EU-PROJECT: ELIPSE Central Fosie Malmö the 30th of August 2002 Mikael Stigendal Urban Integration Regional Development Centre, Teacher Education Malmö University 1 CONTENTS CONTENTS..............................................................................................................2 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................3 1. CENTRAL FOSIE – A PART OF MALMÖ .....................................................5 THE FOSIE AREA......................................................................................................6 THE PEOPLE IN CENTRAL FOSIE...............................................................................7 THE FOSIE WARD COUNCIL......................................................................................9 POLICIES................................................................................................................11 CONCLUSIONS .......................................................................................................12 2. OUTSIDE SOCIETY? .......................................................................................14 SOCIAL EXCLUSION – WHAT DOES IT MEAN? .........................................................14 THE FOSIE FOCUS GROUP.......................................................................................16 SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN CENTRAL FOSIE .................................................................19 CONCLUSIONS .......................................................................................................30 3. GOOD EXAMPLES...........................................................................................31 SECOND CHANCE SCHOOL .....................................................................................31 THE CITY PROJECT ................................................................................................33 CAFÉ FOR ELDERLY ...............................................................................................34 THE REGENERATION OF NYDALA ..........................................................................35 COMRADE SUPPORTERS .........................................................................................37 THE RECREATION CENTRE .....................................................................................38 THE BABY CAFÉ.....................................................................................................40 THE PUCK PROJECT ...............................................................................................41 THE SESAM FAMILY CENTRE .................................................................................44 CONCLUSIONS .......................................................................................................46 2 INTRODUCTION First of all, as this report turns to the participants of the Elipse project, I wont write anything about the project as such. I take for granted that everybody who read this report is familiar with the project application and the reason to why this report is written. Moreover, the report doesn’t include normal procedures like extensive references and literature. I will also keep the acknowledgements very short and simply express my gratitude to the Fosie group. I enjoyed our local conference very much and I’m also very happy for the comments on an earlier version of this report. I’ll wait with my acknowledgements to the others in the project leadership and the local researchers. The other participants I haven’t met yet, but I’m looking forward to seeing you all in Torino. I have chosen to divide this local report into three chapters. The first chapter describes the area, mostly in quantitative terms. Also, it includes explanations of some important welfare systems and legislations in Sweden. Without such explanations, crucial aspects on social exclusion become impossible to understand. However, quantitative aspects and so called hard facts don’t give the whole picture, in particular not the one of social exclusion. Chapter two builds further on the quantitative description of the area by adding the qualitative assessments of eight persons who in some kind of way work with social exclusion. Chapter one and two aim at giving a rounded account of social exclusion in the area called Central Fosie, what it means as well as its scope. Such an account is needed in order to understand the examples of good practice. The problems have to be explained before the solutions may be perceived as solutions. Thus, even if the examples of good practice constitute the essence of this project, I haven’t located them in the beginning of my report, but in the third chapter. That makes them more understandable, I think, in particular for an international audience. In this project, the examples of good practice belong to the practitioners that take part in the project. The examples were presented at the second day of our local conference. The practitioners have been given 3 the opportunity to read an earlier version of this manuscript and thus comment on my representation of their examples. 4 1. CENTRAL FOSIE – A PART OF MALMÖ Malmö is the third largest city in Sweden, with a population of 257.574 (1 jan 2000). Once, Malmö was known in Sweden as a model of social democratic prosperity. The city became an incarnation of the industrial society, however organised in a social democratic way. The Swedish Social Democratic Party originated in Malmö in the 1880s. Some other core institutions of the Swedish labour movement originated in Malmö as well. After the franchise reform in 1919, the party retained power over the local council for an uninterrupted period of 66 years. At the time of the electoral defeat in 1985, Malmö had changed profoundly and become the worst example of segregation in Sweden. It still is, but during the last years the decline has turned into an expansion, fuelled by the international boom and a newly established University. Also, Malmö has gained an international attention by the building of the Öresund Bridge. Of all inhabitants in Malmö, 23% are born outside Sweden. Around half of the school children have a foreign background. More than 160 languages are spoken in Malmö. The city is highly segregated. The more wealthy inhabitants live in the western, southern and eastern outskirts of Malmö. The problems of social exclusion is concentrated to a quite coherent area east and south of the city centre, covering almost 25% of the whole Malmö population. The size of this area makes Malmö the most segregated city in Sweden. Currently, the Swedish government spends a vast amount of money on this larger area as a part of its Metropolitan policy. Since the 1 of January 1996, a substantial share of power has been decentralised to 10 local wards, governed by local councils. The social democratic council majority launched the reform after the election victory in 1994 as a response to earlier market solutions implemented by the right-wing city council between 1991-94. Instead of letting market criteria decide, the social democratic councillors wanted to engage citizens in the decision making process by relocating politics into every-day life. The ward reform aimed at strengthening democracy, but also to break down boundaries between council bureaucracies. 5 The Fosie area The biggest one of these 10 wards, in terms of inhabitants, is Fosie. At the 1 of January 2000, Fosie had a population of 37.605, which is almost 15% of all the inhabitants in Malmö. Fosie has to be regarded as a rather new part of Malmö. It’s not very old. 97% of all the dwellings in the area were built after 1940. 46% were built during the 1960s. In fact, a walk through the ward, from north to south, illustrates very well the different periods of Swedish post-war housing. The northern part of Fosie, called Augustenborg, was built just after the war. At that time it was regarded as a success. Many social aspects were built in to the area. After its completion in the early 1950s, Augustenborg attracted people from far and near, residents as well as study visitors. Today, it belongs to the area in Fosie regarded as socially excluded, however it benefits from its successful past, not the least in terms of the high housing standard. During our walk through the ward, housing becomes more and more industrialized, culminating in the south of the ward with the area called Lindängen, which was built as a part of the so called Million dwelling programme during the 60s. In such areas almost no meeting places exist at all. There are no small shops, no restaurants and no pubs. Hence, people easily tend to become isolated, in particular the unemployed and the ones without family relatives in the neighbourhood, for example pensioners. In contrast, there’s no slum to be found in Fosie. The housing standard is generally high. Also, the area has a lot of large fields, quite well managed, green lawns as well as fields covered with bushes and trees. As we have been walking through the central parts of Fosie, we have also passed through the area associated with social exclusion. It’s a coherent area in the central of Fosie, surrounded by wealthier areas in the south, west and east. It consists almost solely of high-rise blocks. Thus, the area is quite coherent and well defined. I will call it Central Fosie.1 Private landlords own 40% of the dwellings in Central Fosie. The council has a housing company called MKB, which owns further 29% of the dwellings. As a total, 69% of the households