WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT – AUTUMN 2023

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The right-wing government stopped supporting new rental housing construction at the start of the year. Local leaders in growing northern towns such as Skellefteå and Kiruna strongly disagreed with this move. The job market in Norrland is booming. There’s a high demand for workers in every field—from transportation and manufacturing to healthcare and hospitality. But to attract people to these jobs, they need affordable places to live. Local governments are trying their best to fix the housing shortage, but they can’t do it alone. The central government needs to help make housing more affordable and available.

It doesn’t make sense for the national government to stall growth in northern Sweden by not supporting housing, especially in tight economic times. When a similar support system was cut by a previous right-wing government in 2006, housing construction collapsed dramatically. When the Social Democrats regained power in 2014, they reintroduced this support and saw positive results. So, the current government should reconsider their decision. Government help is necessary to keep building houses to accommodate people moving to work on the green transition in Norrland. Furthermore, the obsession with building apartment blocks needs to stop. Many families coming to Norrland aspire to houses, and country living, not apartments in towns. We need more single family homes built in the countryside. That, or local government should start appropriating deserted rural homes.

The free market doesn’t have all the answers, as anyone with a shred of intelligence knows by now.