# Modern urban planning in Sweden? (Scandinavia? Europe?)



## KeanoManu (Mar 1, 2012)

*Introduction and the Million Programme*​
Whenever I read about new projects in Sweden I get excited about those that are in the end rejected and feel "What the F... are they doing?!" about those that get approved.

When I drive through my hometown, and in general most of metropolitan Stockholm, I can't stop thinking: "How boring isn't this?".

Here in Sweden we have a really failed project from the 1960's called 'Miljonprogrammet' (Million programme) which aimed to mass produce one million apartments or houses in just ten years (which is rather extreme for a country with, at the time, about 8 million inhabitants). It ended up with huge apartment complexes in suburban areas which today are in really bad shape and crime are usually high in many of those areas. Yet, most new development doesn't seem to learn from that history. The only thing different from that time is that the largest apartment buildings do not get build anymore. We rarely see new development with more than 8-10 stories. I think it's mostly good that residential buildings are getting lower but it's sad that commercial buildings aren't getting higher.



*Lifeless Urban Planning*​
I've noted and really dislike the fact that we do not build cities anymore. Nor do we build suburbia. All we build are apartment blocks, and not like we used to in wall-to-wall fashion but just dull apartment blocks surrounded by nothing. Sometimes there's no stores or other facilities on the ground story. In general we need more LIFE in the cities. Maybe not the type of chaotic life which can be found in cities from Africa or Asia but we should try to take the life we have in the very central parts of our old large cities and copy it over to new development in smaller cities and suburbs.

Most of these apartment buildings are built spaced far apart from eachother. It's like they think that leaving plenty of undeveloped land in between every house will make it feel like the houses are in a park or something. I don't have any problem with parks or green areas but a park is not just when you leave some areas completely undeveloped. A park has to be taken care of, a park got to have life in it! Just like city blocks!

It seems like we're somewhere between Soviet Commie infrastructure, American Suburbia and the good old European cities. We take the worst from all three and combining it. The lifelessness from Soviet. The huge distance between areas which disencourage walking, but yet we keep the small streets and lack of parking options that are usual the case with old European cities.



*Mixed low/medium density*​
Another thing: Why do we mix single-family houses with apartments?
That seem to be an epidemic not only in smaller towns but also in larger. Solna, which is not officially part of Stockholm City but which in reality more or less is, do suffer from this and it is supposed to be "the city".
There's nothing wrong with single-family homes. I love the American suburbia but it should be just suburban and not part of the central parts of our towns and cities. It's really ugly with single-family homes next to a five story apartment.

When there is real suburban/low-density areas here there's usually really small and narrow streets and it's common for them to be in small clusters with a bunch of streets and then some undeveloped area until next cluster of homes. Still within the same city though.

I thought the areas built in the 1980s were too small and narrow but then I saw some areas built during the last 5 years. You can't even meet another car on those streets! It's almost like you can't pass a walking person on those streets without driving in on the grass. How are they thinking?



*Malmö*​There's some good areas being built though. Unfortunately there's usually very small areas when we do build something with city-feeling. Malmö has some new interesting development with redeveloped industrial zones in the harbour. There's a thread in the Cityscapes and Skylines forum with pictures of those areas (Link here). Those pictures do lie a little bit though. It's just a few quarters, a really small area, from where almost all of those pictures are taken at. This is not really what people in Sweden think about when they think about Malmö. If you would ask most Swedes about what they think when they hear the word Malmö i'm pretty sure most would mention crime, crime and crime. Now we're back at the million programme and the worthless urban planning in Swedish cities. Most of that crime is in the semi-suburbs where apartment complexes are standing in line on open grassy areas. Mass produced with no city-feeling.

The new areas in Malmö look astonishing, and the architecture is much better than the usual dull grey or brick boxes we have too much of in Sweden. But we need more areas like that! There's some small new areas in Stockholm on the rise too, but it's still just a few percent of all new development.



*Sweden? Scandinavia? Europe?*​Is this just the case for Sweden or is it a trend going on in much of Europe? Whose stupid idea is it to build our cities like this? 
I have a feeling this is more or less something that has happened in all of Western Europe over the last 50 years. When you hear on the news of violence in France you can once again see all those huge apartment buildings with nothing around them. What about shrinking the individual size of the buildings and instead build more buildings with something interesting in and around these areas?
I've seen examples of this from the Netherlands too. Huge apartment blocks surrounded by nothing.



*Why?*​
So, what has happened to urban planning in Sweden, and maybe all of Europe?

