Season 3 Episode 5 - SEGREGATION (Part 2)

Last episode, we learned about a few key concepts. The design and planning of the Million Program. The increase of working class immigrants in Swedish cities. And the privatization of public housing. These conditions all woven together created a situation where urban immigrant families were stuck living on Stockholm’s periphery, in housing that was aging and coming apart.

We’re going to pick up where we left off, exploring how buildings became ideas.

Script

[Movie Quote]

[Intro Music]

Jess 0:37

Welcome to Here There Be Dragons. This season, I’m taking you to Stockholm. I’m your host, Jess Myers.

Episode 5: Segregation Part 2

[Music]

JASMINE 0:51 

They said like 50 was a danger zone. But to be on this is not anymore. I feel like it's, it's really welcoming. Everybody knows each other is like a family like one big community. I'm actually really happy how it turned out in the end.

[Music]

Jess 1:22

Last episode we learned about the expansion of Stockholm and the fate of the Millions Program. If you didn’t get to listen to episode four, go catch up. We’ll wait.

[Clips of Episode 4]

All caught up? Great.

We learned about a few key concepts: The design and planning of the Million Program. The increase of working-class immigrants in Swedish cities. And the privatization of public housing. These conditions all woven together to create a situation where urban immigrant families were stuck living on Stockholm’s periphery, in housing that was aging and coming apart.

We’re going to pick up where we left off, exploring what Carlos said at the end of episode 4.

CARLOS 2:09

How a building becomes an idea, right? There was a moment in which specific kinds of buildings were associated with specific kinds of neighborhoods. And those neighborhoods were associated with certain kinds of attitudes or specific groups of people that were living there. And that was associated negatively for society. And that was part of media that was part of general cultural construct.

Jess 2:36

Today we’ll be talking about these neighborhoods, what started as the Millions Program are now what  Stockholmers call Farocten(förorten) or the suburbs. [It's F than O with two dots, and then R, then it's ORT, that's förort. The last part of it is ORT. För means pre, ort means place. So pre-town basically]

This seriously confused me at first. Because unlike the suburbs of New York or the banlieues of Paris, Stockholm’s Farocten are still a part of the city.

But the way residents talk about them, you would never know.

TANVIR 3:10

In Sweden when we say suburbs, we mean these majority immigrant areas right outside of the city, förort. Förort is the actual name, but what people nowadays say who are from these areas, we call it Orten, which means "the place."

Literally, a suburb in Swedish could also be any place that is in the outter-skirts of the city, right? But we, the majority of Sweden, calls these places Förort. That's where I'm from.

[Music]

SAMUEL 3:45

Orten is the suburb, any of the socio-economical suburb where a lot of us are like from different parts of the world. So Orten represents… I would not say, absolutely not ghetto, but like Orten was like the hood. kind of. The hood, almost.

Jess 4:07

Similar to public housing blocks all over the world, the public sentiment about the Millions Program became about more than the buildings themselves. It spilled over on to the housing residents too, until the people and the problem became one and the same.

And that’s how Sweden and its social welfare policies got swept up into debates in the West about who deserves what in a multicultural society. Many right-wing pundits both within Sweden and outside of it criticize Sweden's previous openness to immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.

Do you remember in 2015 when Fox News aired a report on “no-go zones”?

[News Quote] 4:48

Known officially as sensitive urban zones, blighted areas intended to receive economic aid, but known informally as “no-go zones”.

“no-go zones”

“no-go areas”

“no-go zones”

Jess 4:58

It pushed the idea that there were neighborhoods in Europe that non-Muslims dared not go. While Fox ended up retracting these statements because of various lawsuits, [News quote] the idea and the language stuck. I’ve heard it from repeated by many Europeans ever since trying to describe areas with a lot of immigrant families live. Areas like many Millions program neighborhoods.

Here’s Vanessa. She’s a sociologist teaching at Stockholm University

VANESSA 5:32

In the Swedish popular imagination and media were conceived as really separate areas. And if you get a chance to take the subway here, you should go from the Central Station to Husby, just see how long that takes you. It'll take you 20 minutes. But the way that people talk about it is if it's a foreign country.

[News quote]

Jess 5:55

Any crime that happens in these areas is reported on with heightened fervor, [news quote] any group of boys by a train stop becomes a reason for suspicion. These media representations from news to pop music shapes many Stockholmers perceptions of these neighborhoods and makes them somehow separate from and threatening to the mainstream image of Stockholm.

Here’s Nazem, he is a senior lecturer in political science at Malmö University. 

