Nordic Welfare Cities: Negotiating Urban Citizenship since 1850 (Routledge Advances in Urban History) 1032459115, 9781032459110

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Nordic Welfare Cities

This book examines Nordic cities from 1850 and their transformation from traditional, oligarchic towns to modern, inclusive welfare cities. In the contemporary world, the role of cities as hotbeds for progressive change has become increasingly topical. Historical studies on how Nordic cities addressed social and environmental questions a hundred years ago and how they eventually created new and inclusive policies for the future is a useful contribution to the current debate. The concept of the welfare city is addressed and elaborated upon to analyse the attempts by urban authorities to solve the problems following industrialization and urbanization. From the late nineteenth century, municipal public services promoted the integration of new groups in the urban community including workers, immigrants, women and children. The contributions in this book analyse various examples of welfare and public services that include infrastructure and transport systems, health care, housing conditions, outdoor life and entertainment. The chapters highlight the arguments and considerations promoting welfare policies, while also addressing differences between the Nordic countries. The evolution of the Nordic welfare city was a process of several overlapping phases or dimensions. This volume will be of value to students and scholars alike interested in urban history, social and cultural history and European history. Magnus Linnarsson is an associate professor of history at Stockholm University. His main research interest includes political history, focusing on institutional change, state formation and political conflicts. His latest book Problemet med vinster (2017) analyzes political conflicts about the organization of public services from the beginning of the seventeenth century until the 1990s. He currently leads a research project about welfare cities in the Nordic countries, c. 1870–1920. Mats Hallenberg is a professor of history at Stockholm University. His main research interest includes the political history of Sweden and Scandinavia from the early modern period up until the twentieth century. Published works address local administration in Sweden and Finland, the impact of tax farming, royal propaganda and military organization, as well as municipal conflicts over the organization of welfare services.

Routledge Advances in Urban History Series Editors: Bert De Munck

Centre for Urban History, University of Antwerp

Simon Gunn

Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester

This series showcases original and exciting new work in urban history. It publishes books that challenge existing assumptions about the history of cities, apply new theoretical frames to the urban past, and open up new avenues of historical enquiry. The scope of the series is global, and it covers all time periods from the ancient to the modern worlds.   6 The Rise and Fall of London’s Ringways, 1943–1973 Michael Dnes 12 Water in the Making of a Socio-Natural Landscape Rome and Its Surroundings, 1870–1922 Salvatore Valenti 13 Politics of Urban Knowledge Historical Perspectives on the Shaping and Governing of Cities Edited by Bert De Munck and Jens Lachmund 14 Medium-Sized cities in the Age of Globalisation Inès Hassen 15 Imperial Cities in the Tsarist, the Habsburg, and the Ottoman Empires Edited by Ulrich Hofmeister and Florian Riedler 16 Urban Life in Nordic Countries Edited by Heiko Droste 17 Nordic Welfare Cities Negotiating Urban Citizenship since 1850 Edited by Magnus Linnarsson and Mats Hallenberg For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/RoutledgeAdvances-in-Urban-History/book-series/RAUH

Nordic Welfare Cities

Negotiating Urban Citizenship since 1850 Edited by Magnus Linnarsson and Mats Hallenberg

First published 2024 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Magnus Linnarsson and Mats Hallenberg; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Magnus Linnarsson and Mats Hallenberg to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. With the exception of Chapters 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 11, no part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Chapters 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 11 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access at www.taylorfrancis.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International license. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 978-1-032-45911-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-45913-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-37923-2 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003379232 Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC The Open Access version of chapters 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 11 was funded by Stockholms universitet / Östersjöstiftelsen / Tampere University Foundation.

Contents

List of figures vii List of maps viii List of contributors ix Acknowledgementsxi   1 The Nordic welfare city: urban community and public services since 1850

1

MAGNUS LINNARSSON

  2 Negotiating water and citizenship in Copenhagen 1850–1950

17

MIKKEL THELLE

  3 Municipalization in Norwegian cities c. 1850–1920

37

KNUT DØRUM

  4 Theatre and the making of the welfare city: Gothenburg’s performance stages, 1880s–1934

60

CHRISTINA REIMANN

  5 Municipal services and modern citizenship in Helsinki in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

83

MARJAANA NIEMI

  6 A tale of two tramways: municipal organization and ­private enterprise in Stockholm and Kristiania, c. 1900

102

MATS HALLENBERG

  7 The rise of the negotiated welfare city after the Civil War: inclusion, welfare and reconciliation KATI KATAJISTO

125

vi  Contents  

Figures

1.1 2.1 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 6.1 6.2 8.1 8.2 8.3 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 10.1

A main water pipe at Norrström, Stockholm 1897. Sjaellandsgade bathing hall, Copenhagen 1922. Axel Engdahl at Folkteatern Lorensberg, Gothenburg 1913. Nya Teatern at Järntorget, Gothenburg. Götaplatsen with the municipal theatre under construction, Gothenburg 1933. Sewer systems in Fredriksberg area, Copenhagen 1912. The last horse-drawn tramway car in Stockholm, 10 February 1905. Trams at the Slussen lock in Stockholm, early twentieth century. Aerial photo from 1939 of the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter in Copenhagen. The Borgergade-Adelgade quarter in Copenhagen in the 1940s seen from the Marble Church. Kitchen with dysfunctional water supply, the Borgergade-­Adelgade quarter in Copenhagen 1954. Shipowner A.P. Møller’s summer house at the Kattegat coast, around 1920. With the increasingly widespread private motoring, ‘foreign elements’ mixed in the bourgeois idyll.  A typical summer house village around 1970. Karlstrup Strand, 1940. St. Paul’s church in central Stockholm.

8 30 67 69 77 96 103 107 151 153 156 168 170 173 178 200

Maps

2.1 4.1 5.1 6.1

Christian Tryde, Hygienic Surveys, Copenhagen 1883. Gothenburg 1900, theatre locations. Helsinki map from 1878 by Claes Kjerrström. Map of Stockholm illustrating the tramway lines of the Northern company after electrification in 1904. 6.2 Map of the Kristiania tramway lines from 1901.

27 62 88 111 116

Contributors

Henning Bro is a senior researcher, PhD, at Frederiksberg City Archives. His research interest concerns welfare state history and city and capital metropolis history. He is a former city archivist at Frederiksberg City Archives and also a former archivist at the National Archives in Copenhagen. Knut Dørum is a professor of history at the University of Agder. His recent research interests touch upon political, urban and social history from below in the period c. 1500–1900. His books include From subjects to citizens. Govern­ment and political culture in Norway c. 1660–1884 (author), Democracy and citizenship in Norway 1814–2020 (author) and Norwegian political history c. 1660–2020 (author). Heiko Droste is a professor of urban history and the head of the Institute of Urban History at the Department of History, Stockholm University. His research interests concern Swedish and Baltic premodern history and the modern urban history of Sweden. His main publications are on Sweden’s diplomats in seventeenth century (2006) and the early modern news market (2018/20). Current research interests focus on welfare cities, urban memory cultures and nostalgia. Mats Hallenberg is a professor of history at Stockholm university. His main research interest concerns the political history of Sweden and Scandinavia from the early modern period up until the twentieth century. Published works address local administration in Sweden and Finland, the impact of tax farming, royal propaganda and military organization, as well as municipal conflicts over the organization of welfare services. Mikkel Høghøj is specialized in modern Nordic urban, planning and welfare history. He is currently a postdoc at the National Museum of Denmark and holds a PhD in urban history from Aarhus University. He has previously been a guest researcher at the Centre for Urban History at the University of ­Leicester and the Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space. In 2022, he was awarded the Planning Perspectives Prize by the International Planning History Society.

x  Contributors Kati Katajisto, PhD, is a researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences, in the unit of political history, University of Helsinki. She has recently finished the sixth part of the history of the Center Party of Finland 1981–1991. Her latest books are a biography of Johannes Virolainen, Verraton Virolainen 1914–2000, and Sodasta sovintoon, a study of the reconciliation after the Civil War in Finland from the point of view of the communal democracy and communal politics. Magnus Linnarsson is an associate professor of history at Stockholm University. He currently leads a research project about welfare cities in the Nordic countries, c. 1870–1920, investigating the increased municipal responsibility for public services and the common good. He has recently worked on political conflicts about the organization of public services. His book Problemet med vinster: Riksdagsdebatter om privat och offentlig drift under 400 år (2017) analyses this conflict in Sweden between 1600 and 2000. He has also published work on state formation, institutions and organizations in the early modern period. Marjaana Niemi is a professor of international history at Tampere University, Finland. She is the author of Public Health and Municipal Policy Making: Britain and Sweden (Ashgate 2007) as well as numerous articles on urban history and public health history. In 2017, she co-edited Green Landscapes in the European City, 1750–2010 (Routledge), together with Peter Clark and Catharina Nolin. Christina Reimann received her PhD from Humboldt University in 2014 and is currently a researcher at Södertörn University, Stockholm. She studies modern European history from a transnational perspective with a focus on cultural urban- and migration history. She has published widely on the complex histories of port cities in the age of steam, most recently ‘Amusement Leaves the Port: Pleasure Institutions and the Reshaping of Gothenburg’s Material and Nonmaterial Borders, 1860s–1923’, Journal of Urban History 48, no. 6 (2022). Mikkel Thelle is a senior researcher at the National Museum of Denmark and a cultural historian. His research lies at the intersection of urban and welfare history, tracing relations between technologies, experience and bodily practices. Recently, this has been combined with an interest in environmental perspectives.

Acknowledgements

This book project was initiated by the editors in 2019, in connection with the research project ‘Alternative Paths to the Welfare City: Public Services, Inclusion and the Common Good’, financed by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond in Sweden. Working on a comparative investigation of welfare policies in Nordic capitals by the turn of the century 1900, we felt the need to engage with learned scholars addressing similar problems in the field of urban history. The first step was to organize a session, ‘Welfare cities in motion’ for the European Association of Urban History (EAUH) conference scheduled for 2020. Due to the pandemic, the conference was postponed, but we met for a web-based workshop with several participants in September the following year. Encouraged by the support, we decided to propose an edited volume, focusing on the historical development of welfare cities in the Nordic countries. The proposal was graciously accepted for the Routledge Advances in Urban History. Further conference sessions were organized for the 30th Congress of Nordic Historians in Gothenburg in 2022, and the EAUH Conference in Antwerp the same year. In February 2023, we held a workshop in Stockholm (co-hosted by the Institute of Urban History), discussing draft versions of the chapters. The editors would like to thank Riksbankens Jubileumsfond and the Department of History at Stockholm University for funding, and all our colleagues who have participated in discussions for providing valuable input. Editors Magnus Linnarsson and Mats Hallenberg Stockholm, September 2023

1 The Nordic welfare city Urban community and public services since 1850 Magnus Linnarsson

The second half of the nineteenth century brought major improvements in living conditions and the welfare of urban communities in Europe. Starting midcentury, cities across the continent and in the British Isles started to invest money and resources in the city itself, which was a radical shift compared with a previous austere policy. New infrastructures, such as sewage systems, transportation and hospitals, were built, and various social reforms were implemented. Local authorities and politicians gradually came to shoulder a greater responsibility for the well-being of urban citizens.1 In order to accomplish this feat, an increasing number of urban public services were instituted, particularly between 1850 and 1940. These public services were the result of both political strife and a growing sense of social responsibility. The introduction of modern public services has traditionally been explained as having been promoted by reforms through the state. In a Western European context, the apogee of this historical development was the modern welfare state, perhaps best represented by the social democratic model in the Scandinavian countries after 1945, epitomized in the works of Gøsta Esping-Andersen.2 The Nordic countries have attracted great interest in international research and there is general agreement that together they comprise a joint model for the organization of the welfare state, often referred to as the Nordic welfare model.3 As a consequence, the historiography of modern public services and modern welfare systems has had a strong focus on the state, and scholars have identified welfare politics with the national government. When urban politics and municipalities have been studied, they have generally been seen as extensions of the central state, albeit with an awareness that there are variations between different areas in Europe.4 By and large, national politics and political agents on the national level have been put forward as the most important drivers in the development of welfare systems. This explanation is, however, only partial. Two important aspects are neglected, thus requiring us to revise our understanding of the history of welfare systems and public services. First, and most importantly, we must shift our focus to the local level, to the city, the place where this expansion took place. Historians must ask what the DOI: 10.4324/9781003379232-1

This chapter has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 international license.

