Segregation and Governance – Transboundary Planning Initiatives in Swedish Outskirts

The growing social polarisation in Swedish society has increased the differences between pour
and rich districts in the larger cities. The situation is worst in the housing areas built in the 1960s.
But although Swedish urban policy has aimed for several decades at controlling segregation
through extraordinary efforts in vulnerable housing areas, there is nothing to indicate that the processes
of segregation have been restrained.
In this article the question is raised as to whether district-based efforts to combat segregation have
outlived themselves in the late modern society. Now might be the time to move along to a strategy
where the focus shifts from the individual district to the relationship between different districts.
During the 1990s new growth centres have been established in the urban peripheries. In many
cases these are situated in the immediate geographical proximity of the housing areas of the
1960s. The co-localisation of the housing areas of the 1960s and the business districts of the
1990s might open up new possibilities for promoting a spatial integration between different
population groups and classes. Below, I take my point of departure from two case studies in the
Stockholm region and, against this background, discuss what kinds of physical, social and cultural
obstacles are counteracting increased integration as well as what kinds of planning initiatives have
been taken to overcome these obstacles.