NAZEM 6:27

I think most people, you know, when choosing housing also reflect upon what is my place in the social hierarchy? And where do I want to be and where am I, you know, what kind of choices do I have? Especially if you're an immigrant in Sweden today, you're associated with living in these kind of, you know, large scale housing project areas, which generally in everyday language are not considered as good areas. They're stigmatized.

So, if you say that you live in one of these, you know, outskirt, peripheral areas, people will, perhaps at sentence number four, why do you live here? Despite all this, of course, if you have to choose and you have no choice, you can settle there.

[VOICE OVER MEDLEY IN SWEDISH]

JONATHAN 7:22

You would hear so much about certain suburbs of Stockholm. And those places, like Tensta, Rinkeby, Husby, Alby, Hasselby (sp), places, yeah I wouldn't... I would probably be a little bit scared because they would have like a bad reputation.

[VOICE OVER MEDLEY IN SWEDISH]

ARVID 7:50

Mostly they warned me about violence, violence that you read on the news over there and there's… yeah and all the prejudice that comes from when it's that kind of segregated areas.

And it's the old myths like you shouldn't wear expensive clothes or jewelry or have expensive things because you’ll get robbed and if you go there and they see that don't belong they will immediately suspect you and ask you why you're there.

JONAS 8:24

I was from Spranga and then going to Tensta Rinkeby has a totally different flavor, I felt fairly at home there and being half Swedish half Arabic, I could sort of… I don't know, I felt I could blend in or whatever, but I still looked like a… look like a very ethnically Swedish person and I somehow…

Anyhow I felt safe there, but I guess I didn't feel like a local, I felt like a visitor, and it felt way more unsafe or scary or exciting than my own neighborhood.

SAMANTHA 9:12

And then… I mean there are places you simply don't want to walk around like late at night and it's… um I dont know I've been at Farsta a lot because my boyfriend lived there, and I mean that's a place… I really like Farsta it's a nice area but like late at night I wouldn't really wanna walk around there like alone as a girl.

Jess 9:52

You might notice that for a podcast about fear and insecurity we talk a lot more about housing, assimilation, and city planning than we do about violent crime. While there is crime and gang activity in the Färocten (förorterna), this is not where all crime in the city occurs, as you can probably recall from episode 2, the stories we told about Gamla Stan, an island in the exact center of the city.

[Quote] 10:16 

In the late 80s, early 90s, Gamla Stan was not a place where you would go at night, because there was a lot of Nazis.

Jess 10:23

Insecurity is about far more than just violence. It’s also about the rumors of violence, or difference, or hostility. It’s about the media sources and cultural tropes that trade on those rumors.

These are the influences that inspired the gut-tightening reaction when we find ourselves alone at night surrounded by the unfamiliar, surroundings that we associate with people who are not like us. But when these rumors are the loudest influence, how much of our cities become invisible and inaccessible to us?

Many Stockholmers who live outside of Färocten must contend with this image of otherness in order to cross the city’s mental divide.

MAGNUS 11:13

As being brought up in the suburbs, I usually feel very comfortable, or I actually really like suburbs. So going out to any, almost any suburbs where I don't necessarily feel completely lost, I would feel a certain kind of familiarity or a nice feeling to it.

But then obviously, I think, as Stockholm has became so segregated, I think we see another problem today that you would feel that you don't belong in certain areas, because you're basically white, middle-aged, maybe even a man.

So I could actually feel sometimes a bit uncomfortable in, in this sense, not that people would kind of approach me or harass me in any way, I've to be really honest, I've never experienced that I'm not a scared person. But I might feel that sometimes almost intruding. And that of course not, it's not kind of comfortable.

ANASS 12:21

Would the people in the place accept you? So for example, the areas that I talked about earlier, like the Tensta, Rinkeby, and Husby, it's mostly places where people who came to Sweden from other countries settle down and remain clustered and isolated.

So I can also understand that for someone like me, who came also from another country, but maybe these people would accept me more easily than someone who comes from a rich background of Villa of a Swedish suburb, who has all his family ancestry from there, because the people in these areas of Rinkeby and Tensta, for example, feel that they share more with me in terms of their original cultures, in terms of the way how you are coming to this Swedish society, of the way how you are living here, of the way that you have lived somewhere before and you try to integrate, so you have more subjects to discuss.

I came in in a very, very, let's say, protected environment. I was international students studying at the KTH. So most of the people I knew or not even Swedish, they were international like me. So we had a very, like we were kind of living in a bubble. The only information I got about all these areas, where not to go and etc., was not from people. It was mostly from the media. I'm talking about my first years,

[News quote]

So for example, I was seeing in the news that there were some areas where cars were burned, and it's so dangerous. It's along the blue line, if you know these areas called the Rinkeby and Tensta. So it's mostly exactly what you were you're showing.

