Tenure type landscapes and housing market change: a geographical perspective on neo-liberalization in Sweden

Abstract

Discussions of tenure mix have received renewed interest as many have suggested that neo-liberalization has made way for gentrification of neighbourhoods and increasing segregation. Yet, few scholars have studied country-wide changes in tenure mix, due to the lack of data and appropriate methods. In this article, we propose to use tenure type landscapes to analyse changes in housing policy. We do so while acknowledging the evolution of housing policies in Sweden since 1990. Using individualized and multi-scalar tenure type landscapes to measure change in neighbourhoods, we analyse housing clusters in 1990 and 2012. We show that the tenure landscape in 1990 at the height of the welfare state was fairly diverse and mixed. During the next 22 years, however, the landscape changed to become more homogenized and dominated by ownership through tenure conversions and new housing. We argue that awareness of these changes is essential to understanding present and future segregation and gentrification processes.

Tenure type mixing and segregation

“…To simplify, we name all these clusters 'landscapes' throughout the text. For more details, see Wimark et al (2020).…”

“…Our aim, thus, is not to analyze levels of segregation but instead to clarify the extent to which segregation is linked to tenure type mixing. In doing so, we use what recently has been denominated Tenure Type Landscapes (TTL) instead of neighborhoods (Wimark et al, 2020). The virtue of TTL lies in that they are created based on the composition of tenure forms that households live in on different scales.…”

Credit expansion and socio-economic heterogeneity of debtors in foreclosure: the case of Sweden 2000–2014

“…According to Ruonavaara (2012), the period since the 1990s has been characterized by 'retrenchment' in Sweden with regard to housing policy, implying a shift from a highly regulated tenure system to market orientation. Christophers (2013) traces this period as far back as the 1970s and outlines the major changes, including the marketization of the public rental sector since the 1990s, a continuing expansion of owneroccupation driven by conversions of rental into tenant-owned apartments (see also Wimark et al, 2020), and an abandonment of the principle of tenure neutrality, mainly through the removal of interest subsidies supporting new construction of apartments and taxation-based bias in favour of owner-occupation. Moreover, there has been very little new construction of residential housing units, resulting in housing shortages in the major urban areas (Emanuelsson, 2015).…”

Spatial, Financial and Ideological Trajectories of Public Housing in Malmö, Sweden

“…Moreover, changes allowing conversions from rental to tenant-ownership spurred a wave of privatization which was especially extensive in the capital of Stockholm (Andersson and Turner 2014;Wimark, Andersson, and Malmberg 2019). The privatization of public housing has recently been reinforced through increased sales of public housing in order to finance new construction and renovation (Sundling 2016).…”

“…Scholars understand this alteration of public housing generally as part of the neoliberal change of Sweden's universal housing regime. Clark and Johnson (2009) even explain this change as a neoliberal system switch that took place in 1991 when a Conservative-Liberal coalition obtained power in the national government, and subsequent housing and urban research uses this explanation to describe and understand neoliberalisation of housing in Sweden (exemplified by but not exclusive to Andersson 2013;Baeten et al 2016;Hedin et al 2012;Wimark, Andersson, and Malmberg 2019). The understanding of housing neoliberalisation is nuanced by Christophers (2013a) who describes how a monstrous hybridity of combined regulation and deregulation explains the lack of affordable housing in Sweden.…”