I'm not sure. We did something similar called the Million Programme. It was when we between 1965 and 1975 built a lot of apartments. One figure is 1,00600 units. One third high rises, one third low apartment complexes and one third small houses.
Yes it solved that acute housing crisis but it also created problems further ahead. Some places got a bad reputation and would not exactly become slums but certainly places with lower standards than most other areas.
Another problem is that they all needs to be renovated at about the same time. Now we've become dependent on them and they're falling apart and needs a huge amount of money to make them decent again.

I don't think I nor our politicians wants to do something like that again.

The solution as I see it is building new cheap, small apartments and houses. Then we'll hopefully get people to move again. People that want a new shiny housing can move to it and our newcomers here in sweden can move into the still decent housing the others moved out off.
Also it would be worth it I think to start renovating our Million Programme housings. It'll be cheaper than building all new.

Here's a link about our Million Programme.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_Programme

Edit: Missed one question.
We have what's called Social Assistance in Sweden. That's a allowance designed to keep you with a roof over your head and food. Basically that's it. The immigrants can live on that until they get a job. Believe me you won't be fat on it so the incentive to get a job will be great. Unfortunately that doesn't mean there will be available jobs but if swedes have to live on it if they have no other alternative so can they.

I agree a lot of pushback against immigration is due to economic reasons, cost of housing can very well be one such reason and important in Sweden. It's overall a position I have limited sympathy for to be honest... I find most such forms of protectionism are counterproductive.

Let me ask why do the developers refuse to build everywhere they can? Why is no one aiming at the cheap segments? You say there is under-served demand, people are buying expensive because there is nothing else... Are all developers that stupid? Especially if low cost housing was demolished making it even more desirable? The greedy ones should be building cheap!

Something is clearly amiss. Maybe building codes, making cheap housing not so cheap to build. Or artificial rent controls, making cheap housing a net loss. I find it deeply frustrating that in this type of situations there is an assumption of malice (the greed accusation) instead of an effort to actually look under the surface. I expect if you ask developers why they build only expensive stuff you'll get enough honesty that if you are not close minded you will find some hidden truths.

Otherwise, prepare a business case for me and I'll fund your becoming a developer in exchange for half of profits and we will both make a killing serving the niche of low cost housing you have identified. :) I expect if you try this you will soon find out how limiting the legal and political context really is.

PS: Read your next post. In effect this phased approach you suggest as alternative to large politically driven construction is what you have. Family A buys a villa by the sea. Family A sells the city flat they were living on up to now. Family B moves into said city flat, leaving their suburb condo. Etc... etc... the actual problem, as you've alluded to is too little supply of cheap housing. And to me the reason for that is not greed, it's that building cheap is stupid given the constraints I can imagine. The big one is rent control of course... getting rid of it would be a shock no doubt, but much better than the mess you have now.

As I said it's not that simple. Our politicians have discussed it and other people in the know too. No one seems to know really why and what the solutions are. This have lead to a polarized ideology debate. As you know I lean towards the left so naturally I believe what they are saying here.

Oh they do say things like making it easier to get permits to build and letting prices free but most times it feels like they say that because it might help a little and they need to say something. It's a strange debate.

Something I haven't mentioned here is that our construction industry might be the most corrupt part of our society. Almost every time there's a scandal about bribes in our municipalities the construction business is involved somehow. Cartel problems too. Granted it's mostly when new roads or hospitals are getting built but it do seems to be a widespread problem here in Sweden. I wouldn't dismiss this entirely.
There are some awfully dominant old construction companies here that are very good at bullying.
I wouldn't be surprised if this gets resolved and it turns out it's a unholy alliance of municipality and big construction companies. With a very unhealthy culture between them that's the under laying problem.

That's not actually surprising. Organized crime usually launders money in these kind of industries even. There is also an element of lack of qualified labour at play which also ties into the whole immigration pros and cons debate.

To me all the corruption is more reason to thrown the windows open and let the light shine in so to speak. But that's my laissez-faire preferences speaking :)

Also, I do not deny there would be price shocks from deregulating the market. A lot of folks on the left like to pretend or believe that folks like me are happy about suffering, when actually I certainly believe less welfare leads to less overall suffering.

