Renewing urban renewal in landskrona, sweden: pursuing displacement through housing policies

Abstract

The city of Landskrona in the South of Sweden has never fully recovered from a phase of heavy deindustrialization during the 1970s and 1980s. After years of socially inspired plans and projects, the local authorities have now decided to shift gear and tackle problems of criminality, unemployment and social exclusion through a renovation and eviction plan of the inner city. The basic thought behind the plan is to radically alter the social fabric of the inner city through major alterations of the housing market. The Crossroads Centre/East plan proposes that the municipal authorities, together with five real estate companies, form a new company to renovate houses, convert rental apartments to condominiums, demolish and rebuild. One hundred million Swedish kronor are invested in the company – 95 million will come from municipal funds. The proposal in the City Council, led by the Liberal Party, was supported by 49 out of 51 Councillors, including the Social Democrats and the extreme right‐wing Sweden Democrats. The aim is not hidden: welfare recipients should be actively steered away from the city centre and make place for a (imaginary) wealthy middle class. The overall objective of the company is ‘to improve both the physical and socio‐economic status in Landskrona's central and eastern parts’. To understand this urban renewal proposal, we would like to present Landskrona as an example of a watershed in Swedish housing politics that forces us to consider: (1) the nature of gentrification processes in Scandinavia – from gentle to brutal; (2) the shift in viewing affordable housing as a problem, rather than a solution; and (3) the possible introduction of “renoviction” in Sweden.

Feminist struggle over urban safety and the politics of space

“…Borrowing the rhetoric from earlier feminist work, property companies earned new credentials while simultaneously contributing to the displacement of marginalized groups from various city zones to the periphery. Kearn and Mullings (2013:33) (Thörn and Holgersson, 2014;Baeten and Listerborn, 2015). At the same time, as criminologists point out, poverty-stricken residents of marginalized neighbourhoods are both more exposed to crime and experience more fear in their everyday lives (Estrada and Nilsson, 2011) than others.…”

The right to community?

“…In this context, the right to inhabit the city is guaranteed for all those who legally occupy land, but is a right frequently undermined with reference to the public good. Legal mechanisms are hence integral to the displacement of people from land that is deemed worthy of redevelopment, with the local 'entrepreneurial' state seemingly able to deploy legal powers with impunity as it pursues agonistic policies predicated on large-scale displacement and gentrification (Baeten and Listerborn 2015;Delaney 2004). …”

“…The right to housing is then a discourse that potentially offers an eviscerated sense of what is at stake in the London clearances. As Baeten and Listerborn (2015) argue, the 'right to dwell' must be understood as a right to inhabit the abstract space comprising 'home' in a wider sense. As Davidson (2009, 231) points out, drawing on Lefebvre and Heidegger, the 'right to dwell' and the 'right to place' can 'be denigrated or destroyed even if one stays in a particular space' (see also Davidson and Lees 2010).…”

For the Benefit of Everyone? : Explaining the Significance of Swedish Public Housing for Urban Housing Inequality

“…On a local level, Borelius and Wennerström (2009) discuss how marketization has triggered gentrification processes in the MHC Gårdstensbostäder in Göteborg. Baeten and Listerborn (2015) describe how the municipal housing company in the city of Landskrona is used as a tool in the municipal political strategy of city-branding, leading to gentrification and displacement in the backdrop of a neo-liberal housing market. A couple of studies point to MHCs' increasing capitalization on the differences between estimated (fictional) and registered property values, the calculations on requirements on return on investment, and the increased significance on accountancy for MHC businesses.…”