Housing mix for socially mixed neighbourhoods : A study of socioeconomic residential segregation in Swedish midsized cities

Abstract: 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.