Why do we build so boring nowadays? 

What's the reason behind all these apartment blocks spaced far apart from each other with no city-feeling at all?

Why do we have so many low density areas in central parts of our towns? 

Could the reason be that it's harder today to simply demolish and build new?

Where's the good old city blocks? Why do we not build like that anymore?

Or am I completely wrong with all of this?


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## NordikNerd (Feb 5, 2011)

For Linköping,Sweden I can say:

New houses are built on old regiments and parking lots. Large scale residential areas with block of flats are not planned for the future.

Most new areas are cottages and 2 or 3 storeys apartment buildings.

The problem is that swedish cities have to much urban sprawl which results in long distances, poor public transport and people who commute with their car.

Some swedish cities have more sprawl than others. Linköping is for example more scattered than Norrköping & Malmö.

Recently some downtown construction has densified the inner city of Linköping though.

As far as I have read the worlds most sprawled city is Detroit, USA and the most dense one St Petersburg,Russia.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

#1. As far as urban planning goes, Sweden simply overplans. Sprawl isn't particularly worse than other places - in fact the apartments in parks clustered around public transport are not particularly transport unfriendly at all - hence why the modal split in Stockholm in particular is much better than most cities in the world of a similar size. Smaller cities always have worse public transport as it is less economical to run at high frequency and so this discourages use. Sweden is made up mostly of very small cities, but they still have decent public transport compared to other similar European (and certainly cities elsewhere) cities of a similar size. 

#2. I would agree with you about the million programme suburbs, they're uninspiring and boring but they were borne out of necessity. When you have a housing shortage, you fill the gap however you can. 

#3. Variation between apartments and small houses is better than having a mono-culture so to speak. Personally I'd rather not have houses at all, but of course we need them in the mix. 

#4. Small roads are to slow cars down and discourage their use - a good thing. In the new world (NZ, Australia, Canada, US) the roads are massive and discourage pedestrian crossing and encourages speeding so I can definitely understand doing that. 

#5. New construction in Stockholm is better and we are seeing more closed block formations or semi-closed blocks which is much better - take a look at western Kungsholmen or Hammarby Sjostad in particular.


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## KeanoManu (Mar 1, 2012)

Svartmetall said:


> #1. As far as urban planning goes, Sweden simply overplans. Sprawl isn't particularly worse than other places - in fact the apartments in parks clustered around public transport are not particularly transport unfriendly at all - hence why the modal split in Stockholm in particular is much better than most cities in the world of a similar size. Smaller cities always have worse public transport as it is less economical to run at high frequency and so this discourages use. Sweden is made up mostly of very small cities, but they still have decent public transport compared to other similar European (and certainly cities elsewhere) cities of a similar size.


Yes, public transport here is well developed and when traveling from the suburbs into the city there's great connections. However internally in a suburb or small town it's usually much easier to take the car because the distances are unnecessary large.



Svartmetall said:


> #2. I would agree with you about the million programme suburbs, they're uninspiring and boring but they were borne out of necessity. When you have a housing shortage, you fill the gap however you can.


Of course. Problem is that the urban planners still seem to build like they did with the million programme. Everyone (more or less) agrees that the million programme didn't work out as planned and has caused some severe problems in the suburbs yet we still build most new development as "boxes-in-a-park" which causes lifeless and boring 'cities'.



Svartmetall said:


> #3. Variation between apartments and small houses is better than having a mono-culture so to speak. Personally I'd rather not have houses at all, but of course we need them in the mix.


Houses should only be in the outskirts of the cities. Never close to the centers. Variation in the city as a whole is great but not when they are too close to eachother.



Svartmetall said:


> #4. Small roads are to slow cars down and discourage their use - a good thing. In the new world (NZ, Australia, Canada, US) the roads are massive and discourage pedestrian crossing and encourages speeding so I can definitely understand doing that.


Yeah, but it's getting ridiculous how small the streets are being built. Most people do follow the speed limit in small residential areas already from my experience. I feel it's even more dangerous when everything are so narrow. If we had more space we would be able to separate pedestrians from car traffic.



Svartmetall said:


> #5. New construction in Stockholm is better and we are seeing more closed block formations or semi-closed blocks which is much better - take a look at western Kungsholmen or Hammarby Sjostad in particular.


Those are nice areas, yes. But those are also in the very center of the Stockholm. If you look at the suburbs it's still not better.

Sollentuna has built some city blocks recently but it's just a very small part of the town and they still suffer from single-family homes in the most central parts of the town. They should demolish all of them and build city blocks.


