The Swedish Social Services Act (SFS 2001:453) stipulates since 1982 that the municipal Social Committee should become well acquainted with the living conditions in the municipality. They should also participate in urban planning, and in cooperation with other public bodies, organizations, associations and individuals promote good living environments in the municipality. The development, planning and design of good living environments for older people is an endeavour of great complexity that demands collaboration between many actors. Housing and care for older people is an important area in which social servicesand urban planning could benefit from collaboration. Planning for older people has recently been indicated as urgent and necessary, especially in the light of changed demography in which the proportion of older people is increasing. A built environment that accommodates older people’s everyday needs embraces issues such as age-friendliness, care, socio-spatial inequality, inclusion, and innovation. This research program, CollAge, investigates cross-sectoral collaboration in Swedish municipalities between social eldercare, urban planning and Senior Citizens’ Councils as regards housing and care. With diverse qualitative methodologies the multidisciplinary team of scholars in social work, architecture and urban planning  explore how eldercare interventions and services are managed and understood in municipal urban planning and development, and how older people’s preferences can contribute to improved quality of care in social services and housing provision.  The ultimate aim of the programme is to develop a methodological tool – CollAge – to support, facilitate and structure collaboration between the three actors.

There is broad consensus among policymakers about the urgency of developing healthy, inclusive, and socially sustainable cities. In the Swedish context, social services are considered to have knowledge that needs to be integrated into the broader urban development processes in order to accomplish such ends. This article aims to better understand the ways in which social service officials collaborate in urban development processes for developing the social dimensions of healthy cities. We draw from neo‐institutional theories, which set out actors (e.g., social service officials) as acting according to a logic of appropriateness, which means that actors do what they see as appropriate for themselves in a specific type of situation. Based on semi‐structured interviews with social services officials in 10 Swedish municipalities on their experiences of collaboration in the development of housing and living environments for people with psychiatric disabilities, we identified that they act based on (a) a pragmatic rule of conduct through the role of the problem solver, (b) a bureaucratic rule of conduct through the role of the knowledge provider, and (c) activist rule of conduct through the role of the advo-cator. In these roles, they have little authority in the development processes, and are unable to set the agenda for the social dimensions of healthy cities but act as the moral consciousness by looking out for everyone’s right to equal living conditions in urban development. © 2022 by the author(s); licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal).

The aim of this qualitative study is to present the experiences of family members bereaved by intimate partner homicide (IPH). The focus is on immediate and long-term consequences of the killing, and on the participants’ experiences of subsequently offered information and support. This includes interactions with healthcare, social services, the criminal justice system, and the media. Twenty-two interviews with parents, siblings, and adult children of IPH victims underwent thematical analysis. The bereaved mainly described the social support following the IPH as lacking or inadequate, and recounted that they had been left alone with handling practical and emotionally difficult tasks, such as cleaning up after the killing. More specifically, they felt that institutional responses had been lacking with regard to information, understanding, coordination between professionals, continuity, professionalism, and redress. These results indicate that a coordinated response to people bereaved by IPH is necessary and, if lacking, must be developed. © The Author(s) 2024.

This article focuses on the stock of accommodation service units for people withpsychiatric disabilities in Sweden and the classification of supported accommodation.We examined 122 units in 12 municipalities in Sweden and classified them accordingto the Simple Taxonomy for Supported Accommodation (STAX-SA). We found anobvious variation in the field and a movement into a recovery-oriented direction andtowards individuality. There is an emphasis on Move-On that seems to expand into andbeyond floating outreach support, and there is a relaxation of service units’ boundariesconcerning commitment and target groups. The correspondence to STAX-SA was quitelow (48%), and the applicability to ‘real world’ services was not satisfactory. Whencapturing variation and change in a rich dataset, STAX-SA is too reductive. However,STAX-SA was a successful point of departure in the analysis that opened up foridentifying diversities and movement. We suggest some adjustments to increase itsapplicability

The movement towards deinstitutionalisation of mental health services has created a space for new and community-based solutions in western countries, but the field still seems to lack coherent ideological and practical features. This is also evident for issues related to housing. The aim of this article is to examine the characteristics of supportive accommodation services for people with psychiatric disabilities in Sweden, according to the experiences of local service providers. The focus is placed on the services' organizational setting, main orientation, and conceptual content. This article is based on a multiple case study of ten Swedish municipalities, purposely selected regarding size, location, and demographic features. Data mainly consist of interviews with key informants in the social service organisation. The results indicate the emergence of a new generation of service users with complex needs, who challenge both the organisation and the content of the service offered. Group homes and mobile housing support appeared as pillars in the service supply, but several local and pragmatically oriented solutions were also identified, as well as ambitions to scale down the extent of institutional settings. The guiding idea present at most sites is a strive towards increased autonomy among service users.

Objective

Free choice in elderly care services is a debated issue. Using the theoretical support of philosophers of free will, this paper explores free choice in relocation to residential care. The three dominant perspectives within this field of philosophy, libertarianism, determinism and compatibilism, are applied from the perspective of the older individual to the process of moving.

