Social Sustainability, Cultural Heritage, and the Swedish Million Homes Program
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Social Sustainability, Cultural heritage, and the Swedish Million Homes program Uppsala universitet Campus Gotland Master’s Thesis in Conservation 2019 120 ECTS Author: Ingrid Närlund Tutor: Anna Karlström Front page illustration: Public art in Fittja, Stockholm. Photo by Ingrid Närlund Author Ingrid Närlund Title and subtitle Social Sustainability, Cultural heritage and the Swedish Million Homes program Tutor Anna Karlström Thesis in Conservation (Master’s Degree) 120ECTS Defended 2019-06-06 Fall term (year) 2018 Spring term (year) 2019 Creating socially sustainable residential areas is an important topic as urbanisation and migration increase. This thesis is about Swedish residential areas built during the period 1965 to 1974 as the result of a political programme called the Million homes programme. The areas hold cultural historic values being the physical manifestation of an era of the Swedish history that has strongly shaped our present society, but is now threatened by lack of social sustainability. The Million homes areas constitute a large part of the residential areas in Sweden today. By the end of the programme there were an abundance of housing options in Sweden, and empty apartments were in a high degree located in the modernistic suburbs, as people with good economy chose to move elsewhere. To fill the apartment, the municipalities used them for social contracts. The areas became segregated, and still are today despite several attempts to improve their popularity. This thesis analyses various measures and strategies for improving social sustainability in the Million homes areas, and their effects on the cultural heritage. The ambition with the study is to give a broad, cross-functional view of the topic, studying various approaches, e.g. physical renovations to social activities to cooperation with the police. The thesis starts with a literature study of social sustainability in residential areas, and the factors influencing it. A classification of aspects influencing social sustainability is created, to be used for evaluating the results from the case study in the second part of the thesis. The case study is performed in six suburbs in the Stockholm region, being new developments during the Million homes program. Social sustainability in each area is evaluated using the aspects defined in the first part of the study, and measures to improve social sustainability in the areas, and their effect on the intangible cultural heritage, are discussed. The work is valid for goal number 11 of the Sustainable Development Goals Sustainable cities and communities, in particular target number 11.3 Inclusive and sustainable urbanisations, as well as goal number 5 Gender equality and goal number 10 Reduced inequalities. Keywords: Social sustainability, residential areas, sustainable cities, area development Content Introduction ...........................................................................................................................1 Research objective............................................................................................................2 Limitations..........................................................................................................................2 Methods.............................................................................................................................3 Material ............................................................................................................................5 Terminology ......................................................................................................................6 Part one, Framework ...........................................................................................................7 The Million homes programme .........................................................................................7 Social sustainability .......................................................................................................12 Ways to improve social sustainability ...........................................................................14 Personal aspects ........................................................................................................15 Interpersonal aspects .................................................................................................17 Person to place aspects..............................................................................................19 Integrational aspects...................................................................................................20 Democracy aspects ...................................................................................................23 Time aspects...............................................................................................................24 Cultural heritage evaluations of modernistic residential areas .......................................26 Documentary values in the Million homes areas .......................................................28 Construction ..........................................................................................................28 Architecture.............................................................................................................29 History ...................................................................................................................29 Experiential values in the Million homes areas ..........................................................30 Part two, Case studies ........................................................................................................31 Introduction ..................................................................................................................31 The housing companies and areas ...............................................................................38 Stockholmshem, Stockholm .......................................................................................39 Skärholmen.............................................................................................................39 Sätra........................................................................................................................47 Huge bostäder, Huddinge ..........................................................................................53 Vårby.......................................................................................................................55 Flemingsberg...........................................................................................................61 Botkyrkabyggen, Botkyrka ..........................................................................................69 Alby..........................................................................................................................70 Fittja ........................................................................................................................75 Concluding discussion.........................................................................................................81 References...........................................................................................................................93 Appendix ...........................................................................................................................102 Appendix A: interview template ...................................................................................102 Introduction The 1960s and 1970s is an interesting period in Swedish history, moving from a strong, centralised society with good economy, to opposition, protests and a financial crisis. The Million homes program, the ambition to build one million new homes in ten years in a country with eight million inhabitants, was a physical manifestation and product of a strong, centralised state. It also represented a for the period revolutionary new construction technique, and the culmination of modernistic architecture in Sweden. But the ideal of the good home for the people, the motivation for the programme, was not met, and today many of the Million homes areas suffer from social problems. Many attempts have been made to improve the situation in, and popularity of, the areas. In doing this, property owners have invested huge amounts of money in upgrade measures, but it is not shown if the measures have improved social sustainability or not. This thesis is about the Swedish Million homes program as being a part of our cultural heritage, a part that is threatened because of lack of social sustainability in the areas, and because of attempts by the property owners to solve these problems by rebuilding. The thesis is an attempt to increase the knowledge about what can improve social sustainability in residential areas, for the property owners to invest in relevant and effective measures, and how these measures will affect the cultural heritage values. In doing so I have studied what social (un)sustainability connected to residential areas consists of, and what alternatives there are to improve it in order to preserve the cultural heritage of the Million Homes Programme. From a cultural heritage point of view, we should not erase an important époque in the Swedish history, something that is threatening to happen through total rebuilds or demolitions, especially if it is shown that the physical presentation of the areas is not the core problem. Socially sustainable residential areas is an important