We Once Had the Answers

Sweden’s social democrats managed to solve a housing crisis and build a million homes in less than a decade. Why, then, is the Miljonprogrammet maligned today?

Residential area in Skärholmen in early August 1968 — Olle Lindeborg / PrB / TT / 190.

In less than a decade, a country with a population of only 8 million constructed a million new homes. It was a remarkable achievement — one in four Swedes still live in houses built in this period. And yet, the “million program” has become a symbol of socialist failure, proof that large-scale political solutions to social problems […]

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