CityLab Daily: Stockholm’s ‘Housing for All’ Is Now Just for the Few
Also today: Improving women’s representation in public art, and the pandemic exodus from big US coastal cities is reversing.
Evening sunlight illuminates residential buildings in Stockholm.
Photographer: Mikael Sjoberg/Bloomberg
Cities across the world are in the midst of a housing crunch, with residents from New York to Dublin struggling to find shelter amid low supply, high demand and soaring inflation. But Sweden, where citizens pay among the highest tax rates in the world, was supposed to be different. Thanks to a postwar system put in place by the social democratic government, anyone in Sweden is entitled to live in a rent-controlled apartment.
But for thousands of young Swedes working in Stockholm, the struggle for housing involves either scrambling for an expensive sublet or commuting into the city from more-affordable suburbs. The average wait time for rent-controlled apartments is now more than nine years; in some desirable areas, prospective tenants might hold out for 20 years. And because there aren’t nearly enough units to meet demand, many people are forced into a subletting market where bribes and sexual harassment aren’t uncommon, Isabella Anderson reports. Today on CityLab: Stockholm’s ‘Housing for All’ Is Now Just for the Few