A large part of the US population has become car dependant the last few decades. Residential areas are planed under the presumption that everyone can drive a car. Parking lots take up unreasonably much of the city centres’ area. A great deal of this is enforced by federal law. The consequences of those laws must have been misjudged when they were passed. I don’t know how it is in Canada or New Zealand. But Australia does not seem to have this as any larger problem. Neither do I think Ireland or Britain has this problem. Of cause single households could still be car dependant. However, it is not such a large part of the population which is.
Here in Europe walkability is the norm. Unfortunately this concept has been misunderstood by car dependant Americans. Walkable areas are misconceived as enforcedly car-free. In the same way neighbourhood units are mistaken as one not being allowed to leave other than as an exception. Such misunderstandings to me appear as severe over-interpretations. I suspect they have been corrupted as consequence of rumouring. Alternatively it is black and white thinking which is applied to local proposals. Someone wants that though traffic should be kept outside residential areas. Black and white thinking corrupts this to not being allowed to drive cars at all. The car dependant then over-interprets that as confinement in the areas. Something I only think fanatics would want to force people into.
The whole thing is reminiscent of the fear of being forced to live in a high-rise. Not for economic reasons but legally enforced. Something which has wrongfully been supposed to make people deeply unhappy. Which has then been over-generalised to apartment buildings in general. The trouble is apartment buildings in fact being commonplace in many different counties. Is everyone living in apartment buildings deeply unhappy just because of this? Single cases claimed to show that have entirely different causes. Like the standard of living having historically decreased in connection with urbanisation.
I admit that suburbia exist her in Sweden too. Many are previous cottage areas which cottages has been rebuilt and extended. However, one can still tell they were originally looking the same. This has its background in earlier applied policy. During the Interwar period cities and towns bought land outside their city limits. The idea was to improve the housing for the low and lower middle classes. Prefab cottages were ordered and sold to such households. They were encouraged to help assembling their cottage in place. Did them this with everything not needing to be done by professionals they were excused from paying their cottage. In contrast they rented the land which their cottages stood on. These leases run on 60 years. After the 60 years had passed the standard of living had risen considerably. The real estates could then be sold to people until then renting them. Today these areas are inhabited by the upper middle class.
It should be pointed out that the cottage areas were not pure residential areas. Shops and some service were found along the main streets. There were schools within the area so the children could walk to them. Cars were still not so common when these cottage areas were built. The idea was that most would get to their jobs by mass transit on rails. Such were extended for this purpose. Many worked in factories which polluted a great deal. Then it was of cause healthy to live at some distance from there.
In 1930 functionalism was launched in Sweden which started to be propagated for. After this suburbs with apartment buildings stated being built. Mostly it was lower houses which did not need a lift. These were placed geometrically to maximise daylight. Their apartments were small but always had a bathroom. Kitchens were oftentimes made tiny so people would not be tempted to sleep in them. (Overcrowding had made it common to have sofa-beds in the kitchens.) Instead the hallway was made bigger so you can eat in it. Alternatively there was a separate dining room. Anyway the kitchens always had water supply and plumbing. Far from all kitchens in Sweden had this.
During WWII came complaints on the suburbs having been built until then. They would not consist any real communities. The solutions for Stockholm become adapting neighbourhood units. They would contain a mix of different types of dwellings. At the same time most of what is needed in everyday life would be available there. It would be possible to walk to everything. In practice most came to work outside the area. Now this was not any bigger problem. Traffic on tracks was extended at the same time as they were built.
Unfortunately the whole thing’s character has been blackened by the later Million Program. In 1965 – 75 dwellings were built containing one millions “rooms” (bedrooms and living rooms). The Swedish government paid and private companies built. To build quicker many houses were made taller. By then architects had started to think like engineers. At least here in Sweden. This combination meant the houses oftentimes becoming disproportional. It did not help that the dwellings could be finished several years before service was in place. Before this program was finished the first oil crisis hit. The rapid growth Sweden has had largely stopped. Work migrants left the country and the demand on dwellings shrunk. The Million Program areas became such ones it was easy to get a dwelling in. This led to a concentration of social problems.
All problem areas are not from the Million Program. But most of them are. What they all have in common is it being easy to acquire a dwelling there. People otherwise not being able to get one will then be concentrated there:
1. Alcoholics and drug addicts which are unable to hold a job. If such individuals have children they can’t take proper care of them.
2. Carrier criminals making a living from drug dealing and fraud. They manipulate 12 to 14-year-olds to hide things and commit murders.
3. Families living far too cramped which drives older children out on the street. There they met people misleading them about their own opportunities.
4. Unintegrated immigrants with the wrong idea of Swedish society. Their faulty ideas bear the mark of myths on human nature.
5. Islamists which harass other Muslims for not appearing “virtuous” enough. The harassing’s idea if “virtue” is based on hierakism.
Problems 4 and 5 have been misunderstood as sharia applying there. People not being Muslims are claimed not to be welcome. In reality the Islamists have not taken over the administration of justice. They don’t even want to take over but promotes self-isolation. Moreover there are problems 1 – 3 in precisely the same areas. I don’t think the Islamists would accept alcohol, recreational drugs or fraud. Or giving others the mission of killing one’s competitors. All these consists problems in the very areas they live.
This type of problem areas are the most talked about. People on the countryside and in small towns may believe all suburbs to be such problem areas. I don’t think they grasp just how big the big cities are. Both Malmö and Gothenburg have hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. Stockholm has more than a million. Does everyone live either in the city centre or in a problem area? No, they don’t since geography does not match demography. In some places the rich has had their own houses built. Then we have the cottage areas, early functionalism, neighbourhood units and the Million Program. Moreover, the building continued at a smaller scale after this. Suburbs built after the Million Program rarely have such social problems. They are simply not so easy to get a dwelling in.
I have myself grown up in a neighbourhood unit. One of the last to be built in fact. It is mixed with apartment buildings, row houses, duplexes and cottages. Day-care and schools are found there as well as a police station. Within it is a mall with service and library. On the opposite side of it a workplace area was planned. The idea was to have workplaces which did not pollute. Something it turned out was ahead of its time. For this reason it took long before much of the working area was built up. Nowadays some of the real estates have been built up with dwellings. Anyway most of the inhabitants have come to work in other places. Most of my schooling was outside the area too. I then got to school by bus or underground.
What was intended as a residential area is a walkable area. The very most of its roads are not intended to be driven on other than as an exception. Streets intended for car traffic are nearly all dead ends. One or two which are not consist long detours. At the same time this area has always been entirely open. One may walk strait out into the adjacent green wedge. In the same way there is nothing stopping from walking into other built-up areas. Or driving there by car for that matter. It is just more practical to walk. Why would other neighbourhood units not function in the same way? To make something possible don’t in and of itself forbid alternatives.
Uploaded on the 24th of September 2026.
Commercial rights reserved by Lena Synnerholm if nothing else is stated.
This site was last changed on the 24th of September 2026.
_July_2020_01.jpg){kind=link}