I am very ok with phased approaches to deregulation as compromise so vulnerable people adjust better, as long the final objective is agreed that is. Which it usually is not. ;) And I actually believe a sudden shock can be the best option even for the more vulnerable folks.

But it's a difficult balance.

Yup, that's what I meant by "social welfare" (not to be mistaken with "unemployment benefits") and it's pretty common in Europe (I was "assisted" too).

Americans must think we're crazy when they read this :o)

We have something called The Openness Principle.
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offentlighetsprincipen
It's a rule that simplified says that information about decisions and the material they're built upon is open to the public. That's probably the biggest reason there is so little corruption here in Sweden. But it certainly isn't foolproof.

I don't want to get into a left or right argument here so I'll just say my broad view on the subject now that you brought it up.

Yes I believe you're truthful when you say you believe right wing politics will make it better for everyone. I do not believe it when politicians say it though. Experience tells me that every time the right wing are in control the weak and poor get it worse while the strong and wealthy get it better. No exception. It's a power shift to a few in a society.

Actually this politics is one reason why people get angry at immigrants. Many gets it worse because of rapidly increasing income inequality. We in Sweden have the biggest growing one in the western world I think. They need someone to blame. Ergo immigrants are taking our housing and jobs. Therefore they vote on extreme right wing parties. It's a vicious cycle and I do believe only lots of proper impartial information AND different solutions to chose from can solve that.
Yeah people not from Europe tend to mix those up. :)

At least the number of migrants now will drop down soon since Macedon (thanks to Hungary, Poland and others providing material for permanent border fences) closed their border to Greece. Serbia supposedly is now doing the same thing on the border to Macedon.

Fun fact: I had a Macedonian friend who offered me a stiletto switchblade for my 13th birthday. That must be some kind of tradition in the Balkans :o)

__________________________________________________________

Anyway, back more or less on topic with the aftermaths of the murdered worker:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3419094/Who-knows-horrors-Police-chief-sparks-anger-sympathising-Somali-boy-stabbed-refugee-worker.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3418312/She-wanted-help-did-Mother-Swedish-refugee-worker-killed-Somali-migrant-says-country-fled-war-torn-Lebanon-no-longer-safe.html

While the first article is a good example of justice having more consideration for criminlals than victims (same kind of thing in Belgium), the second one is more interesting as it points at some defaults of the Swedish system:

"She blamed Swedish politicians for a dramatic rise in immigration in Molndal, a suburb of Gothenburg, where a population of 60,000 has grown by 8,000 migrants in less than a year – 4,000 of whom are unaccompanied children."

=> we can vaguely debate about the amount of migrants for the whole population in one year but what's more concerning is the 1 out 2 ratio of "children" while the official statistics from the International Organization for Migration reported a 18% ratio of minors for worlwide migration movements in 2015. In Belgium, "minors" are submitted to some tests to determine their approximated real age but it seems like In Sweden it isn't the case (could some Swedish correct me on that?)

That reminds me I had this screenshot from the Swedish PM posing with "children" for one of its social account. If it's not a fake (I can't access facebook so I can't verify), it's rather concerning to say the least......
https://i.imgur.com/0Qq9Ydi.png

What some young European girls (the most affected ones) are thinking about all of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGfP8CyJAhg

On the other hand we have older women like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI9D-ZNQhCE

I like to consider myself a cultural novice, but I still totally understand why my ancestors got on a boat and sailed to the far corners of the flat Earth to get away from it.

Woman actually says:
"We will not even have any ethnic majorities in our city"

English subtitle:
"there will no longer be [German] majorities in our city" (that doesn't even make sense in the plural form)

Video shared on facebook with the tagline:
"...happy that Germans will be the minority"


As you can see, this is the cheapest propaganda available arguing on a progressively more slick-slippery slope.