And I was not worried when I heard about that. Because firstly, I saw more and more dangerous things in my life. I was living in Morocco and in France. But on the same time, I was thinking I have nothing to do there. And I mean... I should not be worried. And it was just news.

Later on, I had the opportunity to go to that areas a lot. Because first of all, they said they have a lot of shops that sell things from the Middle East. So when I was missing any cookies or anything I wanted to go and buy there. And secondly, because when I was a student, I had a student work that was about helping students in their curriculum.

But then when I went there, yes, my perception was that it's an area where there is marginalization. This is correct. It's an area that was left to itself. This is also correct. People are angry, people are not happy, most of people there are from immigrant background, there is discrimination. If you live there and you're writing your CV, the employer will not hire you just because of that, even if you have the best qualification, all this is correct.

But my perception if you would ask me, like, will you go to the area? Yes, definitely.

Jess 15:22

Ok so we’ve done a lot of talking about Färocten (förorten), let’s do a little more talking to Färocten. Or, to the residents, I mean.

Jess 15:31

Where is Bredäng?

TANVIR 15:32

Bredäng is here. Yeah. And this is also an interesting... this is one of the most interesting divides, because Bredäng is a Millions Program area. You always notice how white people get off here [laughs] and then people of color continue on the line.

TANVIR 15:55

For me, it's I realized when I moved from the city, I just lived, I think, two years in the city to Bredäng, where I live now, I felt at home, like I... you know, like the, the vegetable market on the square, or just seeing people like getting cheap food and food from all over the world, you know, meeting people who speak different languages, you know, that, that makes me feel at home. That's where I'm from.

SAMUEL 16:22

I knew the minute I moved to Hässelby, and then you go to other so-called förortern as well, and you see just people of color, you see more black people, you see the diverse aspect of it, you see the stores that are like, you know, Arabic and sell food from you know, Ethiopia, Somalia,

And wherever you can, those things speak to you that these are where we belong, that we live. You know, you kind of knew these suburbs are go-zones of like, you know, when we want to buy stuff we cannot find in the city, but there may be things from our home countries, you know.

So, you go to Tensta and you buy like, tons of things from like, you know, Kurdistan or whatever, like you just... So it was kind of these elements made these areas, because it was created by people it is created, you know, out of necessity, it is created by, you know, where to find just everything from grocery to... cheap grocery to, like, you know, anything that is connected to our heritage or where we come from, you know.

Our areas are described in the media, like as no-go zones, literally. And there is really like a no-go zone list made by politicians and the police department and we're like... Well, hold on, I literally grew up there. What do you mean by no-go zone? And like, what do you understand about this area? So that verbalization, that need to talk about our areas comes from our... like, you know, our understanding that we are from there. This unspoken, like hood, language existed amongst us.

Jess 18:12

One of the things we did while in Stockholm was loiter around in community centers in the city. I spent a January afternoon in the southern neighborhood of Fittja at Botkyrka Konsthall.

PHILIP 18:24

We are at Botkyrka Konsthall in Fittja. It's the mun-ci-pi-tal...? That's a difficult word that I hate. Anyway, art gallery, art space for the Botkyrka municipital space and it's also partly a library for the community.

Jess 18:44

There I got to hang out with Philip and Jasmine two of the gallery assistants. Heads up the sound is a little bit different here, we’re in the middle of the gallery which is filled with very excited pre-teen girls in a youth program.

Here’s Jasmine, she lives a couple blocks away.

JASMINE 19:02

I wouldn't say there is a place that made me stressed. But I would say there's places that doesn't make me feel like home and places that I feel like I am foreign? or that I am not looking like the people around the area? or not in the same status.

The only place that I like is Fittja, because it's the only like place that I feel like home, because I lived here since I was four. It's the childhood place for me and as a person who have parents from Egypt and live in Sweden and never find the place to be like, Oh, I come from here because when I go to Egypt, it's like, are you Swedish? And I'm on when I'm here, I'm Egyptian.

So it's, it's like the only place I feel. Okay, this is home. I belong here. It's different people here like me that feel the same way that doesn't know where to be fitted.

As a kid, the place that you shouldn't go was the place I live at. You should be home early because this and that, you know, like, and be careful, like stuff like that. So it was little bit wilder in my area before. But now it's better.

Jess 20:29 

What kind of things made it wild?

JASMINE 20:31

Shootings, guys who sell drugs, and standing my entrance at my interest at home, who could stand there and smoke. And it was never like something I was scared of. Because it's always was between the guys, it was never between the people. So that's the only thing.