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## Arrernte (Mar 29, 2013)

I agree with KeanoManu on this one. In many ways, you have put my thoughts over the years into words in this thread, so thank you. Overall we fail miserably in urban planning in Sweden. 

For one, buildning narrow roads do nothing for the traffic safety, it just keep making it harder for more people and vehicles to be on the road at the same time. Riding a bus in rush hour have become a big tetris game in swedish cities. Vehicles have to move here and there, swerve back and forth and so on. You can't even fit one bus and one car next to eachother in some streets. On top of this they build obsticles in the middle of the streets and on the sides. It makes me wonder what is wrong with good old wide, plain and simple streets where everything flows much better.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

KeanoManu said:


> Yes, public transport here is well developed and when traveling from the suburbs into the city there's great connections. However internally in a suburb or small town it's usually much easier to take the car because the distances are unnecessary large.


Not really - distances are often cut down by bike paths and dedicated pedestrian paths that cut through the suburb rather than car routes which are far further distance - at least in the more modernist-styled or even newer villa constructions (see out at Viksjö). Rather than rely upon public transport, bike or walk (like 20% of the population of Stockholm for example). 



KeanoManu said:


> Of course. Problem is that the urban planners still seem to build like they did with the million programme. Everyone (more or less) agrees that the million programme didn't work out as planned and has caused some severe problems in the suburbs yet we still build most new development as "boxes-in-a-park" which causes lifeless and boring 'cities'.


Well, suburbs everywhere in the world are dull, boring and "lifeless". If one views sprawl in Toulouse or sprawl in LA, or sprawl in every UK city, or sprawl in Kuala Lumpur they all bear the same hallmarks - low density, few amenities concentrated at central locations a long distance away from many homes etc. What the apartments in a park tend to have is a centrum within walking distance which does make things a little better, but it doesn't give a very urban atmosphere at all, and I agree, it isn't an ideal model either. The thing is, people move here because they want the quiet of a suburb rather than the urbanity of a city, and that is why they can be quite popular.



KeanoManu said:


> Houses should only be in the outskirts of the cities. Never close to the centers. Variation in the city as a whole is great but not when they are too close to eachother.


You ever been to Tokyo? Single family houses are everywhere even within the special wards, but they still manage amazing density, amazing public transport and fantastic urbanity and services around every corner. The majority of housing stock in Tokyo is, in fact, single family units. It's not the type of property being built, it is how they are being built that is the problem. 



KeanoManu said:


> Yeah, but it's getting ridiculous how small the streets are being built. Most people do follow the speed limit in small residential areas already from my experience. I feel it's even more dangerous when everything are so narrow. If we had more space we would be able to separate pedestrians from car traffic.


Again, look to Japan. Narrow roads are the norm there on every side street with large avenues or elevated expressways elsewhere. The link I showed you is a very normal cross-section of a non-main road. They prefer building that way, and actually, I don't see why separation is necessary. Shared spaces make drivers look more, be more concerned about pedestrians and more wary. It adds to safety and this has been shown in a number of publications from case studies around the world. Sweden has the safest roads in the world, and Japan, too, shows that they have incredibly safe roads with low pedestrian death rates. This shows that this kind of building



KeanoManu said:


> Those are nice areas, yes. But those are also in the very center of the Stockholm. If you look at the suburbs it's still not better.
> 
> Sollentuna has built some city blocks recently but it's just a very small part of the town and they still suffer from single-family homes in the most central parts of the town. They should demolish all of them and build city blocks.


Yes it is, as you mention, Sollentuna. The new developments in Fruängen are more city block in nature, though not 100%. They do have street frontage, though. The developments at Ulriksdal as part of Järvastaden have street frontage and are built in blocks (for the apartments) or at least closely spaced (for the houses) with a number of townhouse/terraced houses in the mix. Areas such as Järla which have more limited rail transport show massive changes in the makeup of their urban form too. Annedal is primarily closed blocks and far more "urban" despite being in the deep suburbs. This is a massive development too. 

There are signs of change in the thinking and there is an awful lot of infill development around current train stations or tunnelbana stations too. Look at how Högdalen is changing now around the centre. The villastad areas around Enskede are adding apartments and density to maximise the usefulness of the tunnelbana. 

In short, I would not focus on the mistakes of the past, but the new developments.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

Something I don't get is why some people see "boredom" as the horror, the worst possible thing a place can be. Maybe for the 18-30 age cohort, but even so there are much more important issues to care about: public safety, quality of the construction of buildings themselves, amenities on residences, travel time to other destinations, quality of school children there can attend, absence of problamatic individuals, absence of graffiti/trash/grit etc.