2  Magnus Linnarsson role of the city was in the development of modern public services and welfare systems. Second, although a major part of previous scholarship has focused on the period after 1945, the focus should be on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as this was the decisive period when public services were expanded and institutionalized.5 Consequently, this book argues for a shift in perspective – from the ‘welfare state’ to the ‘welfare city’. As an analytical concept, the welfare city captures a central facet of this historical development, as it emphasizes the importance of urban areas, and urbanity itself, as driving forces for the organization and institutionalization of human welfare. This claim draws on recent scholarship that has argued for the significance of urban origins in the development of the modern state and the emergence of citizenship going back to the early modern period.6 The key conclusion from this body of research is that citizenship is not only a state project; rather, at the turn of the twentieth century, it was significantly shaped by urban politics. The analytical framework of the welfare city thus places urban politics before national politics, in order to explain how and why public services and welfare systems developed. The main themes and objectives of this book are threefold. First, as stated earlier, it advances the claim that welfare systems and citizenship have urban origins and developed in cities before they were taken up at the national level. This emphasizes local politics and urban development as important variables in the development of modern society. In comparison with previous scholarship on the welfare state, this perspective calls for a new chronological focus, as well as new explanations. These also necessitate new questions, such as how welfare was regarded from the viewpoint of the city, what it included and what its main contributions to urban life were. Such a perspective emphasizes other political agents and has the potential to show a different type of welfare than is typically observed at the national level. Second, the book places the Nordic countries at the centre of the analysis. The Nordic region is underexplored when it comes to the urban development of welfare services and the expansion of citizenship in Europe.7 Most previous research has focused on the familiar cases of France, Britain and Germany, but the Nordic example holds special relevance for exploring the welfare city. Industrialization, and subsequent modernization, arrived relatively late to the region. Hypothetically, the Nordic countries could use knowledge and examples from continental Europe when implementing welfare reforms at the turn of the century. This would imply a different path to the welfare city than the one usually recognized in scholarship. Third, the book makes a conceptual and theoretical contribution to the concept of the ‘welfare city’. The use of the concept has generally been confined to descriptive purposes, or limited to periods after 1945. An example of the latter is its use within architectural research. Niels Albertsen and Bülent Diken define the welfare city as confined to urban built environments and urban life after 1945.8

The Nordic welfare city 3 The concept is also discussed implicitly by Juhani Letho in his analysis of cities within the welfare state.9 Both examples, however, emphasize the state’s influence on the city. The aim here is the opposite: to put the city before the state and to emphasize an earlier period in time. The book also aims to further develop the theory of the welfare city. The various chapters will show how the concept can be used when studying how Nordic cities launched reform policies to meet the social demands and political issues of the time. The concept of welfare and the welfare city The contributions in this book share a broad definition of the concept of ‘welfare’ and a similarly broad characterization of what is regarded as a ‘public service’. There is good reason for using expanded definitions. Throughout history, the welfare of the populace has had a key legitimizing function for the powers that be: all areas of government that upheld legitimacy, state or urban, were by extension part of a welfare system. This aligns with the research of sociologist Barrington Moore Jr., who has argued that the material welfare of the people has always been one of any given authority’s most important tasks. According to Moore, however, the precise nature of these tasks, and how to uphold them, has varied between cultures and over time.10 The authors in this volume expand on Moore’s description by incorporating non-material services into the definition of urban welfare. Thus, the following chapters contain various examples of welfare and public services that include not only infrastructure and housing projects but also health care, education, outdoor life and entertainment. Such a broad definition enables an interpretation of the whole range of changes in urban politics and in the management of cities, specifically during the period 1850–1940. Another benefit of including a variety of services is that it captures the wide range of political problems that municipal leadership was confronted with. One trait typical of municipal administration in this period was the expansion of urban politics and the establishment of an urban political domain. Compared with the very limited management of cities and towns during the early modern period, changes in the 1800s were all-inclusive, and local administrators started to take an interest in many aspects of citizens’ everyday lives, including the physical appearance of the city.11 This draws on the work of Ben Ansell and Johannes Lindvall, who define public services as services that ‘shape and transform people’. Ansell and Lindvall connect public services to social improvement and a quest to enhance the living conditions of the citizens.12 This broad definition of welfare and public services helps to define the concept of the welfare city itself. Henceforward, the welfare city is understood as the political vision of municipal authorities to expand and improve public services. It highlights a political shift that occurred when municipal leadership abandoned parsimony in favour of investment in citizens’ well-being. This includes not

4  Magnus Linnarsson only material forms of services such as tramways and hospitals but also social services such as education and health care. The welfare city is thus a concept that encapsulates social, economic and cultural transformations in the welfare of urban communities. Political problems of the past have inspired this definition, but it also takes its cue from ongoing debates where the concept of the welfare city is used to discuss how present-day cities and urban communities can lead the way in reforming social and environmental policy when national governments fail. This means addressing segregation and economic inequality, as well as promoting a sustainable urban environment. There is a growing amount of scholarly literature discussing the necessary changes in public policy matters.13 A historical perspective, however, is often lacking. This book, which discusses how Nordic cities launched reform policies to meet the social and environmental issues of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is an important contribution to this discussion. Consequently, this book presents a new approach to the study of welfare cities in the Nordic countries since 1850. From then on, local politicians abandoned the traditional ideal of financial austerity in order to tackle the political and social problems in their cities. This approach draws on scholarship that has uncovered ways in which urban areas were in fact the drivers of societal change at that time.14 This was partly the politics of necessity, as urban areas all over Europe witnessed increased political and social conflict. Still, the crucial reforms were decided by local politicians, thus making a strong case for the importance of studying urban politics. This book, moreover, presents a wider approach to welfare studies, discussing expanding public services, social housing policies, new urban leisure areas and popular entertainment as tools for promoting social inclusion and urban citizenship. It also addresses the legitimacy and durability of urban government in times of social conflict. Taken together, the various chapters discuss interpretations of welfare politics that expand the traditional focus on health care, education and social services, as they also focus on the arena of urban politics. Furthermore, the three great processes of increased urbanization, continued industrialization and a final breakthrough for capitalism and a market-oriented business merged during the nineteenth century.15 Together, these processes created tensions in urban communities as more and more people competed for jobs and sustenance. To handle both social conflict and deteriorated living conditions, local politicians were forced to take action. For example, sanitary measures had to be implemented to accommodate more inhabitants in the city, and infrastructure had to be built to regulate water and electricity, as well as to transport workers to and from the factories. Thus, the welfare city entered the picture. This introductory chapter serves two purposes. First, it introduces and discusses the municipal changes that took place in Europe from 1850 onwards and briefly describes the changes in the Nordic countries specifically. This serves to

The Nordic welfare city 5 place the welfare city, as defined earlier, in its historical and historiographical context. As previously mentioned, the main argument of this book is that urban welfare reforms predated, and anticipated, reforms on a national level, hence putting the emergence of the welfare city before that of the welfare state. Therefore, the contributing chapters in the book all elaborate on various aspects of the Nordic welfare city since 1850. The second purpose of this introduction is to briefly introduce the individual chapters, setting the scene for an analysis of the Nordic welfare city in this period, to which the book returns in the concluding chapter on types and dimensions. Municipal intervention and reforms in the nineteenth century From the middle of the nineteenth century, like their counterparts on the continent and in Britain, the political leaders of the cities in the Nordic countries were faced with the task of managing the rising challenges of an expanding city. In this period, Europe experienced a renaissance where both the idea of the city as a politically autonomous community and demands for municipal reforms were articulated. The Nordic countries gradually introduced municipal self-­ government, and municipal authorities increasingly gained control over local affairs.16 The position of local urban government within a national institutional framework became common in Europe and the Nordic countries in the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century. In Norway and Denmark, municipal legislation was already introduced in 1837, which was subsequently revised in Denmark in 1869.17 Sweden implemented a municipal reform in 1862, and Finland followed with their initial reforms in 1863.18 The Nordic countries gradually reformed municipal self-government, following a pan-European trajectory that coincided with rapid population growth and a liberalization of trade and commerce. Pierre-Yves Saunier has described it as a first wave of municipalization and the introduction of a ‘municipal condition’.19 In this case, the Nordic region is of particular interest due to its obscurity in earlier research, as well as to the general perception of it as a homogeneous political and social region. The question is how extensive the reforms of the welfare city in Nordic cities and towns were, and whether there are any specific Nordic traits in this development. These themes will be explored by the authors in this book. One of the most important features of the municipal condition was the establishment of city councils, a new institution in the mid-1800s. This was a representative body that gradually replaced older forms of urban governance, such as magistrates, and old institutions, such as boards of aldermen and the like. Although it was new, it was largely based on these older organizational forms and they often existed in parallel for many years. The members of the city council were typically elected by the freemen of the city; nevertheless, it should not be mistaken for a democratic body. Rather, eligible members of the council consisted of the wealthiest male citizens, such as merchants, manufacturers and

6  Magnus Linnarsson landowners. Over time, it also came to include emerging professional groups such as lawyers and local administrators. Consequently, the council became the most important political arena for competition and conflict between the established elites within a city or town. This development was similar across Europe, and the Nordic countries followed a path where political participation in urban politics increased over time.20 At the same time, the municipal government experienced steady growth as the local administration expanded, and the previous small-sized civic bureaucracy was replaced with a more professional organization.21 From this point onwards, the municipalities and the local politicians played a crucial role in creating a stronger public sector. Rapid urbanization triggered social problems that led local politicians to engage in improving conditions for the working poor. A distinct feature of urban politics in the nineteenth century was, however, an aversion to increased taxation. The ruling elites consisted predominantly of the wealthiest property owners, what John Garrard has called an ‘urban squirearchy’.22 These urban politicians combined traits from early modern modes of ruling with their positions in the new industrialized economy, influenced by laissez-faire ideas. They were hostile to all kinds of spending on behalf of the city, as well as raising any taxes in order to acquire the money to do so. This established an understanding of the city itself as an institution where taxes should be minimized, and parsimony towards public spending became the order of urban politics.23 This meant that proposals for public investment increasingly led to political disputes and even outright conflict. As a consequence, several potential improvements, such as sanitary and social reforms for city residents, were severely delayed. One famous example is Hamburg, as Richard Evans has shown, where a ruling patrician class of property owners tenaciously resisted the construction and expansion of a water filtration system in the city, arguing that it would be too expensive. A filtration system would likely have reduced the effects of the cholera epidemic that struck Hamburg in 1892 and killed more than 8,600 people.24 The dominance of austerity and parsimony, however, gradually changed in the second half of the nineteenth century. The reason was foremost water, the Hamburg cholera tragedy being a case in point. Starting in Britain already in the 1840s, boosted by sanitary science, more and more local authorities invested in freshwater infrastructure and implemented new regulations on public services in general.25 This process marked a shift in urban politics, as the initiative came to rest in the hands of the public authorities instead of private companies. The expansion and construction of waterworks are good examples of the kind of change that occurred when new types of public services were introduced. Throughout Europe, private companies had pioneered the expansion of urban infrastructure, typically in the form of water, electricity and gas.26 In many European cities, waterworks were built by private companies; they were perceived as profitable businesses by their owners. Widespread dissatisfaction with how they ran these businesses, though, soon led many local governments to take over.27 One example is Glasgow, which, as Hamish Fraser has shown, was one of the