And as if it had not been clear enough to German folks what Stefanie von Berg said, here she reiterates.
http://www.taz.de/!5266062/

She was speaking against parallel culture and arguing for integration through education. She was, rightfully, projecting ethnic majorities in Hamburg to develop in the direction of e.g. today's London (with White British below 45%). She's not afraid of that. And look what those people have done to the speech.

She has received threats aplenty since the Afd shared the video together with their willful misinterpretation. Sure, that one Afd guy has apologized to her, but nothing in their communication has changed or was revoked because of that apology.


You know, I wasn't too happy when my bff suggested to give the Afd recruiters the Hitler salute in Trier's pedestrian precinct last Saturday. But in retrospect, maybe I should have listened to her.

For future reference, as of now, yes, I consider the Afd nazist.

I don't think it's about immigrants in general, let's be honest here it's about Arabs and Africans with primitive cultural/religious beliefs. Who complains about East Asian (Chinese, Japanese) immigrants to Western countries? Nobody because they are near perfect citizens and here in Australia they are actually better citizens than the [White] "bogans". Also they have pretty girls.

EDIT: It's like when you look in the newspaper at the "Adult Services" section and see all the nice Chinese/Japanese escorts, now that is the good kind of multiculturalism

Not sure about Sweden, but I think those tests take time and money, so they are not routinely performed on all arrivals who claim to be underage (especially if it is somewhat believable he/she might be underage). i think in those tests the age is estimated by the teeth and the bone structure, so it is a rough estimate but should give a good guesstimate whether someone is under 18. Not sure if it fully proves anything though.

It is quite obvious though many asylum seekers claim to be underage when they are not. At least here they get a better treatment then and are more likely to get a refugee status, than a grown-up traveling alone. So it makes sense to lie about being underage. The only negative thing it may yield to you is that the interviewer might start wondering what else you are lying about, if you are caught of one lie.

I probably mentioned this before, but we had the case here where the Finnish prime minister was on the news discussing with one male asylum seeker, who claimed to be 17 years old (=underage) and said he will even prove it when he gets his papers from Iraq.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao_7rxdsYL4 (watch at 00:20)

It didn't take long for the internet warriors to find the online history of that asylum seeker, ie. how long he had already stayed in other European countries, how old he claimed to be on internet forums etc.:

http://static.mvlehti.net/uploads/2015/09/Fahad-kuvakollaasi.jpg

Fast forward to this day, the guy finally admitted he is 20 years old, and explained why he lied about his age:

http://www.iltasanomat.fi/kotimaa/art-1453357167194.html

The other thing is that some asylum center keepers for the underage have raised their concern where they have to put two "teen-aged boys" together sleeping in the same room, where one of them does seem like a genuine underaged teenager, while the other seems more like a 30 years old grown-up man. What can you do, the person claimed to be underage, so he has to be put into a shelter for the underage, among other underaged asylum seekers. :)

I can understand why asylum seekers lie about such things, if they believe it increases chances of getting the refugee status and maybe faster decision. What irritates me the most though is how some people here live in total denial. When the doubts about Fahad's age were raised, some people just kept insisting that he might still be underage even if he had himself said to be over 20 somewhere on the internet, and it is presented as some kind of cardinal sin to doubt at all what any asylum seekers says, be it about his age, where he is coming from, whether the carbon-copy story of a killed father and brother and being kidnapped yadda-yadda is really true.

I personally feel people _should_ be unbelieving (rather than trusting) of all these refugee stories, because it simply makes sense for an asylum seeker to lie. That doesn't mean some of the stories may be true and yes there are people worthy of a refugee status, but the default should be being unbelieving.

I lived in a community that was split between Japs and Chinese folks on one side and had Africans on the other. It was like night and day, it really was. The asian folks were for the most very polite, friendly, were happy to go about their day of work and family time afterwards. The Africans however didn't work. Sold drugs. Prostitution. Were weeeell beyond racist and the abuse my family (my son was just born) received from them was absolutely unbelievable.

They were all a bunch of immigrants who came over to use the benefits system. They liked to brag about it if you wondered. I have never met more disgusting people in my life.

I would never ever want to see more of that kind of scum coming onto my island. Sadly it seems that they are the only priority for the government.