppsala universitet.

Östh, J., Clark, W., & Malmberg, B. (2015). Measuring the Scale of Segregation Using k‐Nearest Neighbor Aggregates. Geographical Analysis, 47(1), 34-49.

List as of March 2022/HE

Further on Swedish housing restructuring: from ‘folkhem’ and housing for all, to 'renoviction' and life-style living for the few

(List of literature from Åse Richard, Uppsala University)
Listerborn, C., Molina, I., Richard, Å., 2020. Claiming the right to dignity: New organizations for housing justice in neoliberal Sweden. Radical Housing Journal 2, 119–137.

Polanska, D., Richard, Å., 2021. Resisting Renovictions: Tenants Organizing against Housing Companies` Renewal Practices in Sweden. Radical Housing Journal 3, 187–205.

Polanska, D., Richard, Å., 2019. Narratives of a fractured trust in the Swedish model: Tenants’ emotions of renovation. Culture Unbound. Journal of Current Cultural Research 11, 141–164.

Polanska, D., Richard, Å., 2018. Bortträngning pågår: Renovering som kulturellt trauma. Sociologisk forskning 55, 415–439.

Polanska, D.V., Backvall, K., Richard, Å., Molina, I., 2022. Predatory commodification and housing renovation. Journal of Urban Affairs 1–19.

Pull, E., Richard, Å., 2019. Domicide: dis place ment and dispossessions in Uppsala, Sweden. Social & Cultural Geography 1–20.

Richard, Å., 2024. “Resetting” the Neighbourhood: Residents’ Resistance to Place Destruction in Gränby, Uppsala. Housing, Theory and Society 1–19.

Listerborn, C., Molina, I., Richard, Å., 2020. Claiming the right to dignity: New organizations for housing justice in neoliberal Sweden. Radical Housing Journal 2, 119–137.

Nevárez Martiínez, D., 2016. Embracing the Academic-Activist Tension - It’s OK to Yell, Scream, Be Easperated and Embrace Our Shared Humanity., in: Roy, A., Malson, H. (Eds.), Housing Justice in Unequal Cities. UCLA

Richard, Å., 2024. “Resetting” the Neighbourhood: Residents’ Resistance to Place Destruction in Gränby, Uppsala. Housing, Theory and Society 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/14036096.2024.2311420

Polanska, D., Richard, Å., 2018. Bortträngning pågår: Renovering som kulturellt trauma. Sociologisk forskning 55, 415–439.


Wider readings

Gilmore, R.W., Bhandar, B., Toscano, A., 2022. Abolition geography: essays towards liberation. Verso, London ; New York.

Grundström, K., Molina, I., 2016. From Folkhem to Lifestyle Housing in Sweden: Segregation and Urban Form, 1930s-2010s. International journal of housing policy 16, 316–336.

Mohanty, C.T., 2003. Feminism without borders: decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity. Duke Univ. Press,Durham.

Molina, I., 2007. Intersektionella rumsligheter. Tidskrift för genusvetenskap 7–21.

Luskin, Institute on Inequality and Democracy at the University of California, pp. 43–50.

Rannila, P., 2022. Housing Violence in the Post-welfare Context. Housing, theory, and society 39, 238–255.

Roy, A., Rolnik, R., 2020. Methodologies for housing justice, in: Roy, A., Rolnik, R., Graziani, T., Malson, H. (Eds.), Methodologies for Housing Justie Resource Guide. Institute on Inequality and Democracy, UCLA, Los Angeles, pp. 12–30.