The Nordic welfare city 7 first British cities to use municipal authority to improve social conditions. Widespread frustration amongst Glaswegian politicians concerning the two private water companies’ running of the waterworks led to a majority of the city council supporting a purchase of the companies.28 The building and operation of infrastructural systems thus encompass both contestation and resistance, as well as political conflict. In his study of Berlin, Timothy Moss emphasizes that infrastructure is politics.29 Likewise, Andreas Marklund and Mogens Rüdiger have claimed that infrastructure is a historical construction: partly technical, but also consisting of people and their relationship to the technology.30 Consequently, urban historians have recently focused on the history of urban infrastructure in a broader sense, talking about an ‘infrastructural turn’ and analysing the relationship between infrastructure, welfare and public services.31 This is a reaction against what Stefan Höhne has called the peripheral position of infrastructure within urban theory.32 Building on this research, scholars have claimed that the future nationalization of urban public services and infrastructure made the welfare state possible, as it was deduced from the development on the municipal level. Hence, the welfare city preceded the welfare state. Freshwater supply and sewage were amongst the first problems to be addressed by local authorities. Both were closely connected and hotly debated all over Europe. Inadequate sewage systems were one of the main causes of disease and deteriorating health in the urban areas of Europe in the 1800s. The introduction of water-borne sewage systems was, however, a costly investment for local politicians. Even if cities started to spend more money on public infrastructure, a more general expansion of the sewage systems did not take place until the end of the century.33 Another example of a health-improving measure was the construction of market halls for selling food. As it was argued in, among other places, Stockholm, the market halls were one way to increase the standard of hygiene around food sales, but it was also, as shown by Jenny Lee, a manifestation of a growing concern for the consuming public.34 Yet another example of such measures was the relocation of slaughterhouses from city centres to the outskirts of the city, decreasing the number of animals in the city.35 The broad expansion of modern sewage systems, as well as the availability of fresh water, was a trans-European development, whereby the urban centres of Europe learned from each other. In Copenhagen, for example, the water supply system was expanded as a response to the growth of the city, and inspiration was drawn from London, Berlin and Paris.36 In Stockholm, likewise, experts from England were consulted when the first waterwork was planned and eventually started its operation in 1861.37 Scholars studying these processes in the Nordic countries have demonstrated how networks of professionals promoted the spread of new technology and administrative know-how.38 Beginning in the 1850s, a shift in the relationship between political bodies and private enterprise unfolded in Europe, escalating not only extensive investments in infrastructure systems such as sanitation, public transport and electrification

8  Magnus Linnarsson

Figure 1.1 A main water pipe was laid in the waters of Norrström in Stockholm in 1897. Freshwater pipes were one of the earliest expansions of the welfare city, beginning in the late 1800s. Source: Stockholm City Museum, photographer unknown.

but also the regulation of their operation.39 These changes, however, were not limited to physical infrastructure: they also included social reforms such as education and health care. A paradoxical consequence of this shift was that it benefitted not only the public interest but also the industrialists. In their not-unusual position as both local politicians and entrepreneurs, they became more and more entangled in local affairs. One example of this, as shown by Martin Daunton and other British historians, is when political leaders started regulating prices on utility goods such as gas, coal and energy.40 In general terms, this shift can be described as the end of classic laissez-faire capitalism and the dawn of an era where state and municipal interventions into private business operations became the order of the day, in many cases based on arguments defending the common interest of the citizens.41 The process from private to public has been explained as a result of the growing role of the state at the expense of the market.42 This book takes a different approach. The contributors do recognize that the state has been an important agent for centralization and the management of public services.43 Putting too

The Nordic welfare city 9 much emphasis on the state level, however, skews the chronology of the historical development of both public services as institutions, as well as the notion of an increasing responsibility towards one’s fellow citizens. The shift from private to public management of these services first took place in an urban context, as local governments and municipal authorities worked to address the social and practical problems of increased urbanization in the nineteenth century. Modernity is somewhat connected to the expansion of the city in the decades surrounding 1900. In Germany, municipal authorities strove to create a modern city. The path forward was to embrace modern technologies, regulate business and expand the influence of local administration. This programme was forcefully implemented in German cites and became known as ‘municipal socialism’, a concrete political programme where local civil servants controlled and planned urban growth and expansion.44 The various parts of this programme differed from city to city, of course; however, its major trait was the ambition to establish better living conditions for the inhabitants of the city by utilizing the power and resources of municipal administration.45 The municipal socialism of turn-of-the-century Germany followed the previous development in Britain. As the example of the Glasgow waterwork shows, British cities and towns had already begun to reform their municipal social policies and take over what was seen as important municipal infrastructure in the 1850s. Besides Glasgow, municipal socialism was also strong in Birmingham.46 Other European examples include Belgium, a centre for the municipal socialist movement after the turn of the century; the movement also later became influential in Spain, until the outbreak of the Civil War.47 The advance of local authorities inevitably politicized urban government. The label itself, ‘municipal socialism’, denotes a policy in opposition to conservative values and ideas. Consequently, parts of the programme of municipal socialism were already associated with the emerging socialist movement by its contemporaries. One example of this is the prominence of municipal action within the socialist movement in Paris in 1900. At the fifth international socialist congress, the question of whether socialists should take up positions within local administration was debated. The congress eventually agreed upon a resolution that participation in local government was a legitimate strategy in the struggle for a socialist society.48 By implementing municipal socialism, German cities and towns were the role models for urban reformers of the day. City planners, engineers and architects were inspired by municipal governments in Germany, and several municipal exhibitions were held in German cities in the early 1910s.49 Drawing on previous municipal takeovers in Britain, German municipal socialists continued to resent private interest in what were perceived to be municipal activities. They claimed that private initiatives in certain areas, such as street cleaning and waste collection, would only serve the self-interest of the entrepreneur. Instead, they asserted the superiority of public ownership, as it would guarantee access for

10  Magnus Linnarsson everyone and efficient operation for all inhabitants in the city.50 These arguments were echoed in the Nordic countries. In Sweden, for example, these claims led to a shift in politics where effective operation of public services became linked to public management.51 The trend towards public organization was transnational in character. From the mid-nineteenth century, as emphasized by Pierre-Yves Saunier, municipal urban governments became part of structures and organizational frameworks that facilitated transnational activities.52 The leaders of Nordic cities were part of this process and followed the development in other parts of Europe closely. The Danish historian Søren Kolstrup has shown how municipal socialism, combined with social democratic political dominance, was one important part of the emergence of the Danish welfare state. According to Kolstrup, at the turn of the twentieth century, cities and towns in Denmark experimented with different welfare solutions that were later picked up by the state.53 Likewise, Saunier has labelled these processes as ‘municipal experiments’. Similarly to Kolstrup, he claims that the emergence of the welfare state was an extrapolation from these urban contexts.54 In other words, social reforms were first carried out at the municipal level, pioneering the development of the modern welfare state. There are many potential explanations for the shift towards municipalization and the expansion of public services. They do differ, however, depending on context and period in time. Municipal socialism, for example, has been used to explain developments at the turn of the twentieth century, but the shift towards municipalization had started earlier. As Robert Millward has shown, municipal socialism as an ideology is not enough to explain changes in the management and regulation of public services from the 1850s onwards.55 Instead, Millward emphasizes the importance of rights of way for the building of large infrastructure and the eventual possibility for municipalities to make money off of various services.56 Yet another explanation is the consequences of World War I. Local authorities were forced to take responsibility for basic needs such as housing, food and sanitation, for refugees and locals alike both during and after the war. The war thus expanded the activities of local governments, as they became the primary suppliers of public services.57 The contributions in this book discuss different facets of the emergence of the welfare city. They all, however, ground themselves in the notion that general patterns are the result of local solutions. Using empirical evidence from the Nordic countries, they provide new interpretations of the expansion of public services and the establishment of the welfare city. Knowledge about this process is important, not only for our historical understanding of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century but also for contemporary discussions about today’s welfare cities and how to create more sustainable and socially inclusive urban communities. More than a hundred years ago, politicians in Nordic cities succeeded in realizing an expansive social policy in spite of severe financial constraints. This book claims that the mechanisms fuelling this process may hold important clues for the reformulation of public interest in the twenty-first century.

The Nordic welfare city 11 Nordic welfare cities in a changing world The book consists of nine chapters that analyse various parts of the Nordic welfare city. In the first chapter, Mikkel Thelle addresses the question of urban citizenship, using the example of water in Copenhagen from c. 1850 to the post-war period. In 1859, the city established a municipal water system. In the decades that followed, access to water became a welfare service provided by the city, first in municipal bathing halls, but then in private homes as well. Thus, in his chapter, Thelle explores the development of urban welfare citizenship through the example of water. This process represents a negotiation between various interests in the city, as urban water involves rights and duties for the citizens, a phenomenon that could be called infrastructured citizenship. The municipalization process in Norway is surveyed in the next chapter. Knut Dørum argues that Norwegian cities and towns in the period 1850–1920 had specific traits that facilitated the development of the welfare city. These Norwegian communities had a long tradition of collective ownership and organization of common affairs. They also had a socioeconomic structure different from their Nordic neighbours. Dørum shows how, together with an early introduction of municipal reforms (1837), the cities in Norway were among the first to enforce real municipal government. This process, however, also led to conflicts between the reformers and conservatives from the old elite. Alongside hard infrastructure such as tramways and waterpipes, the welfare city also comprised leisure welfare services. Using the example of theatre, Christina Reimann shows how the question of access to cultural infrastructure was a central theme in the making of the welfare city. In the city of Gothenburg in Sweden, the different theatres, both private and public, were an important part of the growing urban society, and as such, they became part of public debate. Reimann shows the role of the theatres in creating a new popular culture and, therefore, expands the perception of what, and whom, the welfare city should include. The theatres were part of a negotiation of urban citizenship as they developed into a public cultural infrastructure. In her chapter, Marjaana Niemi grapples with the expansion of suburbs in Helsinki in the late 1800s. As a response to rigid and slow urban planning, the inhabitants of Helsinki took to the fringes of the city. A new urban space was created on the unregulated land areas outside the city centre, including housing, workshops and factories. As Niemi shows, these suburban areas had limited access to the expanding welfare services of the city itself. The example of Hermanni and Fredriksberg demonstrates that municipal authorities considered these areas to be temporary places with negligible need for regulation. Instead, they were perceived as a future resource for the expansion of the welfare city. A typical conflict within urban politics at the turn of the twentieth century was the clash between public and private management of public services. This is surveyed in Mats Hallenberg’s chapter on tramways in Stockholm and Kristiania c. 1900. Tramways represented modernity and had been established in the