Method

Empirical data were collected through qualitative interviews with 13 older individuals who had recently moved into residential care.

Results

These individuals had made the choice to move following either a health emergency or incremental health problems. In a deterministic perspective they had no alternative to moving, which was the inevitable solution to their various personal problems. A network of people important to them assisted in the move, making the choice possible. However, post-move the interviewees' perspective had changed to a libertarian or compatibilist interpretation, whereby although the circumstances had conferred little freedom regarding the move.

Conclusions

The interviewees reported a high degree of self-determination in the process. It appeared that in order to restore self-respect and personal agency, the older individuals had transformed their restricted choice into a choice made of free will or freer will.

The number of African older people who live permanently in urban areas is growing. This qualitative ethnographic study explores how older people employ welfare strategies, often involving members of the extended family in mutual care and support. These welfare strategies are emplaced; in this case, in different housing types in a former township in Namibia - Kuisebmond in Walvis Bay. Older people stay in former township houses, in backyard shacks or other rentals, or at an old-age home. Government welfare that was adjusted to family needs appeared in similar shapes in these housing types, such as access to better schools. Older people were both caregivers and receivers of care in these efforts. Taking care of grandchildren while their parents migrated for work was a mutuality of informal support that was highly beneficial to all involved. The non-contributory pensions facilitated many strategies by alleviating risks. Access to high quality housing and government healthcare made urban living a feasible alternative that challenged rural living. The study concludes that housing is a strategic welfare space where formal and informal welfare are optimised in various ways. Older individuals contribute to a large extent to the adjustment, maintenance, and development of these joint spaces.

Critical voices call for socio-spatial policy interventions to ensure health and well-being of increased proportion of older people. The municipalities in Sweden can decide and influence the socio-spatial environments through comprehensive plans to attain quality of life for older people. Qualitative content analysis of comprehensive plans of three Swedish municipalities – Sotenäs,  Älvkarleby and Sundbyberg – was done using spatial justice theory and age-friendliness concept to understand how the socio-spatial justice for older people are portrayed in these comprehensive plans. The findings revealed that ageing population is viewed as welfare challenge and barrier to economic growth. Furthermore, abundance of physical services in promoting ageing-in-place, active and healthy ageing in the accessible private and public spaces and nature partly characterize spatial justice for older people. But there is a tendency of undervaluing the agency of older people by treating them as homogeneously vulnerable group in comprehensive plans which delimit the holistic spatial justice for older people. 

Introduction

A comprehensive plan (ÖP) is a municipal policy in Sweden that guides political ambitions for the use of spatial resources. As the built environment impacts the health and well-being of older people (WHO, 2016) and the aging issue is considered a welfare challenge, this study analyzes how the aging issue is treated in ÖP of Älvkarleby municipality.

 Theoretical framework and methods

Foucauldian (1993:8) and Laclau and Mouffes (2001) discourse theoretical concepts such as “foreclosing procedures” and chain of equivalence and differences are used in the study to understand the dialectical relation between discourse, knowledge, and power that reinforces ideological domination. Spatial justice (Soja, 2010) is used to assess ÖP’s compliance with older people’s identity and agency. The themes and patterns of planning language are identified through the close reading of Älvkarleby’s ÖP. Results are analyzed using Fairclough’s (1995) critical discourse analysis (CDA) i.e. analysis of text, context, and structure.

 Results and Analysis

Context:

·       Älvkarleby has 9625 people with 24.7% above 65 years old and is facing growth stagnation and outflow of young and working-age people. 

·       Older people and other vulnerable groups’ contribution to growth ambition is silent in ÖP.

·       The exploitation of strengths such as “housing, tourism, and business…”(p14) and the influx of youth, working-age population, and companies are considered conditions of possibility for growth and welfare. 

·       Growth-oriented planning discourse thus characterizes the ÖP which fits in Älvkarleby´s context. 

Text:

·       ÖP’s desire is to achieve “economically and ecologically robust structures” (ÖP, 2020:7- 86)

·       Truth claim is that the growth stagnation and welfare challenge are associated with “unbalanced demography with many older people” signified as “negative effects” (ibid, 2020:14)

·       Chain of equivalence: Welfare challenges are associated with eldercare, social services, low taxes, and disability. Growth ambition is associated with youth, natural resources, cultural history, knowledge society, productive population, and tourism (ÖP, 2020:14).

·       Dichotomy between the influx of children, youths, working-age population, tourists, and companies as facilitators for future prosperity; and older people, among others, as receivers of welfare provisions.

 Structure

·       A robust social structure is claimed to be achievable through the contributions of young and working-age populations which unconsciously induces “foreclosing” of older people’s identity and agency in the growth-oriented discourse.

·       Planning knowledge having the power to legitimize place-marketing through the commodification of spatial resources as a condition of possibility to fund welfare regime is reinforced and maintained in ÖP. 

