ABSTRACT

This chapter assesses the sustainability of housing and communities in Sweden. Sweden has a relatively high GDP per capita, among the five richest of countries examined in this volume, and a long history of being a welfare state with stable political majorities. According to the IMF, the Swedish national economy did not suffer to the same extent as many other EU countries from the global crisis of 2008. This was due to efficient stabilisation measures for regulating banks’ lending plus the acceptance of an occasional modest national budget deficit (IMF, 2011). GDP has been positive since 2010, although annual growth is within the range of 1 to 3 per cent (SCB, 2015a). The total burden of taxation was relatively high at 44 per cent of GDP in 2012, compared with 39 per cent on average for EU28 (Eurostat, 2015a). These taxes support a welfare regime that, although political majorities change, can be characterised as social democratic according to Esping-Andersen’s typology of welfare regimes (Esping-Andersen, 1990). Policies of public support to households in need still hold in periods of liberalconservative government, the latest of which was between 2006 and 2014. Since 2014, the Swedish government has been an alliance of Social Democrats and Greens, ‘the Environment Party’.