Post-war urban renewal and demolition fluctuations in Sweden

ABSTRACT

In the decades following the Second World War, Swedish cities experienced extensive urban renewal projects that continue to shape the country’s contemporary built environment. Many Swedish cities saw large-scale demolitions starting in the 1950s. The demolitions increased during the 1960s and 1970s, when the government implemented the so-called Million Programme (1965–1974). The declared target of the housing policy was to raise housing standards, create healthy living conditions and lessen the housing shortage through the construction of modern housing. In the 1980s, the preservation and modernization of dwellings replaced the clearance policy. The 1990s brought a new demolition wave, which subsided in the 2000s. This paper reviews the renewal processes and various phases of demolition activity in Swedish post-war cities from the perspective of housing policy and planning. The research analysis is based on the literature and statistics.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban renewal
• demolition
• planning
• housing policy
• Sweden

Acknowledgements

We want to thank the Uppsala municipality authorities and the researchers of Uppsala University and prof. Christer Bengs, the leader of the project, for their important contribution to this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Aino Verkasalo M.Soc.Sci (major sociology), at the time of writing this paper, was a researcher at the Department of Real Estate, Planning and Geoinformatics, Aalto University. Verkasalo has studied various topics related to housing and urban planning.

Jukka Hirvonen M.Soc.Sci (major sociology), when writing this paper, was a researcher at the Department of Real Estate, Planning and Geoinformatics, Aalto University. Hirvonen is specialized to the statistical housing research. Currently he has been working on the themes of social housing, housing preferences, and Swedish housing policy and planning.

ORCID

Aino Verkasalo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9171-3289

Notes

1 Hall, “Urban Planning in Sweden,” 231.

2 Johansson, The Great Urban Transformation, 16.

3 Ibid., 60–1.

4 SOU 1945:63 & 1947:26, The Final Report 1 & 2.

5 SOU 1947:26, The Final Report 2.

6 Our translation. SOU 1947:26, The Final Report 2, 19.

7 Johansson, The Great Urban Transformation, 83–5.

8 Boverket, The Housing Policy, 51.

9 SOU 1947:26, The Final Report 2, 11, 50.

10 Bergold, The Construction of Uppsala 1900–1960, 193; Lundin, The Car Society, 56.

11 SOU 1954:31, The Issue of Rehabilitation; Lundin, Bilsamhället, 62–3.

12 Boverket, The Housing Policy, 51, 57.

13 Lundin, The Car Society, 64–6.

14 Hall, “Urban Planning in Sweden,” 213–33.

15 Johansson, The Great Urban Transformation, 47–8.

16 Lundin, The Car Society, 319.

17 Hall, “Urban Planning in Sweden,” 234.

18 Johansson, “The Postwar Destruction of Swedish Cities,” 413.

19 Schönbeck, Cities in Transformation, 104–5.

20 Johansson, The Great Urban Transformation, 17–18.

21 Johansson, “The Postwar Destruction of Swedish Cities,” 427.

22 Gråbacke, Encountering with the Market, 168.

23 Ibid.

24 Prop. 1966:1 Bil. 13, 191.

25 Hall, “Urban Planning of Sweden,” 213–14.

26 Boverket, The Housing Policy, 66–8.

27 SOU 1954:31, The Issue of Rehabilitation, 19; Boverket, The Housing Policy, 51.

28 Housing Rehabilitation Act 1973:27.

29 Boverket, The Housing Policy, 57–8, 68.

30 Dahlgren and Svensson, The Urban Renewal for Whom?, 97–8.

31 Hall and Vidén, “The Million Homes Programme,” 304.

32 In English: refurbishment, rebuilding and annex building.

33 Schönbeck, Cities in Transformation, 279–82.

34 Stahre, The Alternative City, 215–20.

35 Martins Holmberg, On the Urban Surface, 317.

36 Schönbeck, Cities in Transformation, 215–17.

37 SCB, Statistical database, Housing, construction and building.

38 Ekbrant, Rehabilitation – Conversion and Renewal.

39 SCB, Population and Housing Census 1960, 129; SCB, Statistical database, Dwelling stock.

40 Johansson, The Great Urban Transformation.

41 SCB, Statistical database, Housing, construction and building.

42 Ibid.

43 Johansson, “The Postwar destruction of Swedish Cities,” 421.

44 “Uppsala City. The Cultural Environment Programme,” 249–50.

45 For example, Uppsala nya tidning, A5.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland [grant number 1325498]. This paper is a part of a research project Svebo — Swedish Housing Regime.