·       ÖP contains thus traces of political and socio-economic restructuration plans to create a society that indicates a new capitalist planning ideology. 

·       Such discourse may have a pervasive impact on the social relations of older people.

 Discussion

Space for older people’s active agency is overlooked in the ÖP through foreclosing procedures.  The spatial justice concerns ‘equitable participation’ and is conditioned by resource redistribution, respect, and democracy. (Fraser, 2011:103–4; Soja, 2009). The ÖP is silent about the older people’s participation in the production of space and economic growth. The dichotomy of population into productive and desired and dependent and undesired puts the planning ambition of a cohesive society at stake. 

 Conclusion

The silence about older people’s agency and the signification of “care” in an affluent municipality puts spatial justice – diversity, democracy, and equality – at stake. Beyond the conventional view of eldercare, municipalities need to endeavor to recognize older people’s spatial justice.

I Sverige finns det idag 61 områden som anses vara utsatta eller särskilt utsatta på den nivån att polisen har svårigheter att genomföra sitt arbete. Stadsdelen Skäggetorp i Linköping är ett av dessa områden. Sen 2015 har stadsdelen klassats som ett särskilt utsatt område där den kriminella aktiviteter har en stor inverkan på lokal samhället. 

Stadsdelen har uppmärksammats i media då den under en senare period har präglats alltmer av våldsbrott, två tydliga exempel på detta är mordet som skedde under dagtid på en restaurang, 2021, och upploppen under påskhelgen, 2022. Det finns dock en annan sida som är mindre tydlig, organisationen Världens mammor, arbetar hårt i Skäggetorp mot att skapa en trygg plats för föräldrar och barn. Även de har synts i media då de bland annat bjöd in miljöpartiets språkrör Märta Stenevi för att få leva en dag som en mamma i Skäggetorp.

Stadsdelen har dock inte alltid haft en negativ bild över sig, utan när den grundades under miljonprogrammet såg den istället som det vänliga Skäggetorp. Många anser att stadsdelen har ett flertal goda kvalitéer såsom grönytor och stora öppna gårdar. Däremot saknades det olika former av mötesplatser, framför allt mötesplatser för ungdomar, vilket generade i att ungdomsgäng strosade runt på gatan. Stadsdelen hade även det underlag som är vanligt vid bildandet av ungdomsgäng såsom hyresrätter och en låg andel vuxna jämfört med ungdomar och barn. 

I den här uppsatsen undersöks mötesplatsens vikt för tryggheten i särskilt utsatta stadsdelar, med fokus på Skäggetorp. Undersökningen inleds med  att skapa en grund till begreppet social infrastruktur vilket skulle kunna vara en del av lösningen till problemen i Skäggetorp och andra säkrsilt utsatta områden. Sociala infrastrukturer finns överallt och kan vara både icke-kommersiella och kommersiella mötesplatser som till exempel skolor, bibliotek, kyrkor och grönområden. Dessutom redogörs för forskning om segregation, social inkludering och exkludering, trygghet och otrygghet samt om hur den fysiska miljön påverkar dessa aspekter. Detta leder sedan vidare till det teoretiska kapitlet där den valda teorin är socialt kapital, med särskilt fokus på det överbryggande sociala kapitalet. Överbryggande socialt kapital handlar om hur människor integrerar med andra och prövar olika åsikter mot varandra. Detta binds även samman med den sociala infrastrukturen som kan ses som en plats där människor kan bygga upp sitt sociala kapital. 

Undersökningen har gjorts i form av en fallstudie över Skäggetorp i Linköping. Detta är, som tidigare nämndes, en stadsdel som präglas av oroligheter och våldsbrott. Stadsdelen är segregerad, detta gäller tre former av segregation: socioekonomisk, socio-rumslig och boendesegregerat i form av att boende är åtskilda från resterande av Linköping och att boende är åtskilda inom stadsdelen. Det insamlade materialet och analyserna presenteras i text, bild och kartor för att ge en så tydlig bild över stadsdelen och läget som möjligt. 

Resultatet av fallstudien visar att det finns en befintlig social infrastruktur i stadsdelen som inte används optimalt och därför bör utvecklas. Det nybyggda kulturhuset Agora används främst av barn i mellanstadieåldern som bor i stadsdelen, målet för denna mötesplats var dock att folk i alla åldrar och runtom Linköping skulle besöka Agora. Detta har tyvärr inte skett, något som kan ha påverkats av den negativa bilden av Skäggetorp. Detta avslutas med en diskussion samt en del åtgärdsförslag som kan göras för att de befintliga sociala infrastrukturerna men också för att utveckla nya som skulle kunna bidra till att Skäggetorpsbor lämnar tryggheten i sina hem och möter sina grannar och då inte bara i den egna satsdelen utan också i hela Linköping. 

Avslutningsvis dras det både ett antal generella slutsatser som är applicerbart på flera olika bostadsområden, samt en del platsspecifika slutsatser.