12  Magnus Linnarsson second half of the 1800s. The tramway also, however, represented a business opportunity, and private entrepreneurs were often the ones who built and operated the tramlines. Hallenberg analyses two debates in the city councils where the question of municipal takeover was discussed. The debates show that the tramways were indeed perceived as a public service and an important part of the welfare city. Social democrats and conservatives, however, had very different views on how these services should be organized. The connection between local and national politics is in focus in the chapter by Kati Katajisto. The welfare city expanded in tandem with the nation-state, and in the case of Helsinki after the Finnish Civil War (1918), this was even more evident. Katajisto shows how the municipal council in Helsinki was absolutely necessary and central to the process of reconstruction and reconciliation after the war. Municipal democracy enabled debates over questions such as inclusion, welfare and equity. The debates thus contributed to the creation of the welfare city, based on negotiations and democratic values. The next chapter returns to the perspective of infrastructural citizenship, this time in the first half of the twentieth century. Mikkel Høghøj studies the socalled slum areas of Copenhagen. These areas, located in the central parts of the city, became the subject of redevelopment plans in the 1940s. These plans gave the authorities of Copenhagen the mandate to evict tenants perceived as having doubtful behavioural standards. Part of this process was the introduction of housing inspections. Høghøj shows how this gave the inhabitants in slum areas a position to bargain with the city regarding the shortcomings of the public services there. These negotiations offered a possibility for the occupants to become citizens of the emerging welfare city. Staying in Copenhagen, the next chapter draws on the consequences of increased time for leisure activities following industrialization. In Copenhagen, the aristocracy had established holiday homes on the coast outside of the city since the early modern period. In the first half of the twentieth century, it became possible for ordinary people to acquire holiday homes. The welfare city thus expanded beyond the city limits. In his chapter, Henning Bro surveys the conflicts surrounding these holiday villages. Holiday homes became a contested political issue, pitting homeowners against those who argued for free access to the coastal line. Bro shows how the city of Copenhagen and the national government, after a prolonged conflict, secured access to important areas of the coast for the less-affluent citizens, hence enlarging the scope of the welfare city. In the last chapter of the book, the chronological focus changes. Taking a macro perspective on Sweden, Heiko Droste follows the expanding welfare city from the turn of the twentieth century until today. Droste presents a typology that includes three different types of welfare cities. The first is the expanding welfare city at the turn of the century, the second type emerges after World War II when welfare at the local level was organized and managed on behalf of the state and the third type, which emerged in the 1990s, again involves municipal, religious and social institutions as part of local communities. In his chapter, Droste shows

The Nordic welfare city 13 how the emerging welfare state intervened in welfare city policies and eventually integrated them in the post-war Swedish welfare state. The concept of the welfare city thus remains a valid tool for analysing the relationships between local and national governments in the twenty-first century. Finally, the book concludes with a chapter by Mats Hallenberg and Magnus Linnarsson. Here, the interpretations in the various chapters are put together, and an analysis of the Nordic welfare city is discussed. The chapter also proposes a typology of the Nordic welfare city. Notes 1 Robert J. Morris and Richard H. Trainor, eds., Urban Governance: Britain and Beyond Since 1750 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000); Mikael Hård and Marcus Stippak, “Progressive Dreams: The German City in Britain and the United States,” in Urban Machinery: Inside Modern European Cities, ed. Mikael Hård and Thomas J. Misa (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008); Friedrich Lenger, European Cities in the Modern Era, 1850–1914 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), chap. 2. 2 Gøsta Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Cambridge: Polity, 1990). 3 On the Nordic welfare state, see Niels Finn Christiansen et al., eds., The Nordic Model of Welfare: A Historical Reappraisal (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2006); Pauli Kettunen and Klaus Petersen, eds., Beyond Welfare State Models: Transnational Historical Perspectives on Social Policy (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2010); Sven E. O. Hort, Social Policy, Welfare State, and Civil Society in Sweden Vol. 1 History, Policies, and Institutions 1884–1988, 3rd ed. (Lund: Arkiv Academic Press, 2014). For a conceptual perspective on the welfare state, see Nils Edling, ed., The Changing Meanings of the Welfare State: Histories of a Key Concept in the ­Nordic Countries (New York: Berghahn Books, 2019). 4 Michèle Dagenais and Pierre-Yves Saunier, “Tales of the Periphery: An Outline Survey of Municipal Employees and Services in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” in Municipal Services and Employees in the Modern City: New Historic Approaches, ed. Michèle Dagenais, Irene Maver, and Pierre-Yves Saunier (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 17. 5 An omission in the existing research, recently noticed by Ben W. Ansell and Johannes Lindvall, Inward Conquest: The Political Origins of Modern Public Services (­Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 11–13. 6 Tom Hulme, “Putting the City Back Into Citizenship: Civics Education and Local Government in Britain, 1918–45,” Twentieth Century British History 26, no. 1 (2015): 26–51; Maarten Prak, Citizens Without Nations: Urban Citizenship in Europe and the World, c.1000–1789 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018); Simon Gunn et al., “Cities, Infrastructure and the Making of Modern Citizenship: The View From North-West Europe Since c. 1870,” Urban History (March 25, 2022): 1–19. 7 A notable exception is Peter Clark, who includes Helsinki as one of his cases in his book, European Cities and Towns 400–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 8 Niels Albertsen and Bülent Diken, “Welfare and the City,” Nordic Journal of Architectural Research 17, no. 2 (2004): 7–22. 9 Juhani Lehto, “Different Cities in Different Welfare States,” in Cities in Contemporary Europe, ed. Arnaldo Bagnasco and Patrick Le Galès (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 112–30.

14  Magnus Linnarsson 10 Barrington Moore Jr., Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt (London: Macmillan, 1978), 21–22. 11 Dagenais and Saunier, “Tales of the Periphery,” 15–16. 12 Ansell and Lindvall, Inward Conquest, 15–16. 13 Examples are Kimberly Etingoff, ed., Sustainable Cities: Urban Planning Challenges and Policy (New York: Apple Academic Press, 2015); Ombretta Caldarice, Reconsidering Welfare Policies in Times of Crisis (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018). 14 Daniel T. Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998); Hård and Stippak, “Progressive Dreams.” 15 As emphasized by Ansell and Lindvall, Inward Conquest, 28–31. 16 Lars Nilsson and Håkan Forsell, 150 år av självstyrelse: kommuner och landsting i förändring (Stockholm: Sveriges kommuner och landsting, 2013), 12. 17 Knut Dørum, Frå undersått til medborgar: styreform og politisk kultur i Noreg 1669 til 1814 (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 2016), 142–44; Henning Bro, Hovedstadsmetropolen – den danske byregion, vol. 1 (Köpenhamn: Frydenlund Academic, 2023), 170–71. 18 Nilsson and Forsell, 150 år av självstyrelse, 12–14. 19 Pierre-Yves Saunier, “Global City. Take 2: A View From Urban History,” in Another Global City: Historical Explorations Into the Transnational Municipal Moment, 1850–2000, ed. Pierre-Yves Saunier and Shane Ewen (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 11. 20 Nilsson and Forsell, 150 år av självstyrelse, 16–17; Simon Gunn and Tom Hulme, “Introduction: Unravelling Urban Governance,” in New Approaches to Governance and Rule in Urban Europe Since 1500, ed. Simon Gunn and Tom Hulme (New York: Routledge, 2020), 5–6. 21 Dagenais and Saunier, “Tales of the Periphery,” 15–20; Clark, European Cities and Towns, 337. 22 John Garrard, “Urban Elites, 1850–1914: The Rule and Decline of a New Squirearchy?” Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned With British Studies 27, no. 4 (1995): 585–86. 23 Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings, 118; Clark, European Cities and Towns, 336. 24 Richard J. Evans, Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years, 1830–1910 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 151–61, death numbers on p. 295. 25 Robert Millward and Robert Ward, “From Private to Public Ownership of Gas Undertakings in England and Wales, 1851–1947: Chronology, Incidence and Causes,” Business History 35, no. 3 (1993): 1–21; Hamish Fraser, “Municipal Socialism and Social Policy,” in The Victorian City: A Reader in British Urban History, 1820–1914, ed. R. J. Morris and Richard Rodger (London: Longman, 1993), 258–80. 26 Robert Millward, Private and Public Enterprise in Europe: Energy, Telecommunications and Transport, 1830–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 289–92; Dieter Schott, “Empowering European Cities: Gas and Electricity in the Urban Environment,” in Urban Machinery: Inside Modern European Cities, ed. Mikael Hård and Thomas J. Misa (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008), 166–67, 174–75. 27 Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings, 115; Lenger, European Cities in the Modern Era, 148. 28 Fraser, “Municipal Socialism and Social Policy,” 260. 29 Timothy Moss, Remaking Berlin: A History of the City Through Infrastructure, 1920– 2020 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2020), 26–27. 30 Andreas Marklund and Mogens Rüdiger, “Historicizing Infrastructure. After the Material Turn,” in Historicizing Infrastructure, ed. Andreas Marklund and Mogens Rüdiger (Aalborg: Aalborg University Press, 2017), 7.

The Nordic welfare city 15 31 Stefan Höhne, “An Endless Flow of Machines to Serve the City: Infrastructural Assemblages and the Quest for the Metropolis,” in Thick Space: Approaches to Metropolitanism, ed. Dorothee Brantz, Sasha Disko, and Georg Wagner-Kyora (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2012), 146–47; Recent historiography on urban history and infrastructure are presented in Gunn et al., “Cities, Infrastructure and the Making of Modern Citizenship,” 3–7; see also Moss, Remaking Berlin, 8–9. 32 Höhne, “An Endless Flow of Machines to Serve the City,” 144. 33 Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings, 119; Lenger, European Cities in the Modern Era, 147–48. 34 Jenny Lee, The Market Hall Revisited: Cultures of Consumption in Urban Food Retail During the Long Twentieth Century (Linköping: Linköping University, 2009), 62, 71–72, 81. 35 Lenger, European Cities in the Modern Era, 153. 36 Mikkel Thelle, “Storskifte under tryk: vandets infrastruktur og rum i København,” Temp – tidsskrift for historie, no. 18 (2019): 81–83. 37 Anders Cronström, Stockholms tekniska historia. Vattenförsörjning och avlopp, vol. 3 (Stockholm: Liber Förlag, 1986), 16–25. 38 Marjatta Hietala, Services and Urbanization at the Turn of the Century: The Diffusion of Innovations (Helsinki: SHS, 1987); Henrik Björck, Folkhemsbyggare (Stockholm: Atlantis, 2008). 39 Millward, Private and Public Enterprise in Europe, 289–90; Judith Clifton, Pierre Lanthier, and Harm Schröter, “Regulating and Deregulating the Public Utilities 1830–2010,” Business History 53, no. 5 (2011): 660–62. 40 Martin Daunton and Matthew Hilton, The Politics of Consumption: Material Culture and Citizenship in Europe and America (Oxford: Berg, 2001); Millward and Ward, “From Private to Public Ownership of Gas Undertakings in England and Wales, 1851–1947.” 41 Mats Hallenberg and Magnus Linnarsson, “The Quest for Publicness: Political Conflict about the Organisation of Tramways and Telecommunication in Sweden, c. 1900–1920,” Scandinavian Economic History Review 65, no. 1 (2017): 84–85. 42 Clifton, Lanthier, and Schröter, “Regulating and Deregulating the Public Utilities 1830–2010,” 659–60; Millward, Private and Public Enterprise in Europe, 91–92; Pier Angelo Toninelli, “The Rise and Fall of Public Enterprise: The Framework,” in The Rise and Fall of State-Owned Enterprise in the Western World, ed. Pier Angelo Toninelli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 14–17. 43 This draws and expands on Ansell and Lindvall, Inward Conquest. 44 Hård and Stippak, “Progressive Dreams,” 122. 45 A recent book on the global history of municipal socialism is Shelton Stromquist, Claiming the City: A Global History of Workers’ Fight for Municipal Socialism (London: Verso Books, 2023). 46 Fraser, “Municipal Socialism and Social Policy,” 260–63; Jules P. Gehrke, “A Radical Endeavor: Joseph Chamberlain and the Emergence of Municipal Socialism in Birmingham,” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology 75, no. 1 (2016): 23–57. 47 Patrizia Dogliani, “European Municipalism in the First Half of the Twentieth Century: The Socialist Network,” Contemporary European History 11, no. 4 (2002): 577–78; Santiago de Miguel Salanova, “Providing the Modern City: Urban Patterns of Socialist Municipal Action in Madrid (1905–1936),” Journal of Urban History 0, no. 0 (2022): 1–28. 48 Dogliani, “European Municipalism in the First Half of the Twentieth Century,” 578– 79; Lenger, European Cities in the Modern Era, 186–87.

