Historical Background and Context

The first decades of the post-war era saw a large and quickly growing need for new housing.
In Sweden, rapid urbanization, growing prosperity and demands for higher housing standards led to
years-long housing queues. The housing shortage became a political liability for the ruling Social
Democratic party. To end the housing shortage once and for all, the Swedish parliament decided that a
million new dwellings should be built in the period 1965 to 1974 and this was achieved. This is the
Million Homes Programme, as it came to be called, has come into being. The reasons and the
background of building a million houses can be concluded into two perspectives according to our
research, the practical point of view and political and social reasons, we’ll discuss the practical ones in
the first place.

Practical context

At the start, in the early post war years, the productivity rose swiftly in Sweden, aided by advanced
technology, a labor market free of conflict ( thanks to the Salsjöbaden Agreement), Sweden had
become a attractive place for working forces, this led to a huge influx of immigrant labour. Moreover,
this is just the same time urbanization took place.

On account of both causes happening at the same time, people were pouring into cities: between 1945
and 1955, 250,000 people migrated to them. City dwellers formed 49 percent of the total Swedish
population in 1930, 55 percent in 1940, 65 percent in 1950, 73 percent in 1960 and 81 percent in 1970;
this was one of the most rapid urbanization processes in all Europe. Due to this fast urbanization
process, despite the highest rate of housing construction in Swedish history, the urban housing
shortage remained acute. Stockholm’s waiting list was 120,000 in the mid-1960s.The waiting period
for a young couple was about ten years. Furthermore, the housing conditions in Stockholm was very
poor at that time as well, 32 percent of apartment units had only one room with kitchen, 20 percent
were one and two rooms with no kitchen at all; only 76 percent on the flats had central heating.
Moreover, due to the high density of population in Stockholm, the rent is extremely high; the rent for a
well equipped two-room flat was about 40 percent of the industrial worker’s wage.

In consequence, by the mid-1960s housing became the key political issue; the so-called bourgeois
parties found it a convenient stick with which to beat the Social Democratic Party.
The problem was so acute that it might cause instability in the political system, therefore the
politicians were thinking about solving the housing problem by using the land they had bought since
1904, which was supposed to make it easier for Swedes to stay in their homeland rather than
emigrating to the US.
Consequently, here comes the political reasons and social conscience dimension of the million
programme.

Political and Social Conscience

Swedish planning has historically been about benefiting mercantile interests, to strengthen the
country’s defense and, of course, to protect the towns against fire.
The years around 1930 we had a political change of wind in Sweden and the social democracy
obtained the political power. The early functional style with its social conscience is primarily to be
understood as a reaction against the disregard of material necessity from growing industrial and urban
society. Housing was soon to become one of the major questions and from the forties and onwards.
The million programme was then part of the national welfare implementation of the SDP, that was, the
state and the municipalities took full responsibility for the citizens housing. A subsidiary system was
developed, as well as a detailed framework of regulations, meant to provide the whole population with
affordable, sound, spacious and well-equipped homes.

The difference between Sweden and other countries is that many other countries promoted their
private enterprises but a less sufficient social housing policy, housing in Sweden was organized as a
national and political interest.

Housing standard has ever since been one of Sweden’s most distinct symbols of national welfare,
during the 1950s and 1960s, more and better apartment houses were built in Sweden than in any other
country. It was during this time the world made complement on the Swedish urban planning upon the
fact that they along with many other countries had reached the highest material standard in the world.
Politicians, social scientists and journalists worldwide set up the image of Sweden as a global example;
a well-planned and well-managed society, in between communism and capitalism.

The society came to be defined as a good and responsible one and its goal was to satisfy the vast
majority of the citizens through a appropriate urban planning with equality as a powerful norm. In
urban planning the million programme didn’t follow a bourgeoisie ideal for city building, which
emphasizes boulevards and high stone houses in closed block formations. The representative function
and the classical aestheticism were despised since it was said to belong to the old class society and
thus badly responded to the people’s everyday needs.