Some views on land ownership in urban planning and housing production in Sweden

Urbanisation is a functional change in land utilisation which requires a high degree of coordination in time and space. Swedish society has not considered it possible to entrust this coordination to the free market forces. A number of measures was introduced during the latter part of the sixties with a view to coordinating housing development by means of local authority-land ownership and preventing land speculation. In a recently published report of a Government Commission it is proposed that dwellings receiving Government housing loans (more than 90 % of building construction) shall only be built on land which is owned by the local authorities. The local authorities may then be assumed to be the only purchasers of land for housing development purposes. Their housing policy can be given a more short-term character and can be better adapted to urban planning. Urban development in Sweden during recent decades is characterised by a struggle between the two groups of our mixed-economy society, i. e., a social democratic government, and capitalistic enterprise. As far as the private individual is concerned, both parties are remote decision makers. The important question is whether an improvement in town environment may be expected before the private individual has been given a chance to influence planning. The relationship between housing development and land ownership in some Swedish towns over the period 1950–1970 is presented as an example of the realization of land policy.