Residential segregation is a major challenge facing Swedish cities today, with its consequences putting a significant toll on society as a whole. Gothenburg Municipality has named segregation the municipality ́s biggest challenge and one of the main focuses for the municipality to handle going forward. With this increased focus on segregation in the municipality of Gothenburg, this thesis is set out to study the municipality ́s view and interpretation of residential segregation as a problem and, through that, the municipality’s ambitions and policies to tackle segregation. This has been done through semi-structured interviews with officials within the municipal organisation, spanning multiple departments and document analysis of the main municipal documents laying out Gothenburg municipality ́s work on residential segregation. The results of this thesis show a multi-faceted approach to the municipality ́s ambitions to tackle segregation, with different approaches being favoured among the municipal departments. With the growing concern for the problems with residential segregation, new policies taking a different approach on its view of the foundational problem with segregation.

The aim of this thesis was to study in how far housing mix contributes to social mix in Swedish midsized cities 2017. Social mix is a policy in Sweden argued to reduce socioeconomic residential segregation, by implementing housing mix to achieve heterogenous residential areas. The study was done by measuring the correlation between the share of different income groups and the share of tenure forms and housing sizes. This was measured with multiple linear regression analyses, using data from PLACE-data base compiled by SCB. The models show that tenure form and housing size affect the variation of income groups to similar extent. The results further show that to promote social mix, in the aspect of income groups, it is necessary to implement more rental housing to increase the share of low-income groups in a neighbourhood. Further, it shows that to increase the share of high-income households in a neighbourhood, co-op housing, small and large housing sizes is necessary. Housing mix can be argued to be a valuable strategy to achieve social mix, but not solely, due to moderate statistical results.

我國集合住宅市場常見一個案有數種面積產品混合之現象，在過去研究指出不同面積之產品進行投資組合已成為建商降低風險與穩定報酬的手段，僅在供給面被討論，卻忽略了住宅市場應以『使用』為目的，換言之，產品面積混合(Housing mix)隱含購屋者其生活水平及背景之異質性(Social mix)，將可能造成社區管理維護上之不易，本文試圖延伸過去此現象在需求面及管理維護上探討的不足。在實證方面，採問卷調查台北市建管處公寓大廈管理科所提供之已報備成立管理組織的主任委員2,877份，回收率為11.30%，剔除沒有舉辦活動之社區並符合設定樣本大小與母體可容忍誤差α=10%之要求下，共307筆有效問卷。輔以公寓大廈科報備資料掌握至所有面積及其對應之戶數，建立『面積混合度』之衡量，結合當前國內外住宅混合與住宅隔離議題，透過路徑分析方式衡量面積混合對社區管理維護績效之影響為直接影響或間接影響？釐清混合對管理維護影響過程之因果關係。 研究結果顯示，建商供給者之面積混合策略對於住戶需求者之管理維護績效將是間接負面影響而非傳統迴歸所觀察得到的直接影響，驗證了國外負面外溢效果在國內亦是如此。而主要影響路徑為面積混合愈高則提高了社區衝突，進而對管理維護產生負面影響。其次，過去認為除面積混合之外，新舊社區與大小規模亦會影響管理維護，故進行兩群分析究竟何者影響管理維護較大？實證發現混合社區在經過搬遷磨合期將減緩混合因異質性所造成的不和睦，但混合之負面影響仍大於新舊社區之影響。 / The phenomenon of one construction case with housing mix usually appears in the condominium market. Some studies indicated that the portfolio of housing mix has become a means of reducing risk and having a stable reward for construction companies. However, the discussion was only on supply, and ignored that “use” should be the main purpose in the condominium market. In other words, housing mix implied the social mix of homebuyers’ living standard and background, and it might make the community management and maintenance not easy. The study tries to extend the deficiency in the treatment of the phenomenon on supply or on community management and maintenance. In proof, a questionnaire survey was adopted in the study. There were 2877 pieces of questionnaires released to the chairmen of registered management organizations according to the data from the Apartment and Building Management Division in the Building Administration Office of Taipei City Government. The recovery rate was 11.3%. The communities without holding activities were culled out, and in order to satisfy the requirement of the set sample dimension and the error tolerance of matrix belowα=10%, total valid questionnaires were 307 pieces. The measurement of “housing mix” can be built up by the supplementary information from the Apartment and Building Management Division, which includes all square measure and corresponding houses. Combing the subjects of residential mix and residential separation at home and abroad, housing mix could be measured by path analysis to see whether it has a direct or indirect affect on community management and maintenance to further figure out the casual relationship during the affection process of the housing mix and the community management and maintenance. The study results show that the policy of housing mix from the suppliers, construction companies, has an indirect negative affection on the performance of community management and maintenance for residents, the demanders, instead of having a direct affection observed by traditional regression analysis. The result proves the negative spillover effect no matter at home or abroad. The path of impact is that the higher the housing mix is, the higher the community conflict will be, and the situation will generate negative affection on community management and maintenance. Furthermore, except the housing mix, new and old communities or the sizes of communities were thought to affect community management and operation, and they were usually divided into two groups to analyze which one has greater affection on management and maintenance ? It is found by evidences that the communities with housing mix show less disharmony caused by social mix after the run-in period of movement. However, the negative affection of housing mix is still higher than the one of new and old communities.