16  Magnus Linnarsson 49 Hietala, Services and Urbanization, 358; Hård and Stippak, “Progressive Dreams,” 123. 50 Hård and Stippak, “Progressive Dreams,” 122. 51 Magnus Linnarsson and Mats Hallenberg, “The Shifting Politics of Public Services: Discourses, Arguments, and Institutional Change in Sweden, c. 1620–2000,” Journal of Policy History 32, no. 4 (2020): 478. 52 Saunier, “Global City. Take 2,” 9; see also Hietala, Services and Urbanization, 394–95. 53 Søren Kolstrup, Velfærdsstatens rødder: fra kommunesocialisme til folkepension (København: Selskabet til Forskning i Arbejderbevægelsens Historie, 1996), 455. 54 Saunier, “Global City. Take 2,” 10. 55 Millward, Private and Public Enterprise in Europe, 92, 290–91. 56 Ibid., 92–93. 57 Dogliani, “European Municipalism in the First Half of the Twentieth Century,” 585.

2 Negotiating water and citizenship in Copenhagen 1850–1950 Mikkel Thelle

In 2020, marine archaeologists were investigating the harbour of Copenhagen. Called upon by the municipal port authority, they were doing a standard search of the area before the seabed would be covered in the hitherto largest public building project in the city’s history, Lynetteholmen. While looking around the northern part of the harbour basin, mostly for Iron Age or medieval remains, the team suddenly encountered a large entity, which turned out to be a pipe of 900 m. The city and national museum chose to cut out 2.5 m for further inspection and conservation, and subsequently, the pipe was dated to close to 1900. Thoroughly built with an outer cover of beech tree and an inner layer of pine, the pipe had been forced down by sand and gravel inserted between the two layers. Without the sand, the cut-out had a weight of approximately 900 kg, and when dried by the conservation team, it weighed a little less than 400 kg. The massive underwater object turned out to be a remnant from one of the capital’s largest municipal undertakings in the twentieth century: the first comprehensive sewer system of Copenhagen. We shall return to the context of its origin below; for now, it suffices to say that this pipe fragment can provide an excellent entry to the welfare city as it will be approached in this chapter. As a material monument, it represents the large investments city councils were ready to make for handling water and sewer circulation at the time, although these were not limited to Danish or Nordic cities. This was also the case in Britain, and especially Austria and Germany where Danish municipal engineers got their inspiration from. However, the funding varied greatly, and the exclusively public funding of the Copenhagen infrastructure was maybe more similar to its Nordic neighbours than the central European cities, especially the British Isles. The heavy object testifies to the period where Copenhagen, like other larger cities, including in the Nordic region, became pipe-bound.1 A closer look reveals a high-quality work of heartwood by skilled craftsmen. As neither stainless steel nor enforced concrete had become available in these amounts, wood was the reasonable option. In order to keep water and faeces separated, and in order to last, the pipe had to be well crafted. All in all, this tells us about a period in urban history where new technologies were emerging DOI: 10.4324/9781003379232-2

18  Mikkel Thelle alongside new paradigms of hygiene, but where craftsmanship was closely interwoven with large infrastructures. As I will try to show in the following, this interweaving is visible in the material spaces, resources and infrastructures of the city around 1900. This entanglement also included changes in hygiene and political outlook. The access, knowledge, claims and practices associated with urban water networks are connected to the ways in which the inhabitants of the capital were included and excluded, as well as the ways in which rights and duties were negotiated. Urban water, I argue, became a medium for negotiating urban citizenship, and by following it, we may see other aspects of this citizenship as well. The text will first take stock of recent Danish historiography that has explored the concept of citizenship. It is striking how an interest in this perspective has grown from very different positions, and this section also serves to present this field, albeit briefly. Using this discussion, the focus will then move to the process of establishing Copenhagen’s networked water system, chronologically shifting to the different wet spaces that were built on it and the citizenship negotiations afforded by this process as a whole. Citizenship, welfare and the urban: recent positions One theme central to the welfare history of cities is the negotiation between state and urban levels. This is not a new topic in itself, as some of the earliest research on welfare cities promoted the idea that many features of the welfare state have their origins in urban practices and politics (Kolstrup 1996).2 However, more specific studies linking welfare politics to everyday life have been published in the last couple of years. For example, in a recent analysis of children placed in care by authorities, historian Cecilie Bjerre points out how the urban and state levels functioned differently, oftentimes contesting each other. In the long period from 1905 to 1975, the conditions according to which children were chosen and placed were negotiated at the municipality level, which interpreted the national legislation rather independent of the state.3 A similar result is part of a historical research report on the special care system, done within the framework of the Danish Welfare Museum.4 Concluding that the special care system had several shortcomings in the period 1933–1980, the report also shows that the criteria for assessment and decision often lay at the local or institutional level and were not standardized nationally. The municipal level as the arena for negotiating public services also appears in historian Leonora Lottrup’s study of poverty relief from the constitution to the first national poverty law, that is, the period 1848–1892.5 Lottrup suggests widening the citizenship concept to a more processual notion including more informal practices and thus shows how social citizenship is negotiated at the municipal level in different and hybrid ways. Here the poor themselves frequently gain advantages through certain representations, as in letters of application or the display of proper behaviour. Lottrup draws on the case of Aarhus’ poverty gardens as an example of these citizenship negotiations, and

Negotiating water and citizenship in Copenhagen 1850–1950 19 shows in more detail, how, in the first instance, the garden rights are granted without the loss of other rights – to vote, for example – which is usually taken as a core mechanism of the welfare system. Further, the poverty gardens function as tools for disciplining the poor; on the other hand, however, the poor could benefit from the garden’s produce, and even sell off what they did not need for their own household. Thus, citizenship is negotiated here, in terms of both formal and informal rights and duties, and according to parameters very different from the state legislation. The preservation or renovation of urban space creates another field for this negotiation, as shown by historian Christian Buhl Thomsen. Investigating ideological and political contestations in several Danish cities from the first Danish sanitation law in 1939 up until 1990, he outlines how a novel urban renewal strategy began to take hold.6 Two main groups shaped this development: the modernist direction, which advocated for the renovation of entire neighbourhoods, and, in Thomsen’s terms, the romantic group, which was more locally rooted and advocated for building improvements and preservation, a more subtle strategy that influenced the notion of urban renewal in legislation in 1983. Across these studies, we can see how the local or municipal level, even down to the individual citizen, is emphasized in the negotiation of rights and duties, as well as the functions and aesthetics, of public space. The modernism that Thomsen addresses is also present in the work of historian Mikkel Høghøj, who, in a study of two greater Aarhus plans from 1954 and 1966, suggests that modernist planning should be seen through the concept of ‘welfare geographies’, where the material space is thought to foster good citizens – or subjects – who internalize the values of planned spaces. In another study, he also, albeit differently, emphasizes the interplay between and entangled character of materiality and imagination in the ‘high welfare period’ of the 1960s and 1970s. Høghøj shows how large-scale mass housing complexes were planned to account for all the needs of a welfare citizen, such as shopping centres, garbage systems, parking lots and sports facilities – a geography that was charged with ideas of progressive dwelling, equality and leisure during the late 1960s. However, these notions changed rather suddenly in the early 1970s, Høghøj argues, when the ‘concrete jungle’ came to signify social problems, wrong aesthetics and an estranged working-class experience.7 The perspective of ‘welfare’ negotiation between local practices and materialities on the one hand and political decision-making on the other hand is also present in a number of recent studies on infrastructure and citizenship, spurred by an ‘infrastructural turn’ in the social sciences and humanities since the 2010s.8 A pervasive theme in this research is the distribution and conditions of access, that is inclusion versus exclusion afforded by infrastructures, and questions about how these change over time during different ‘regimes’.9 The notion of welfare has been intensively researched, also within the historical field, and has attracted interest not least in the most recent two decades.10 Together with public debate, this can create rather durable categories, such as

20  Mikkel Thelle ‘the elderly’, which is the object of Anders Møller’s ethnological inquiry into the ‘worthy elderly’, where he points to the ways in which administrative practices have defined the category of elderly people after the 1892 Act on elderly care granted rights to this group.11 Then, Møller shows, the category becomes ‘populated’ by the subjects using certain services and material structures, such as retirement homes. Through these practices, the elderly became configured as welfare citizens in a negotiation between legislation, practices and material spaces, that, as it appears, were almost exclusively urban. Furthermore, in a recent anthology historians Niklas Olsen, Jesper Køber and Heidi Jønsson have promoted the notion of the ‘citizen category’ as both an indicator and a driver of change in a welfare society.12 Here, the concept of a category is used to show how welfare politics was legitimized through certain discursive and social figures, such as the figure of the consumer. Even though Olsen et al. focus on the state and state politics, they also address the welfare city. In a three-phase model of the Danish welfare society, they emphasize the first of these phases – from 1892 to 1933 – as predominantly urban, with municipal institutions, city councils and civil associations as the primary actors. Work on citizen categories is related not only to both intellectual and conceptual history but also to the more recent field of knowledge history, which investigates relationships and the production of knowledge across both social and cultural arenas. Recent knowledge history research on the post-war Nordic countries is relevant to introduce here, as it brings new perspectives to the ways in which welfare citizens, and cities, can be studied historically.13 A common concept in this context is the ‘arena of knowledge’, such as that provided by new types of media, pedagogical publications or the like.14 The arrangement and relationships between such arenas outline the public knowledge sphere of a certain period, and in this sphere, concepts, categories and ideations circulate. Circulation is also vital in the historiography of the Nordic model. Historian Mary Hilson observes that, in some spheres, the Nordic countries have gathered attention beyond the scope of their relative size, owing to the emergence of a certain ‘model’ that has grown by passing through many different contexts.15 Building on Hilson’s insights, Klaus Petersen, Mads Mordhorst and others have developed and theorized the notion of circulation in their approaches.16 Among the arenas or fields for negotiating citizenship are also ethnicity, gender and sexuality; in the last decade, these arenas have stimulated the field of urban history significantly.17 In Danish historiography, gender and sexuality in urban citizenship have been taken up by historians such as Karin Lützen and Nina Koefoed in analyses of the nuclear family and the popular vote, respectively.18 Similarly to the approaches in these works, historian Niels Nyegaard has analysed the delineation of the normal citizen by the exclusion of the homosexual male through the case of the ‘morality scandal’ of 1906–1911 in Copenhagen.19 Here, prominent male citizens became accused of homosexuality, and by close readings of their defence narratives, Nyegaard deconstructs how, on the threshold

