Social Housing in Europe

2007 "Social Housing in Sweden" by Bengt Turner, IBF, pp. 148–164 in Christine Whitehead and Kathleen Scanlon (eds), Social Housing in Europe. London: London School of Economics and Political Science.

Introduction
This booklet aims to give an overview of the social housing sector in Europe. The intention is to identify general patterns and important trajectories, that are likely to impact on future policy. Our goal is not to provide detailed descriptions of the sector in every country, but to understand its key attributes and to clarify major trends. In particular we hope to convey a feel for political and other pressures for change in each country. This book is made up of a comparative analysis of the trends in nine European countries alongside individual reports provided by housing specialists from these countries. The first section by Kathleen Scanlon and Christine Whitehead brings together the main strands from the national reports and aims to provide some comparative insight. The papers about nine European countries and the transition countries follow a similar structure but stylistically are very different reflecting the variations in institutions and priorities in each country and the experts’ differing views.

The focus is mainly on western European countries that have some tradition of governments treating housing as an element of social policy. Hungary and other eastern European countries are briefly included for comparison.