This thesis consists of four self-contained essays. Essay 1 (with Olof Åslund and Matz Dahlberg): In this essay we investigate the impact of commuter train access on individual labor market outcomes. Our study considers the exogenous introduction of a commuter train linking locations in the northern part of Uppsala County (Sweden) to the regional employment center, considerably decreasing commuting times by public transit to the center for those living close to the pre-existing railroad. Using difference-in-differences matching techniques on comprehensive individual panel data spanning over a decade, our intention-to-treat estimates show that the reform had mainly no impact on the earnings and employment development among the affected individuals. Essay 2: In this essay I look into the role of public transit for residential sorting by studying how the introduction of a commuter train linking locations in the northern part of Uppsala County (Sweden) to the regional employment center affected migration patterns in the areas served. Using a difference-in-difference(-in-difference) approach and comprehensive individual level data, I find that the commuter train had a positive effect on overall in-migration to the areas served and no effect on the average out-migration rate from these areas. With regards to sorting based on labor market status, I find no evidence of sorting based on employment status but some evidence that the train introduction increased the probability of moving out of the areas served for individuals with high labor incomes relative to the probability for individuals with lower income. Considering sorting along other lines than labor market status, the analysis suggests that people born in non-western countries came to be particularly attracted towards the areas served by the commuter train as compared to other similar areas. Essay 3: In this essay I look into the relation between housing mix and social mix in metropolitan Stockholm (Sweden) over the period 1990-2008. Using entropy measures, I find that although the distribution of tenure types over metropolitan Stockholm became somewhat more even over the studied period, people living in different tenure types still to a large extent tended to live in different parts of the city in 2008. The degree of residential segregation was much lower between different population groups. I further find that the mix of family types, and over time also of birth region groups and income groups, was rather different between different tenure types in the same municipality. The mix of different groups however tended to be similar within different tenure types in the same neighborhood. While the entropy measures provide a purely descriptive picture, the findings thus suggest that tenure type mix could be more useful for creating social mix at the municipal level than for creating social mix at the neighborhood level. Essay 4 (with Matz Dahlberg): The last decade’s immigration to western European countries has resulted in a culturally and religiously more diverse population in these countries. This diversification manifests itself in several ways, where one is through new features in the cityscape. Using a quasi-experimental approach, essay 4 examines how one such new feature, public calls to prayer, affects neighborhood dynamics (house prices and migration). The quasi-experiment is based on an unexpected political process that lead way to the first public call to prayer from a mosque in Sweden combined with rich (daily) information on housing sales. While our results indicate that the public calls to prayer increased house prices closer to the mosque, we find no evidence that the public calls to prayer served as a driver of residential segregation between natives and people born abroad around the mosque in question (no significant effects on migration behavior). Our findings are consistent with a story where some people have a willingness to pay for the possibility to more fully exert their religion which puts an upward pressure on housing in the vicinity of a mosque with public calls to prayer.

I denna uppsats har vi ämnat att öka förståelsen för hur människor påverkar segregationen genom sina egna preferenser. Vi har undersökt hur halmstadsbor resonerar kring segregationen i Halmstad och kring sina egna och andra bostadsområden i staden. Eftersom social blandning är ett ledande begrepp inom svensk stadsplanering har vi även haft som syfte att förstå hur halmstadsbor ser på detta i ett bostadsområde och om det är önskvärt eller inte. För att ta reda på det har vi genom en kombination av enkäter och intervjuer med halmstadinvånare samlat in empiri. Bearbetningen av empirin har utgått från en hermeneutisk metodologi och analysen har genomförts med hjälp av följande sociologiska teorier: Jenkins identitetsteori, Mays teori om tillhörighet, Goffmans stigmatiseringsteori, Wilkinson och Picketts definition av det sociala värderingshotet samt Lidskogs teori om det offentliga rummet och det mångkulturella samhället.Resultaten visar att segregationen i Halmstad till stor del är sammankopplad med strukturella faktorer såsom ekonomi och arbets- och bostadsmarknaden. Samtidigt är det också tydligt att sociala frågor som rör bland annat trygghet och social identitet är avgörande för en individs val av bostadsområde. Även bostadsområdenas rykten och vilken grad av tillhörighet individen har till området är faktorer som väger tungt. Resultatet visar även att en självvald segregation finns i staden, där människor aktivt väljer bostadsområden med likasinnade invånare. Den självvalda segregationen grundar sig i hur olika grupper på olika sätt skapar identiteter och känslor av platstillhörighet och trygghet. Trots att våra intervjupersoner och respondenter såg social blandning som något önskvärt uppmärksammades problem med att implementera det i praktiken av såväl ekonomiska som sociala anledningar. Det handlade bland annat om höga bostadspriser och konflikter mellan och rädsla hos olika sociokulturella grupper. / There is a big gap in knowledge when it comes to how segregation is influenced by people’s own preferences, which is what we aim to shed light on in this study. Since social mix is a leading concept amongst policy makers in Sweden we also wanted to study whether residents of Halmstad want to live in socially diverse neighbourhoods or not.This study investigates how residents of Halmstad reason about the city’s segregation and the city planners’ use of social and housing mix to combat the residential segregation. Through 106 surveys we determined the main themes of segregation and social mix, which we then where able to explore by using 6 interviews with locals. Our empirical findings were analysed with the help of the following sociological theories: Jenkin's identity theory, May’s theory of belonging, Goffman's stigma theory, Wilkinson and Pickett's definition of the social evaluative threats and Lidskog's theory of public space and the multicultural society.Our findings show that the segregation in Halmstad is largely linked to structural factors such as the economy and the labor and housing market. It is however clear that social and cultural issues related to the feeling of safety, rumors, social identity and different senses of belonging are crucial for the choice of one's residential area. Furthermore, it also shows that a self-chosen segregation exists in the city, where people actively choose residential areas where like-minded residents live. The self-chosen segregation is based on how different groups create their identities and a sense of belonging and safety in different ways. Although our interviewees and respondents saw opportunities in social mix they also problematised the implementation of social mix in a neighbourhood. They argued that economical aspects, such as the housing prices, and social aspects, such as conflicts and fear among different socio-cultural groups, hindered the process of creating social mix.