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Keywords

Miljonprogrammet, Post-Industrial Society, Sweden, Deindustrialization, Suburbanization

Abstract

Definitively speaking, suburbanization does not equate to post-industrialism in the same limelight as would urbanization and industrialism. However, anomalous cases, such as the one being discussed in this paper, tangentially interlink on a socioeconomic basis. In 1965, Sweden began construction of the Miljonprogrammet (Million Programme), where over the next ten years, over one million domiciles were built in a suburban setting leading to a mass diaspora of ‘slum living’ Swedish industrial workers. The nation’s renowned welfare state, built on a collaborative system between public and private sectors as well as federal and municipal actors, overlooked housing in its social policy framework for nearly six decades. Consequently, the gargantuan spatial and social ubiquity of the program resulted in cracks in the system’s carapace as these actors became divided on policy. Arguably, these fissures created an outlet for Sweden to ease into a post-industrial society during the financial crises of the 1970s and 1980s; with notable examples including the rise of the working woman, urban renewal projects based in the service sector, and an increase in social conformity. Revisiting the Miljonprogrammet as a physical representation of social change in a deindustrializing West displays the undervalued part suburbanization played in defining this period.

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