Negotiating water and citizenship in Copenhagen 1850–1950 21 of early welfare legislation, the good citizen is defined negatively by the perverse criminal, that is, the homosexual male. Other histories of gender related to social history point to the role of women as a part of the workforce long before the well-studied ‘welfare’ entry of married women into permanent occupational employment after World War II. Hanne Møller has shown this most recently in a quantitative study that ties the fields of gender and urban history together with social history. In so doing, Møller’s study suggests that the middle-class ideal of providing for oneself as far as possible became more critically important for women’s livelihood. It also demonstrates that nineteenth-century women to a large degree, regardless of social and marital status, were a significant part of the labour market in the cities of North-East Jutland and that, throughout the nineteenth century, there existed a ‘double provision’ model, where both husband and wife contributed to the economic survival of the household.20 While these studies of gender and sexuality as arenas of citizenship negotiation have focused on sources such as books, newspapers and statistical records, other empirical material has been used in studies of ethnicity. Here historian Silke Holmqvist has investigated the identity and representation of migrants in Danish cities in the 1960s–1980s using TV programmes, letters and poems. Searching for a ‘migrant figure’, she identifies a set of spaces, practices and emotional expressions that became attached to the groups of workers invited to Denmark from Turkey and the former Yugoslavia in the time of welfare growth.21 Framing urban citizenship: phases As the studies mentioned earlier are chosen to show the most recent research patterns, they do not cover a precise area, or indeed the concept of citizenship in broader terms. Nevertheless, it is striking that there is such widespread interest in and research on perspectives connecting citizenship, cities and relationships of welfare in one way or another throughout history. Beyond the borders of the disciplinary field, the literature is too comprehensive to do justice, but even within urban history, new defining works are being published, such as Marten Prak’s recent Citizens without Nations, where he proposes a notion of citizenship made up of informal practices and varied institutions that provide permanent urban inhabitants with tools to form their common life, spread throughout early modern Europe.22 Here Prak posits an idea closer to Benedict Anderson’s imagined community than to Max Weber’s notion of a citizen’s formal obligation to military service and an economy handled by a municipal official.23 Recognizing this relatively constructivist perspective might require the mention of a few non-historians, not least because they inspire parts of the work mentioned earlier. One example is T. H. Marshall’s definition of political, social and civil rights as clearly connected to voting, social care and so on; this includes their interdependence, which meant that receiving poverty relief would lead to the loss of voting rights and more.24 The concept was later broadened by sociologist

22  Mikkel Thelle Engin Isin, who emphasized the aspect of in- and exclusion in a wider sense, along with a more performative perspective linking citizenship to practice and action.25 In short, it is cross-disciplinary openings like these that have connected questions of welfare citizenship to other fields such as infrastructure, health and privacy – and thus to the welfare city, as we see in the aforementioned recent Danish historiography. As reflected in this historiography, notably in the work of Lottrup, Høghøj and Holmqvist, ideas, practices and material urban space are closely entangled when it comes to urban welfare citizenship. The role of infrastructure and resources causes us to reflect on a more direct relationship between the acutely physical city and that which flows through it, as reflected in research on urban metabolism or material politics.26 On the other hand, one could also identify a field of more performative and subjective aspects; in other words, an experienced citizenship. How are the self-identity and belonging of individuals and groups being negotiated in relation to public institutions and actors? Questions like these seem relevant here, especially since welfare has also been a specific historiographical topic within the new field of History of Experience.27 Geographer Charlotte Lemanski has developed the notion of infrastructured citizenship (see also Chapter 8 in this book), proposing that the state and citizen become visible vis-à-vis each other through everyday material infrastructures.28 This negotiation is central and maybe even more so in the contemporary urban, global south where Lemanski’s research is focused. Regarding empirical matters, as we shall see shortly, things can become more complex. The binary axis between state (or city) and citizen inherent in Lemanski’s conceptual approach may fall short of registering the multitude of actors involved, or the changing of this multitude over time. However, the axis is a strong one, and in the following, as well as in urban historical research in general, it can be a relevant point of attention. Change over time is also central in the Danish research field mentioned earlier. As mentioned, Olsen et al. suggest three phases of citizen categories, and this chapter will cover two of those. In his chapter on the consumer figure, Olsen shows how citizenship, consumption and welfare were already connected with the cooperative movement, which began as a rural phenomenon in the 1880s but moved to the cities during the interwar period, where associations were mobilizing and educating housewives as consumers. This, Olsen shows, resulted in a comprehensive process from 1945 onwards, where the consumer became identified with the worker and the citizen, not least through social democratic politics. The first category to emerge was the ‘weak consumer’, who was in need of protection from market mechanisms by the state (or municipality). The weak consumer was followed in the 1970s by the ‘sovereign consumer’, promoted by liberal discourses, who, conversely, needed to be protected from the state by the market. This last category, Olsen argues, heralds the emergence of the neoliberal phase in the 1980s onwards, where in the face of globalization, social democrats also began to back this discourse.29 Margit Vilstrup notes in the same book how

Negotiating water and citizenship in Copenhagen 1850–1950 23 the worker as a citizen takes off from the 1890s onwards. Everything seems connected to workers – sports associations, poetry and co-op factories – which echoed the rising political and cultural influence of social democracy in alliance with the labour unions.30 This began to change after World War II when the social democrats shifted from a ‘workers’’ to a ‘people’s’ party. Nevertheless, Vilstrup’s and Olsen’s analyses show how the categories of citizenship changed with the political system, or regime, they grew from and acted upon. Thus, this chapter will demonstrate how and why the negotiations of welfare services between authorities, organizations and individuals prepared the way for a broadening of urban citizenship and an articulation of public interest. However, I will also try to show that the phases might be less clean and delimited than Olsen and Vilstrup suggest. Expanding the urban metabolism: sewers and knowledge arenas The organized distribution of water in Copenhagen dates back to the early modern, privately owned water companies with royal privileges and to the fountain inspectors. In the early nineteenth century, however, some events point to a more public administration. In 1812, due to a rapid rise in population, the private water companies were dissolved. The existing network of channels, along with all incity lakes, springs and outlets, was taken over by the City Water Authority, which was itself controlled by the Royal Water Board. Even though it was by no means an independent municipal institution, the Water Authority still represented a form of public control that differed from, for example, London’s system.31 Furthermore, a water tax was implemented that stimulated the use of public pumps over private ones, and towards the mid-nineteenth century, a group of technical advisers began to intervene in the negotiations with the city council. Problems were raised regarding the necessity of plenty and clean water, and by these problematizations, the public interest in provision standards became a political issue.32 This ‘public’ referred to an urban population that had increased fivefold since 1800, from 100,000 inhabitants to half a million just after 1900, when the first inclusions of neighbouring counties took place.33 The growth spurred a longstanding political discussion regarding the hygiene of the city, where some of the actors became visible. On the one hand, there were the ‘reformers’, including doctors and philanthropists, who pushed for health services, often doing so in the press and in public lectures that would also circulate in printed form. In the state and municipal governments, there were also groups promoting public health solutions, clean water and sewers. Among these were landowners and large-scale businessmen, for whom the urban services were an advantage, and a growing number of socialist or social democrat agitators, who had adopted a strategy of municipal socialism starting in the late nineteenth century, arguing for common services for the working population.34 These groups, however, were not in the majority in the

24  Mikkel Thelle middle of the century, and the opponents of a large sewer system triumphed in the first instance. They were dominated by two groups, one of which was the conservatives, who were traditionally affiliated with the military, court or dynastic positions. They opposed the sewers and water networks because of the large expenses and the risk that if the working classes got one service, they would demand more. Another interesting argument of theirs was the threat to private property. How could it be allowed, said conservative council member C. G. Lange in the 1840s, to let pipes penetrate the apartments of good citizens, leading other people’s faeces through them? This objection expresses a general anxiety in the shift from the laissez-faire liberal city of the early nineteenth century towards the more networked one to come, and at that time, Lange was not alone in expressing it. That, however, was about to change. However, along with the conservatives was a large and influential group of landowners within the city. They were primarily shop owners, master craftsmen or landlords who saw these new ideas of common infrastructures as a set of new taxes, fees and troublesome demands from the central government, and they lobbied heavily against the idea. They lobbied so heavily, in fact, that the first suggestion for a sewer system accepted by the city council was rejected by the minister of interior, A. S. Ørsted, brother to the famous physicist H. C. Ørsted and in no way an enemy of modern engineering. The town’s landowners may have, by means of their association, called the Copenhagen Landowner Association, managed to put enough pressure on the prominent national politician.35 Sewer networks were thus a contested problem in the mid-1800s, with the result that only some pipes for rainwater outlets were established, and these were not allowed to be connected to water closets. Nevertheless, the atmosphere around public services was rapidly shifting around 1850. It was at this time that the office of municipal water inspector was set up by the city council, which from 1853 gained a relative autonomy within the new constitutional monarchy that had been established in 1849. The water (and gas) office was led by a scientist, L. A. Colding, who mostly did research on urban water, its chemical composition physical effects and the risk of contagion. He was a professor of physics at the Polytechnical University, head of the waterworks and now also a central official as a water inspector. At the time, though, scientific research was the main task for his office, which took its research direction from challenging urban events but lacked the capacity, or the staff, to actually participate in urban governance. After the cholera epidemic, he conducted a study of the movement of contagion in water, and later, following a large flood in 1872, he conducted a comprehensive study of waterlogging along European coastlines, both of which are still relevant. One could say that this was applied science more than urban magistrate work, but it was done on the principle that it was the citizens’ interest that was at stake. The same could also be said about the establishment of the city’s statistical office in 1883, led by the young economist and historian Marcus Rubin, who had by then already done a number of studies in social statistics. The office would

Negotiating water and citizenship in Copenhagen 1850–1950 25 conduct independent studies based on what information they deemed central to the city, at least in the beginning. Rubin later went on to organize the national customs services and to serve as the director for the National Bank and as such provides an example of the direction of ‘welfare’ competence from city to state in this period that Søren Kolstrup has also argued for.36 However, the statistical office quickly became important, because of its system not only for identifying the Copenhagen inhabitants for elections but also for the comprehensive ‘housing accounts’ that numbered people’s homes and facilities. In these accounts, most of the columns kept track of toilets, hot water, showers, bathtubs and similar installations, which not only provides a good source material for historians of hygiene but also shows how central this was for documenting the population’s well-being. Another type of official was also emerging. ‘Municipal engineer’ was an established title, but in the late 1800s, the office grew explosively, with a growing number of officials implementing the new notions of hygiene and health connected to water, among other things. It was the head of this office, the engineer Charles Ambt, who became a catalyst for this around 1900 when he established the modern sewer system. The problem was the old sewer outlets to the harbour, which caused the water to become a dirty brown along several kilometres of the waterfront in the summer during the 1870s and 1880s. Ambt’s plan collected these outlets into different systems, whereby each system got its own cutting line that led the water to pumping stations whence it was pushed out into the Øresund. It was a job that required a lot of preparatory research, the measurement of surface levels and not least an estimate of future requirements for drainage. Even though Ambt also taught at the Polytechnical University and published studies on water flows and contagion, he was much more of an urban planner and engineer than professor Colding had been. While you could say Colding expanded the welfare metabolism through scientific knowledge, Ambt caused a hitherto unseen expansion by developing and executing large material projects and also by seizing the opportunity at that time to expand the municipal engineer’s office from a couple of employees to around 40 professionals, working dynamically as public officials and private consultants simultaneously.37 While Ambt was working as a municipal engineer, another leading official began to pursue a hydrological strain in his work. Around the turn of the century, bacteria, as discovered by Pasteur in France and Koch in Germany, entered the Nordic health discourse. At that time, the medical officer was an ambitious doctor, Christian Tryde, and in his diligent work, we see how the universe of the miasmatic conception of illness changed into the universe of bacteria. As medical historians have shown, this change caused multiple social and spatial transformations.38 One significant change relevant here is the shift from air as the prime medium of contagion to water. Medical researchers, now armed with microscopes, could show how these invisible life forms thrived in the lakes, springs and channels of the city. Tryde, charged with the task of enforcing the

