The issue of residential segregation has been on the Swedish political agenda since the early 1970s. This paper analyses the background for this interest, presents some basic features of socio-economic and ethnic residential segregation, and discusses some fundamental contextual properties regarding the Swedish welfare state, its institutional set-up and changes in housing and other policies that have affected the conditions for segregation processes. Three more specific anti-segregation policies are also identified and analysed: housing and social mix policy (first initiated in the 1970s); the refugee dispersal policy (initiated in the 1980s); and the area-based urban policy (initiated in the 1990s). Of these three, the last two have a clear ethnic focus while mix policies primarily aim for socio-economic and demographic mix. The analysis shows that none of the policies have managed to affect levels of segregation more than marginally, the reasons being ineffective implementation (the mix policy), failures in the design (the refugee dispersal policy) or conflicting aims inherent in the policy (area-based interventions).
Immigrants' housing position is often explained by (lack of) resources or differences in cultural backgrounds. Recent studies have included the importance of local context. The aim of this paper is to examine Somalis' perceptions of their possibilities in four Nordic capitals' housing markets: Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo and Stockholm. The approach is an interview study based on immigrants' own explanations of what they strive for and how they assess the impact of local conditions and cultural background for their possibilities. We found that local context and cultural background intertwine and sometimes conflict with each other, but that the negotiation between cultural background and local context was individual. The conclusion is that local context and cultural background are important factors for understanding differences between Somalis on different housing markets, thus emphasising that local context and cultural background have to be studied together to understand perceived housing possibilities.
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