Subsidized
suburbia
A
shortage of housing and an insufficient amount of new construction
make living increasingly expensive in growing Swedish cities, with
Stockholm as the extreme example. In this text I want to discuss an
unconventional possibility to ease this problem.
The
swedish minister of housing, Stefan Attefall, has during his 8 years
in office initiated no less than 65 different investigations of how
to improve the housing market and the planning system. The number
illustrates the level of urgency that the housing shortage has. It
endangers both the growth of the economy and expose inhabitants to
social stress as renovictions becomes a more common practice for
landlords to earn money. Lots of proposals to solve this problem are
being presented. A common opinion in the debate is that this
situation is caused by rent control and that the only solution to
this problem is to set the market free. It is argued that rent
control offers cheap housing for a lucky few and that everyone else
got their unfair share of an otherwise expensive housing market. Of
course those lucky few won't move from their cheap housing which in
turn makes the market static, with few opportunities to get a
contract.
The
problem, they say, is that a large part of the housing stock is
subsidized by rent control and in turn this makes new construction
less profitable and more risky. This can of course affect the amount
of new construction in a negative way. But if we are to accept
that subsidized housing affects the profitability of new construction
and in a longer perspective causes a lack of housing, maybe we should
look further than the subsidies created by rent control. Also
regulations on form can affect prices and should equally be
considered as a subsidy.
The
diagram to the left shows how land values are distributed in an
monocentric city, with a clear spike in the city center. The diagram
to the right shows how land values can be affected by restrictive
zoning regulations, for example villa-areas on attractive central
land or defined boundaries for city expansion.
Subsidized
and wealthy
An
example when regulations on form can have an unfair impact on housing
prices are centrally located villa areas in the larger Swedish
cities, where zoning codes limits the number of households per plot,
regulates minimal plot sizes and built up density. These restrictions
on form, in the sake of character, means that only a lucky few are
able to compete for this land. It may be an invisible and indirect
subsidy and given that the residents in these areas belong to the
most wealthy and pay ridiculous amounts of money for their houses, it
is not something that is easy to guess. But still they are
subsidized, costing society in form of inefficient use of
infrastructure, increased land prices and segregation.
Just
like rent control, restrictive zoning regulations could be considered
unfair, when a majority of the population thereby are made
unable to compete for this land. This of course has an effect on
prices as it shifts the supply of land that is affordable for
different income groups, reducing the locational choices of the poor
and provide the rich with central land at a subsidized cost. But
as a deregulation of rent control would most likely cause a lot of
undesired social problems, a deregulation of unhealthy zoning
restrictions would be less problematic.
How
to spot the subsidy. Price of villa and price of land on a comparable
location. This is a rather common situation that also goes for
smaller cities than Stockholm. The price of the villa is divided into
value of building and value of plot. Situation modeled after villas
in Fålhagen, Uppsala.
Potential
for new housing
The
interesting aspect of all this amateur theory is: how can this
subsidy be transformed to an advantage when it comes to creating a
more just and affordable city? As we can se in the left
diagram above a simple teardown of the existing building to make room
for a new one would not do any magic to construction costs. But if
the existing villa would be built in to the new rather than being
torn down, a lot of money can be saved. It is like buying a plot and
getting the building for free, a mechanism that would enable
construction of relatively affordable housing in attractive
locations. Due to the high debt levels of swedish households, it is
reasonable to question the sustainability of todays high housing
prices. If we want to build more, in this situation, it definitely
needs to be more affordable and then this is an interesting way to do
so.
 |
Corner plot, Built over, Built over and around, Low and dense, Small addition.
|
As
densification has become a strategy in almost every master plan, the
amount of land to densify is of course a critical aspect. This has to
do with issues of sustainability since neither the economy or the
climate allows much more of the same sprawling development. But
densification also has its drawbacks. When the former industrial
areas have been densified there's no land left to continue this
process. The shortage of attractive land to densify of course brings
land prices up to ridiculous levels. When land becomes scarce
there is a tendency to compromise on public spaces, such as parks.
This doesn't always need to be wrong but it definitely needs a
process based on care and sensitivity. But when the word
densification, for many people, has become a synonym to building in
parks and other public spaces I see a problem.
Densification
of villa areas could be a way to avoid problems related to land
scarcity. It could bring down land prices and give opportunities to
enhance urban qualities. The potential for this differ between
different cities, depending on both the overall land values in the
city and how integrated these villa areas are with regional centers.
In Stockholm for example there's almost no villa areas integrated
with the central city, but the land values are so high that a
transformation of villa areas in more remote locations, such as Bromma, is possible.
 |
Kartor över Stockholm, Malmö, Uppsala och Umeå (olika skala).
Black = existing inner-city. Brown = planned development areas. Dark green = villa with high potential for densification, as described above. Bright green = Villa areas with small potential for densification. Result: Stockholm; High potential. Malmö; High potential. Uppsala; High potential. Umeå; Not that high potential.
|
In
practice
A
relevant argument against this idea is that densification would
destroy the character of the villa areas and it will certainly meet
some implications such as how parking and infrastructure for sewage
could be solved. A way to minimize this problems could perhaps be to
co-develop densification of industrial areas with the nearby villa
areas, which could create possibilities to make good solutions for
infrastructure such as schools, parking spaces, transport and public
spaces.
An
example of such an area is the villa areas in Enskede in southern
Stockholm that is next doors to a big city renewal project called
Söderstaden on former industrial land. This is perhaps the perfect
place for a development of villa areas and could possibly become a
dense urban neighborhood big enough to challenge the hegemony of
todays inner city. As seen on the maps above the size of the villa areas in attractive locations are often bigger than the areas currently planned for development, which proves that this strategy could have a large potential. In Uppsala the size of the villa areas in central locations are twice as big as the areas for urban development in similar locations.
As
the housing shortage is growing more acute, the proposals to solve it
becomes more and more radical. Some of these proposals I find
problematic, such as the idea that market rents will solve
everything. But in this landscape of proposed solutions a
surprisingly few dares to question the existing form and structure of
the city and the problems related to it. I think it is time to
question the idea that we can preserve the existing, even when it
leads to unjust consequences. In this text I have tried to find a
method of how to expose when preservation of urban form becomes
unfair. Putting numbers to the unjust consequences of urban form
could be a strong argument that can inform the way people understand
cities and hopefully add a new dimension to the public debate.
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| Sketches showing architectural possibilities |
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