26  Mikkel Thelle Health Act of 1860, worked in the intersection of public hygiene and scientific research, and by turning his focus to the new knowledge of the ‘bacterial city’, as Martin Melosi has put it, he became an investigator of water.39 To use a concept from recent urban research, we can see this multitude of actions as a change in the metabolism of Danish cities.40 Seen through its in- and outlets, the flows and transformation of resources and energy, the city reappears as a whole, where we are able to relate changes in the technology, environment and social fabric of the city more directly, and thus we can also get another view of the welfare city.41 When we look at the consequences of the cholera epidemic on Copenhagen, for example, the aftermath of that event can be interpreted as a catalyst for a metabolic expansion, adding new institutions, technologies and practices to the system that the Danish capital embodied at that moment. Useful here are notions of ‘disposition’, as in historical philosophy: that is, constellations of discourse and materiality with a certain potential. Thus, we can say that Copenhagen was on a modernizing, and public, curve when hit by the cholera. This is in opposition to, for example, Hamburg, which was attacked by the epidemic some decades later, but with much fewer consequences in terms of welfare interventions.42 Christian Tryde’s work is an example of this metabolic expansion. In search of typhoid bacteria, he did a comprehensive survey of the city’s water flows, mapping all the locations where faeces were let out into the water and calculating the total amount of solid waste the city would produce each year.43 Then he examined each part of the circulation system and found a weak spot where water was not flowing sufficiently. Here he took out samples of water and studied it microscopically for weeks, making hand drawings of his findings. He never found the actual typhoid organism, but he did have many reflections on the ‘mass culture’ he saw in the microscope. One such revelation was what he called the ‘sleeping phase’ of bacteria, wherein they were inactive until they entered a host where they could multiply. His findings were expansive in the sense that his results later supported the decision to build a large-scale sewer system. We could say that he added another layer of understanding that could hardly be ignored in future water practices. Tryde was very much a product of the epidemic experience with cholera. He approached the city as a metabolic organism on both the macro- and microscopic level, and he saw the well-being of the whole urban population as based on the flows going through the city. By providing new components of biological knowledge about Copenhagen, he contributed an arena of knowledge that also expanded the metabolism of the welfare city. If we are slightly speculative, then, we could propose that the metabolic expansion caused by the cholera epidemic, including the technical-political apparatus it set in motion, is characteristic of an urban system in the founding phase of the welfare process as described by Olsen et al. We know from other cases, such as earlier epidemics or the cholera attack on liberal Hamburg, that the result of

Negotiating water and citizenship in Copenhagen 1850–1950 27

Map 2.1 Christian Tryde, Hygienic Surveys, 1883.

28  Mikkel Thelle such events was often a contraction and consolidation of the urban system at large.44 I would argue, though, that in Copenhagen, the incident set off a longlasting expansion and intensification of the city’s metabolism and the governance directed towards it. Further, this period of expansion, maybe even extending into the interwar period, also played a role in defining the conditions of urban citizenship: if one were considered a proper citizen, one could expect large investments and scientific knowledge to be applied to one’s urban environment. The wet space Related to the epidemic and subsequent discovery of microscopic organisms, a revitalized hygienic movement emerged in larger Danish cities in the 1890s. Here, the clean body was promoted as a biopolitical ideal of the early welfare city, so to speak. Thus, from the focus on new municipal areas of competence, piped water and sewers, we can see a shift to other perspectives on water as welfare. An example is the proliferation of technologies and discourse on bathing and cleansing that emerged at that time. Bathing had already been a public concern since the early 1800s, but population numbers accelerated at the end of the century and the ‘wet space’ became widespread. Together with private bathrooms, the bathing halls of the city introduced what we may refer to as modern wet spaces, drawing on Maria Kaika’s notion of wet rooms as designated spaces that confine and regulate water activities and practices and interact in networked, hydro-social systems.45 Older spatial forms would also become wet spaces in this period, such as kitchens, saunas, hospital operating rooms and so on; this transition would make for an interesting topic of future research in the field of urban welfare history. The rise of the wet room is also tied to a larger recompositing of the city, whereby different functions were allocated to certain areas. For example, throughout the nineteenth century, animals were kept all over the city; they were slaughtered on central squares and their meat was sold from the central Meatseller Street or from stalls at a square called The Stomach, so called since the cheap intestines were to be found there. A thousand pigs were held at the municipal workhouse Sundholmen, living off the offal from hospitals and in turn providing food for public servants and sometimes the inmates as well. Another chain of nutrition was the latrine, which consisted of the so-called barrel system before the sewers were constructed. Faeces would be collected in buckets or barrels in the cellars or backyards to be picked up by the Nightmen, who circulated it to inland farmers as fertilizer. During the first decades of the 1900s, these urban ecologies changed. We know about the opposition to the sewers already; the fertilizer system was also connected to this. With Ambt’s plan of 1903, however, this system ended, and with the Health Act of 1888, the meat industry also began to change: the Stomach closed in 1910, and all meat processing was moved to Meat City, a slaughterhouse facility by the harbour area.46

Negotiating water and citizenship in Copenhagen 1850–1950 29 Recent research indicates that while the cleanliness of the poorer urban classes was emphasized as a biopolitical strategy to keep the workforce efficient, the middle classes were to function as role models.47 Hygienic reformers called for a cleaner population for health reasons, and the clean citizen came to symbolize the ethically sound citizen. That this was not purely symbolic is shown in Leonora Lottrup’s analysis of Aarhus’ poverty gardens, where users were evaluated on grounds of sobriety, productivity, orderly behaviour and cleanliness. Though these Victorian norms of bathing and cleansing were also present earlier, in this period, they materialized in escalating numbers: water closets, bathrooms, bathing accessories and spatial restructuring of homes and public spaces are what signified the first decades of the twentieth century. However, let us first trace it back a bit. Within the city limits, an early private bathing hall, Rysensteen, was founded by an elite group of citizens in 1825. It became very popular because young ­middle-class men liked the bathtubs. Ultimately, it became so popular that it had to be split in two: one cheap harbour bath with showers and a more costly one with hot tubs for the affluent. Some durable projects of the 1800s were the privately financed Hambro baths, where showers and bathtubs for men and women were combined with a room with a separate entrance for housewives washing clothes. Following this and other private, philanthropic projects, a municipal plan was set in motion, beginning with three larger bathing halls. In Sofiegade, on the islet of Christianshavn, a new hall was opened in 1909. The structure of the bathing hall was almost identical to the Saxogade bathing hall, its twin establishment across town, which was built in 1904 in another working-class quarter of Vesterbro. Men and women had separate entrances in an almost symmetrical building, which also had a waiting room and two lines of shower cells, each with its own locker room. Walls of glazed tile began already in the waiting room, and a large, arched portal led into the bathing space with its terrazzo floor, with only coloured lines of tile instead of doorsteps to mark the shift between different functions. Sofiegade and Saxogade were the first two in a series of public bathing halls built in the early 1900s and provided with hot water from their own boilers. These ‘hot water halls’ were originally a suggestion from the social democratic group in the city council led by Jens Jensen, who had become the first social democratic mayor in Copenhagen (and Denmark at large) in 1903. The halls were the object of some debate, but when they were approved, the buildings were built in monumental designs of national romanticism. Brass handles and locks were designed, and steps were taken to have marble walls for the showers brought from Carrara, Italy.48 The last bathing hall, in the working-class quarter of Nørrebro, was built in 1917. Placed close to a local public school, it featured both tubs and showers, as well as uniformed bath attendants who scrubbed the visitors with wood wool and soap. Interesting here is the change in the role of these attendants. In the early bathing halls, the cleansing was more mandatory and forced upon the bathing

30  Mikkel Thelle

Figure 2.1 Sjaellandsgade bathing hall, 1922. Source: Photographer unknown. Museum of Copenhagen

subject; later, the attendants became service personnel responsible for ticketing, bringing towels and so on. One could see this as a change in the governmentality of the urban citizen: bathing was expected as a social practice, but the bath itself was an active decision of the citizen, who in turn internalized these expectations.49 We can see here how the inclusion of the broader part of Copenhagen’s population in bathing was a public affair, located in public wet spaces, as the bathing

Negotiating water and citizenship in Copenhagen 1850–1950 31 hall was the first to become a kind of mass phenomenon. In a later, but overlapping, phase, those with access to private water closets or bathrooms would experience a radical ‘privatization’ of these spaces; the bathing halls, however, would see a different change. The domestic space of especially female family members had an elaborate repertoire of privacy through the parlour, library, dining room, sewing room and especially the bedroom, which had developed from a social to a more private space during the eighteenth century to protect the nuclear family from the nerve-wrecking life of the public sphere.50 As ideals for a clean body entwined with Victorian lifestyles, a bourgeois home gradually became inseparable first from a water closet and then a bathroom. Yet these wet spaces were – spatially and economically – to be located as far away from the front stage of the home as possible, hidden at the very bottom of the apartment and locked with a key. The invention and concealment of these wet spaces in the modern home thus led to a ‘privatization’ of hygienic practices in the late nineteenth century. For the more ordinary family, the private bath would also move into the private sphere, albeit less ‘privately’, as the family would use a tin tub in the living room each Sunday and share the water.51 Clean, healthy and happy: concluding remarks After the last bathing hall was built in 1917, the facilities were changed into swimming halls with common pools, though dressing was still divided by gender. In order to be allowed in the pool area, visitors had to first use the showers. Swimming halls began to spread in Danish cities from the 1930s onwards, and in Copenhagen, two iconic halls, Øbro-Hallen and Frederiksberg Svømmehal, were opened in 1930 and 1934, respectively, as prestigious monuments on the border between art deco and functionalism. Swimming had become part of school athletics teaching, creating a new, large group of users for the municipal facilities, which were themselves growing in scale and functionality. Boards to jump from and children’s pools were added, and steam baths or saunas became almost mandatory. In 1958, an open-air swimming pool was opened at the Bellahøj neighbourhood northwest of central Copenhagen. The area itself was a model of welfare living: the first high-rise housing, built a couple of years earlier, had all the amenities for a comfortable life at a reasonable price. A sunbathing space was arranged at the swimming facility so that middle-class families from the area could enjoy summer weekends together. Others would go to the suburb of Gentofte, in some respects part of Greater Copenhagen, where, in 1969, the architecturally famous swimming hall Kildeskovshallen was built in a light, cubic glass formation. In 1938, a national Vacation Act was passed in parliament, granting the right to two weeks’ mandatory vacation and establishing a growing number of uses for recreative water. At emerging holiday resorts, such as those owned by Dansk Folke Ferie (Danish Peoples’ Vacation), which had been started by the labour unions in the 1930s, large waterparks were erected that had long

32  Mikkel Thelle water slides, wave machines and tropical plants. New beach hotels were erected, continuing the older tradition of bathing hotels along the coasts, and from the 1960s, families would travel in increasing numbers to beach cities of places like southern Europe. In addition to cleanliness, water came to serve other functions such as the recreational use of free time, keeping fit or spending family time together. In some ways, swimming halls in larger cities also adopted the functions of public playgrounds, whose history in Denmark dates to the early post-war years. While children’s pools developed into more intricate waterscapes inside in the swimming halls, water also entered the open-air playgrounds through paddling pools, which had been developed as part of a new perspective on children. Here, the municipality offered free access to more elaborate playscapes, some of them with personnel, where water came to play a significant role. A  new group of citizens was, in a sense, created during this period. It is a period that is outside the scope of this book but can nevertheless be seen as heralding an emergence of more private enterprises to serve the more sovereign consumer. Overall, then, water has meandered in and out of urban welfare. Introducing a broader and more complex notion of citizenship leads us to see how negotiations, knowledge arenas, practices and infrastructures afforded processes of in- and exclusion in different fields of the urban landscape. The empirical cases have shown fragments of this, and links between the different fields have been indicated, in order to integrate the material, discursive and practiced city into the realm of urban welfare. A set of actors has been presented, adding private associations and scientists to the more established city councils, state officials and political agitators. Here, at the conclusion of the chapter, one last consideration could be that of welfare as a concept. As proposed in the introduction to this book, the concept of the welfare city elucidates new aspects of public services and infrastructures, especially before the ‘golden age’ of the welfare society. However, if we follow the broader notion of citizenship and urban water presented earlier, does that also apply to ‘welfare’? The concept already has different facets, as in welfare ‘state’ versus ‘society’, and historians have discussed how to keep a common denominator across these and other differences, such as the Nordic political systems. Thus, when we try to introduce a new perspective, it could be fruitful to consider, and discuss, the borders and reach of this concept, and its relationship to existing discussions. It is hoped that this chapter will contribute to such future reflections. Notes 1 Jonas Hallström, “Constructing a Pipe-Bound City. A History of Water Supply, Sewerage, and Excreta Removal in Norrköping and Linköping, Sweden, 1860–1910” (Linköping University, 2002); Jonas Hallström, “Technology, Social Space and Environmental Justice in Swedish Cities: Water Distribution to Suburban Norrköping and Linköping, 1860–90,” Urban History 23, no. 3 (2005): 413–33.

