Sustainable housing for everyone: A qualitative study of sustainable urban development and housing provision in Malmö

Abstract: This thesis explores how the city of Malmö plans for the housing provision from a sustainability perspective by studying social and environmental sustainability in the urban development process with a focus on housing. The study is a qualitative case study and interviews with employees working in the municipality and a document study have been conducted. The results have been analysed through the theory of need and the concept of sustainability, including the discourses of green growth and degrowth. The study concludes that efforts are being made in relation to social and environmental sustainability, for example, sharing functions and co-housing have been developed in the studied case of Sege Park. However, the municipality does not have the necessary tools to ensure housing for all. Instead, housing is both too expensive and people live too crowded. Concepts to try and build new apartments at a lower cost have been developed, however, it has not been possible to target these apartments to households with lower income. From a degrowth perspective, matching the type of house to household, in terms of size and cost, could be a way to ensure housing for more people but is not something that the municipality can regulate.