ABSTRACT
The Swedish ‘built environment’ is almost certainly the largest state-controlled, more or less self-contained economic sector in any Western country. This chapter explores how the housing costs and benefits distributed in Sweden and in what ways has the distribution changed in the 40 years since the central government began to enact programmes designed to assist low and moderate income groups. It describes the main participants in the housing sector and the factors which affect the political and operational feasibility of policy programmes. In cross-national perspective one of the notable features of Swedish housing is the more equal distribution of housing opportunity or choice which has come about in recent years. In most countries – as in Sweden in the past – lower income groups are constrained to live as tenants of either private landlords or public authorities in relatively poor, run-down neighbourhoods.
