The Social City

In 1954, the Stockholm New Town of Vällingby was inaugurated. In soon became famous as a well-planned city district serviced by the underground metro. The ultra modern facilities at the Centre, and the white houses in green park-like surroundings became a symbol of the Swedish middle-way Welfare State. Only twenty-five years earlier, Stockholm was notorious for its housing conditions.This study provides an explanation of what happened, and what made the Stockholm municipal administration into one of the most advanced providers of high quality housing districts in the world. It focuses the municipal leaseholding strategy introduced on a large scale in the outer \"social\" city in the early twentieth century.There still remains to explain what brought all this about. The main argument is that the unique extent of municipal leaseholding can be explained by the role that this practice had in the provision of urban order. The leaseholding system was, it is argued with reference to Michel Foucault, used both to build a disciplinary city and to monitor fine-tuned contacts with the inhabitants.