Some people, however, consider "boredom" as the worst possible thing an area can be. Looks a very shallow argument, since boredom is a characteristic of people's lives, not of the lifeless infrastructure that permeates the place they live on.


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## KeanoManu (Mar 1, 2012)

Svartmetall said:


> Well, suburbs everywhere in the world are dull, boring and "lifeless". If one views sprawl in Toulouse or sprawl in LA, or sprawl in every UK city, or sprawl in Kuala Lumpur they all bear the same hallmarks - low density, few amenities concentrated at central locations a long distance away from many homes etc. What the apartments in a park tend to have is a centrum within walking distance which does make things a little better, but it doesn't give a very urban atmosphere at all, and I agree, it isn't an ideal model either. The thing is, people move here because they want the quiet of a suburb rather than the urbanity of a city, and that is why they can be quite popular.


They're also cheap. Compared to the city or the villas.




Svartmetall said:


> You ever been to Tokyo? Single family houses are everywhere even within the special wards, but they still manage amazing density, amazing public transport and fantastic urbanity and services around every corner. The majority of housing stock in Tokyo is, in fact, single family units. It's not the type of property being built, it is how they are being built that is the problem.
> 
> Again, look to Japan. Narrow roads are the norm there on every side street with large avenues or elevated expressways elsewhere. The link I showed you is a very normal cross-section of a non-main road. They prefer building that way, and actually, I don't see why separation is necessary. Shared spaces make drivers look more, be more concerned about pedestrians and more wary. It adds to safety and this has been shown in a number of publications from case studies around the world. Sweden has the safest roads in the world, and Japan, too, shows that they have incredibly safe roads with low pedestrian death rates. This shows that this kind of building


No, i've never been to Japan. Would love to go someday though.

Those roads are more like alleys. In Sweden we build small and narrow roads even when the road are not an alley. That neighborhood in Järva you linked are one example. You can't have an encounter with another car one those streets and the cars parked on the side makes it even more narrow.

With wide pedestrian sidewalks and wide roadways you don't need to share space. Best solution for everyone.

I do however like the way those single-family houses looked. You can't compare that to Sweden though. Those houses didn't have any backyards which is what makes it feel urban. Here in Sweden all houses, even those in central areas, have large backyards and there's always some green space in between the houses. Take a look again at Solna for example.




Svartmetall said:


> Yes it is, as you mention, Sollentuna. The new developments in Fruängen are more city block in nature, though not 100%. They do have street frontage, though. The developments at Ulriksdal as part of Järvastaden have street frontage and are built in blocks (for the apartments) or at least closely spaced (for the houses) with a number of townhouse/terraced houses in the mix. Areas such as Järla which have more limited rail transport show massive changes in the makeup of their urban form too. Annedal is primarily closed blocks and far more "urban" despite being in the deep suburbs. This is a massive development too.
> 
> There are signs of change in the thinking and there is an awful lot of infill development around current train stations or tunnelbana stations too. Look at how Högdalen is changing now around the centre. The villastad areas around Enskede are adding apartments and density to maximise the usefulness of the tunnelbana.
> 
> In short, I would not focus on the mistakes of the past, but the new developments.


It's better than the apartments in a park but... Where's the stores or restaurants or amenities at ground level?!

By just making the road a little wider so that you can encounter other cars without problems and some store on ground level we could add so much more life to those sleepy neighborhoods.




Suburbanist said:


> Something I don't get is why some people see "boredom" as the horror, the worst possible thing a place can be. Maybe for the 18-30 age cohort, but even so there are much more important issues to care about: public safety, quality of the construction of buildings themselves, amenities on residences, travel time to other destinations, quality of school children there can attend, absence of problamatic individuals, absence of graffiti/trash/grit etc.
> 
> Some people, however, consider "boredom" as the worst possible thing an area can be. Looks a very shallow argument, since boredom is a characteristic of people's lives, not of the lifeless infrastructure that permeates the place they live on.



Quality of school children can attend too, absence of problematic individuals, quality of school children can attend and absence of grafitti/trash/grit are issues associated with the already mentioned Million Programme and that's exactly what this thread is about. Why they continue to build the cities like they built the million programme. They just scaled down it a little bit but the layout is still the same.

