Investments in disadvantaged areas – digital tools for quantitative evaluations

To change development trends in disadvantaged areas and to reduce segregation in Sweden authorities and municipal housing companies are making larger investments.

This project will study the major investments by Framtidenkoncernen of 11 billion SEK in disadvantaged areas in Gothenburg.

Framtidenkoncernen is the largest public joint group of housing owners in Sweden and their effort will become an important example for housing companies in Sweden.

Environmental issues, in particular reduction of energy usage in buildings from the million homes program era, overlap with social sustainability targets in reducing segregation.

From previous PhD projects, there are building-specific data on development in energy usage in the multifamily building stock.

This makes it possible to demonstrate synergies in working towards both social and environmental targets in disadvantaged areas.Key in this project is the collection and analysis of data about the Swedish multifamily building stock to demonstrate to which extent Framtidenkoncernen are meeting their objectives.

The project builds upon three previous PhD projects that have created an extensive database about the Swedish building stock.

To have information about the entire multifamily building stock is important to be able to compare the disadvantaged areas in Gothenburg, where Framtidenkoncernen are making their investments, with other similar disadvantaged areas in other Swedish cities.Actions to be taken in the disadvantaged areas is a rather contested issue.

To build credibility in the results, this project will be anchored in research rigour. The project includes a PhD position that will be financially independent of the investment of the Framtidenkoncernen. The PhD student will focus on segregation, sustainability issues and development in disadvantaged areas.

Framtidenkoncernens investments will be the case study in the PhD project.

There are three concrete areas where there is an overlap between the interests of Framtidenkoncernen and between the PhD project planned research:Evaluation of the development in disadvantaged areas.Analysis of the commerciality of making investments in disadvantaged areas.

This is important because of the legal uncertainties amongst public housing companies if the EU legislation permits the companies in making investments in disadvantaged areas.

EU legislation demands that the public companies act ‘commercially’.Analysis of synergies between environmental and social investments and efforts made by public housing companies and other Swedish authorities.The project will also build upon previous contacts and work for Swedish national authorities.

Project results will thus be made useful for other authorities such as Boverket, The Swedish ministry of finance, and the National Accounting Agency, for which the project group make evaluations on a regular basis.The project is conducted in collaboration between RISE, Umeå University and Framtidenkoncernen.

Umeå University contributes with supervision and expertise in segregation research, RISE contributes with supervision and data from the three previous PhD projects, and Framtidenkoncernen is the needs owner and contributes with the case study as well as funding for senior researcher and reports.