And when I go home, I always knew that if I needed help, or I needed something, I could ask these guys because they was there. But it wasn't something good, obviously to grow up with. But yeah, I would say that. That was the my environment wasn't safe in Fittja, but then it got safe. But I think it's something that you build up in your head, but nothing happens in real life. But I feel confident here in Fittja because it's home.

Jess 21:32

As Jasmine said, the Färocten is changing and in that way it’s no different from the rest of Stockholm. The city center is getting more and more expensive. The places families used to be able to afford are no longer within reach. So now Stockholmer are looking further and further out to find a place to live.

But what does that mean for the current residents of Farocten? Will their neighborhoods change? And will they be included in those changes? For Nazem, to do right by these residents means going back to the foundational values of the Millions Program.

NAZEM 22:06

The good aspect of it was that, it was an idea of distributive justice. And kind of like, justice applied to housing and living environments, which was like a moral foundation of why we need to do this, like the idea of housing as a right. The idea of, you know, human-well-being based on generous, good sound environments, you know, space lights, infrastructure service, these kind of, you know, amenities, which I think most people would agree that I would like these kind of, you know, things where I live

And it was, you know, targeted to working class and middle class, so people who didn't own too much resources was the target of these housing projects, which was, you know, the good side.

SAMUEL 23:09

But I was gonna mention this orten, the hood, you know, I don't know if you possibly have taken part of the idea of the Millions Program, why the Stockholm you know, the buildings are the way they are built in certain areas, is the beautiful idea from the beginning to give people housing that everybody should have housing, affordable housing, was also like another political climate that is like, Oh, you want to work in the city, you're moving to Stockholm, you should have an affordable house, there should be a communication. So they built, you know, the subway extended it.

So, you know, the segregation of Stockholm and the hoods, the förorterna, was never meant to be segregated in that way, it became that way. And then the white inner cities never ever encounter within the suburb, A) they don't have to, because they never come to the areas, but also like, the narrative around segregation and Stockholm is that it's always people of color, who are expected to do the work of being integrated, when they talk about integration.

And was, it's so fascinating to me, like, there are no more segregated people than white people. To me. I think there are the most agree people are white people. I mean, if you go to these suburbs, I mean, we're the most integrated like, there, it's like this melt pot of beautiful things.

If you go to Tensta or Husby or on the red lines to fit there, fittjaa whatever skärholmen, you get to see a bit of the world you know, people who have moved here and made lives for themselves with each other in these areas and live these lives and then are now called, oh, you guys are segregated for yourself. What is this nonsense about? Stockholm to me is super segregated because white people are segregated, not blacks are in POC people are segregated we are not. As I said previously, I grew up within the whole world.

Jess 25:15

When we talk about segregation it’s important to be clear about who is separated from what.

The residents of the Färocten are separated from the resources of the city center but they were never far from diverse Stockholm experiences. To live in Tensta or Fittja or Skarholmen or Hasselby is to be surrounded by the world. Walking down the subway platform you can hear Farsi, Amharic, Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, French, Somali, Kurdish, or Serbian, all describing lives in Stockholm.

The feeling of exclusion or insularity that have become the cornerstone of the segregation conversation in Stockholm is a two-way street.

Just as city center residents may feel that there is a culture at play in the Färocten that excludes them, Färocten residents find themselves excluded from the center. But for these residents finding the code for access to the center is part of a crucial daily struggle.

We will explore these codes in the next episode on Norms.

Jess 26:23

We are produced with the generous support of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the fine arts and Konstnärsnämnden (The Swedish Arts Committee). Thank you to our senior producer Adélie Pojzman-Pontay and our team of graduate assistants from the architecture department at the Rhode Island School of Design: Bilal Ismail Ahmed, Daniel Choconta Guerrero, Kim Ayala, and Uthman Olowa. Fatou Camara consults for the show. Cory Jacobs does the music. And Adriene Lilly is our sound designer.

If you’re not a Patreon subscriber yet, what are you waiting for? Support your friendly neighborhood urbanism podcast and get beautiful stickers as well as exclusive series of mini-episodes spolighting stories that we can’t fit in the show.

[Quote] 27:09

If you talk about ethnic identity, then you are putting that on somebody. You are talking about racialization, rather than the idea that somehow people can have multiple identities.

Jess 27:18

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Until next time, this has been Here There Be Dragons!

[OUTRO] 28:14

Bridges is always rooted. It grows in the workplace, and in the neighborhood. And it gives to one’s own failures and disappointers. Above all, it’s the expression of ignorance and fear. Ignorance regarding other people’s uniqueness, fear of losing the position. A social privilege, a prior right. Of course, skin color, race, language and birth place have nothing to do with human qualities.