Quality of the construction of buildings themselves and is not really an issue here.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

KeanoManu said:


> No, i've never been to Japan. Would love to go someday though.
> 
> Those roads are more like alleys. In Sweden we build small and narrow roads even when the road are not an alley. That neighborhood in Järva you linked are one example. You can't have an encounter with another car one those streets and the cars parked on the side makes it even more narrow.
> 
> With wide pedestrian sidewalks and wide roadways you don't need to share space. Best solution for everyone.


They aren't alleyways, they are standard roads in Japan and they are everywhere. What Japan has are roads like these, avenues which are as you describe (wide pedestrian areas, lots of lanes) and expressways that are often elevated or tunnelled in the city area. Järva isn't meant to be used as a thoroughfare so it has narrow roads - much the same way as those roads in Japan, so the example is still applicable. 



KeanoManu said:


> I do however like the way those single-family houses looked. You can't compare that to Sweden though. Those houses didn't have any backyards which is what makes it feel urban. Here in Sweden all houses, even those in central areas, have large backyards and there's always some green space in between the houses. Take a look again at Solna for example.


They are nice aren't they? That's why I said to you that it's not the style of building, but how they're being built that matters. I agree those villas in Solna are incredibly wasteful and, ideally should not have been built. But that is an old established area of the city, not a new build so it makes it very difficult to demolish and reset. 



KeanoManu said:


> It's better than the apartments in a park but... Where's the stores or restaurants or amenities at ground level?!
> 
> By just making the road a little wider so that you can encounter other cars without problems and some store on ground level we could add so much more life to those sleepy neighborhoods.


Encountering cars doesn't make it less "sleepy". In fact living near main roads is a detraction for many. I agree they need more shops and amenities, but if you've visited that area you'd know there are actually quite a few nearby. Same with Fruängen and all the other areas I mentioned - there are lots of shops and services within walking distance of the new developments as well as high quality public transport. I think having more family-friendly outlook with courtyards, narrow walkways but still dense living is far more preferable than cars and being on a busy road. 



KeanoManu said:


> Quality of school children can attend too, absence of problematic individuals, quality of school children can attend and absence of grafitti/trash/grit are issues associated with the already mentioned Million Programme and that's exactly what this thread is about. Why they continue to build the cities like they built the million programme. They just scaled down it a little bit but the layout is still the same.
> 
> Quality of the construction of buildings themselves and is not really an issue here.


The biggest problem with the million programme areas is the kind of neighbourhoods they became due to their cost-effectiveness (IE, they're very cheap to buy in or rent in). In some cases they have become ethnic ghettoes and so they have been stigmatised and therefore bred those negative characteristics you name. It's very hard to separate the building of these neighbourhoods from the people that live there - is it the buildings or the inhabitants that is the problem?

The layout has very much changed from the million programme and Le Corbusier inspired layouts though. I cannot see any recent development in Stockholm that mirrors that kind of area.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

^^ Bad demographics will tarnish any area. Before the era of commieblocks, Victorian tenements were maligned much because they were places where lower class families were poorly (ware)housed and became aesthetically associated with disease, drunkness, social disruptive behavior, unhealthy environment etc. That was the prevailing perception of many of these neighborhoods on both sides of the Atlantic, which also made them easy targets for mass demolitions after World War 2.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the concept of "tower in the park", as long as the buildings have good demographic profiles.


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## Dahlis (Aug 29, 2008)

Suburbanist said:


> ^^ Bad demographics will tarnish any area. Before the era of commieblocks, Victorian tenements were maligned much because they were places where lower class families were poorly (ware)housed and became aesthetically associated with disease, drunkness, social disruptive behavior, unhealthy environment etc. That was the prevailing perception of many of these neighborhoods on both sides of the Atlantic, which also made them easy targets for mass demolitions after World War 2.
> 
> There is nothing inherently wrong with the concept of "tower in the park", as long as the buildings have good demographic profiles.


What you need is a mix, both ordinary buildings with rental flats, co op flats, ownership flats and single family town houses all in the same area.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

Dahlis said:


> What you need is a mix, both ordinary buildings with rental flats, co op flats, ownership flats and single family town houses all in the same area.


You are mixing 3 independent things:

- the occupancy form (rental, ownership, co-op membership, social housing allocation) 
- building tipology
- distribution on a given area


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## Dahlis (Aug 29, 2008)

Suburbanist said:


> You are mixing 3 independent things:
> 
> - the occupancy form (rental, ownership, co-op membership, social housing allocation)
> - building tipology
> - distribution on a given area


And all this has to be mixed within a certain area. As well as offices, shops and light industry.


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## Milan_City_Life (Aug 14, 2015)

test post please ignore


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