2008 ANNUAL CONFERENCE
The 38th Annual Conference of the Johns Hopkins International Fellows in Urban Studies was held in Copenhagen, DENMARK and Malmö, SWEDEN.
The Welfare State Meets the Market: Affordable Housing, Social Exclusion, and Regional Planning
Denmark and Sweden are generally considered to be welfare states with a high level of social security. For decades, the ambition has been to assure citizens equal access to medical treatment, education, and social benefits, including affordable housing.
Like most countries over the past decade, housing prices in Denmark and Sweden have risen to levels that are unaffordable to all but the most affluent, and have only recently moderated. At the same time, immigration, social problems, and the political and economic situation in Scandinavia and elsewhere have created segregation of the population and even poverty among the socially stigmatized. Social differences influence economic opportunities, and thereby the housing market and residential patterns. The result is that the population groups facing the greatest challenges are concentrated in neighborhoods with only modest networks for education, jobs and social relations.
In Denmark and Sweden, housing subsidies, particularly for housing production, have been curtailed because of national budget shortfalls, tax reforms, the rising costs of construction, and fundamental renegotiation of the social compact. These same forces are at work in other democracies old and new.
At the Fellows conference June 7-11, 2008, we will use the experiences of Denmark and Sweden to explore the challenges that all cities face in assuring the basic necessities of life for all their citizens. The conference sessions will provide an opportunity to:
- Learn about how the welfare systems, in general, and the housing systems, in particular, have worked historically; what precipitated the movement away from deep commitments to social welfare of all citizens in favor of market principles; and the structure of the welfare--and housing--systems today in Denmark and Sweden.
- Share the similarities and differences in the Danish, Swedish, other European countries’ and United States’ housing markets and approaches to housing affordability.
- Discuss the impact on housing markets and affordability of regional growth patterns – with special attention to the emergence of the Orestadsregion in the wake of the construction of the bridge between Malmö and Copenhagen.
- Explore the complementary efforts to improve the economic situation of low-income families through education, job training, and related asset-building efforts.
- Make recommendations about what else could be done.
Click here for the conference schedule
Click here for registration form and accommodation information
