The leftist coalition that governs the city of Stockholm, Sweden, has declared its ambition to integrate rental units among single-family homes. Samnytt.se reports:
The goal of the governing coalition is to build 3,500 rental apartments and to expand public housing in all parts of the city—especially where there are none today, and where people have paid dearly for their homes.
Quoted by the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter, Ms. Clara Lindblom, a representative for the Left Party, explains that the goal is to “end segregation for real.” While not mentioning immigrants specifically, in Swedish political parlance the term “segregation” is synonymous with socio-economic and geographic differences between ethnic Swedes and immigrants.
Mr. Dennis Wedin, deputy mayor of Stockholm for the center-right Moderates, is opposed to the idea:
They are putting the cart before the horse. It is complicated to build rental units … unless you eliminate recreational areas and sports fields. The apartments that would be built there would come with high leases, and would therefore go to well-to-do Stockholmians.
The ideas for ethnic integration put forth by left-wing city leadership are similar in ambition to those put forward by Mr. Anders Ygeman, social democrat and former minister of integration. On August 1st, Samnytt.se reported that Ygeman wanted government—national or local—to use ethnic criteria for the distribution of homes. The goal would be to even out differences between parts of the city in terms of “unemployment, educational level, and crime.”
Ygeman also suggested a 50% cap on any ethnic group in any urban area.