Negotiating water and citizenship in Copenhagen 1850–1950 33 2 Søren Kolstrup, Velfærdsstatens Rødder: Fra Kommunesocialisme til Folkepension (Køpenhavn: Selskabet til Forskning i Arbejderbevægelsens Historie, 1996). 3 Cecilie Bjerre, “Making Policies: The History of the Danish Child Welfare System at the Local Level,” article, Journal of Policy History 34, no. 4 (2022): 529–54. 4 Klaus Petersen et al., “Historisk Udredning vedr. Børn, Unge og Voksne Anbragt i Særforsorgens Institutioner 1933–1980” (Danish Welfare Museum, 2022). 5 Leonora Lottrup Rasmussen, De Fattiges Ret: Forhandlinger af Socialt Medborgerskab som status og Praksis i Stat og Kommune, 1849–1892 (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitet, 2020). 6 Christian Buhl Thomsen, “Da de Danske Byer blev revet ned: Praksis og Ideologi i Dansk Sanerings- og Byfornyelsespolitik 1939–1983” (Aarhus, Aarhus Universitet/ Den Gamle By, 2015). 7 Mikkel Høghøj, “Between Utopia and Dystopia: A Socio-Cultural History of Modernist Mass Housing in Denmark, c. 1945–1985” (Aarhus University, 2019); Mikkel Høghøj, “Planning Aarhus as a Welfare Geography: Urban Modernism and the Shaping of ‘Welfare Subjects’ in Post-War Denmark,” Planning Perspectives 35, no. 6 (2020): 1031–53. 8 Simon Gunn et al., “Cities, Infrastructure and the Making of Modern Citizenship: The View From North-West Europe Since 1870,” Urban History (2022): 1–19; Mogens Rüdiger and Andreas Marklund, eds., Historicizing Infrastructure (Aalborg: Aalborg University Press, 2017); Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, Splintering Urbanism. Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition (London: Routledge, 2001); Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, “Splintering Urbanism at 20 and the ‘Infrastructural Turn’,” Journal of Urban Technology 29, no. 1 (2022): 169–75; Keller Easterling, Extrastatecraft. The Power of Infrastructure Space (New York: Verso, 2014). 9 Andrew Barry, Material Politics: Disputes Along the Pipeline (Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2013); Sara B. Pritchard, “From Hydroimperialism to Hydrocapitalism: ‘French’ Hydraulics in France, North Africa, and Beyond,” Social Studies of Science 42, no. 4 (2012): 591–615; Mikkel Høghøj and Mikkel Thelle, “The Material Politics of the Domestic Bathroom in Modern Copenhagen: Harnessing a Potential Concept for Urban Studies,” Scandinavian Journal of History (2023): 1–23. 10 See, for example, Henning Bro, Boligen Mellem Natvægterstat og Velfærdsstat Byggeog Boligpolitik i København 1850–1930 (Kbh.: Multivers, 2008); Søren Kolstrup, Den Danske Velfærdsmodel 1891–2011: Sporskifter, Motiver, Drivkræfter (Frederiksberg: Frydenlund, 2015); Jørn Henrik Petersen et al., Dansk Velfærdshistorie – Bd. 2. Mellem Skøn og Ret: 1898–1933, ed. Jørn Henrik Petersen et al., University of Southern Denmark Studies in History and Social Sciences, 410 (Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2011); Jørn Henrik Petersen et al., Dansk Velfærdshistorie – Bd. 3. Velfærdsstaten i Støbeskeen: 1933–1956, ed. Jørn Henrik Petersen et al., University of Southern Denmark Studies in History and Social Sciences, 410 (Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2012); Niklas Olsen, “From Choice to Welfare: The Concept of the Consumer in the Chicago School of Economics,” Modern Intellectual History 14, no. 2 (2016): 507–35; Niels Finn. Christiansen, The Nordic Model of Welfare: A Historical Reappraisal, book, ed. Niels Finn Christiansen (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2006). 11 Anders Møller, “De Værdige Gamle: Om Alderdomskonfigurerende Praksisser i Danmark omkring år 1900” (PhD-afhandling, Det Humanistiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet, 2018). 12 Niklas Olsen et al., Citizen Categories in the Danish Welfare State: From the Founding Epoch to the Neoliberal Era (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2021).

34  Mikkel Thelle 13 Johan Östling, Niklas Olsen, and David Larsson Heidenblad, Histories of Knowledge in Postwar Scandinavia: Actors, Arenas, and Aspirations, book, ed. Johan Östling, Niklas Olsen, and David Larsson Heidenblad, Knowledge Societies in History (London: Routledge, 2022). 14 Niklas Olsen, Johan Östling, and David Larsson Heidenblad, Histories of Knowledge in Postwar Scandinavia, ed. Niklas Olsen and Johan Östling (London: Routledge, 2020), 8. 15 Mary Hilson, The Nordic Model: Scandinavia since 1945, ed. Mary Hilson, Contemporary Worlds (London: Reaktion, 2008). 16 Haldor Byrkjeflot et al., The Making and Circulation of Nordic Models, Ideas and Images, ed. Klaus Petersen (London: Routledge, 2021). 17 See, for example, Benno Gammerl, Subjects, Citizens and Others Administering Ethnic Heterogeneity in the British and Habsburg Empires, 1867–1918 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2017); Deborah Simonton, The Routledge History Handbook of Gender and the Urban Experience (London: Routledge, 2016); Krista Cowman, Gender in Urban Europe: Sites of Political Activity and Citizenship, 1750–1900, Routledge Research in Gender and History, 19 (New York, NY: Routledge, 2014). 18 Nina Javette Koefoed, “Demokrati og Medborgerskab. Sociale og Kønspolitiske Strategier i Debatten om Den Almindelige Kommunale Valgret 1886–1908,” Fortid Og Nutid 2008, no. 4 (2008): 251–79; Karin Lützen, Byen Tæmmes. Kernefamilie, Sociale Reformer Og Velgø- Renhed i 1800-Tallets København (Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels Forlag, 1998). 19 Niels Nyegaard, “Perverse Forbrydere og Gode Borgere: Homoseksualitet, Heteronormativet og Medborgerskab i Københavns Offentlighed, 1906–11, Ph.d.-Afhandling” (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitet, Institut for Kultur- og Samfund-Historie, 2018). 20 Hanne Schaumburg Møller, “Købstadskvinder. Kvinder Køn Og Forsørgelse i Randers, Grenaa Og Ebeltoft 1787–1901” (PhD-afhandling, Aalborg University, 2020). 21 Silke Holmqvist, “The Figure of the Guest Worker – Emotions, Places and Images of Immigration in Denmark ca. 1960–1989” (Aarhus University, 2022). 22 Maarten Prak, Citizens Without Nations: Urban Citizenship in Europe and the World, c.1000–1789 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). 23 For this assessment, see Peter Clark, “Maarten Prak, Citizens Without Nations. Urban Citizenship in Europe and the World, c. 1000–1789,” Early Modern Low Countries 3, no. 1 (2019). 24 T. H. Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class, ed. Tom Bottomore (London: Pluto, 1996). 25 Engin Isin, Acts of Citizenship (New York: Zed Books, 2008). 26 Barry, Material Politics: Disputes Along the Pipeline; Matthew Gandy, “Rethinking Urban Metabolism: Water, Space and the Modern City,” City 8, no. 3 (2004): 363–79; Høghøj and Thelle, “The Material Politics of the Domestic Bathroom in Modern Copenhagen: Harnessing a Potential Concept for Urban Studies”; Leandro Minuchin, “Material Politics: Concrete Imaginations and the Architectural Definition of Urban Life in Le Corbusier’s Master Plan for Buenos Aires,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37, no. 1 (2013): 238–58, https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1468–2427.2012.01203.x. 27 Johanna Sköld and Pirjo Markkola, “History of Child Welfare: A Present Political Concern,” Scandinavian Journal of History 45, no. 2 (2020): 143–58. 28 Charlotte Lemanski, Citizenship and Infrastructure: Practices and Identities of Citizens and the State (London: Routledge, 2019); Charlotte Lemanski, “Infrastructural Citizenship: Conceiving, Producing and Disciplining People and Place via Public Housing, From Cape Town to Stoke-on-Trent,” Housing Studies 37, no. 6 (July 3, 2022): 932–54.

Negotiating water and citizenship in Copenhagen 1850–1950 35 29 Olsen et al., Citizen Categories in the Danish Welfare State: From the Founding Epoch to the Neoliberal Era., 23ff. 30 Ibid., 67ff. 31 Frank Trentman and Vanessa Taylor, “Liquid Politics: Water and the Politics of Everyday Life in the Modern City,” Past & Present 211 (2011): 199–241. 32 A. C. Meyer, Kort Underretning om Kjøbenhavns Vandvæsen i ældre og nyere Tid (Louis Klein, 1850); O. J. Winstrup, Om Kjøbenhavns Vandvæsen (H.C. Rissen, 1855). 33 Hans Chr. Johansen, Danish Population History 1600–1939 (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2002). 34 Kolstrup, Velfærdsstatens Rødder: Fra Kommunesocialisme til Folkepension. 35 See a discussion in Hanne Lindegaard, “Ud af Røret? Planer, Processer og Paradokser omkring det Københavnske Kloaksystem 1840–2001” (København, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet, 2001), 101. 36 Kolstrup, Velfærdsstatens Rødder: Fra Kommunesocialisme til Folkepension. 37 Ulla Tofte, “Charles Ambt og Dansk Byplanlægning 1875–1902,” in Den Moderne By, ed. Søren Bitsch Christensen et al. (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2006), 153–73; Tim Knudsen, “Charles Ambt og Gadeplanlægningen i Vestervold Kvarter,” Historiske Meddelser Om København 37 (1989). 38 Christopher Hamlin, A Science of Impurity. Water Analysis in Nineteenth Century Britain (Los Angeles: UCLA Press, 1990); Charles E. Closmann, “Chaos and Contamination: Water Pollution and Economic Upheaval in Hamburg, 1919–1923,” Journal of Urban History 33, no. 5 (2007): 828–47. 39 Martin V. Melosi, The Sanitary City: Environmental Services in Urban America from Colonial Times to the Present, History of the Urban Environment (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008). 40 Sabine Barles, “Urban Metabolism,” in Concepts of Urban-Environmental History, ed. Sebastian Haumann, Martin Knoll, and Detlev Mares (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2020), 109–24; Eric Swyngedouw, “Metabolic Urbanization: The Making of Cyborg Cities,” in In the Nature of Cities (London: Routledge, 2006), 21–40. 41 Marina Fischer-Kowalski and Walter Hüttler, “Society’s Metabolism,” Journal of Industrial Ecology 2, no. 4 (1998): 107–36, https://doi.org/10.1162/ jiec.1998.2.4.107; Erik Swyngedouw, “Circulations and Metabolisms: (Hybrid) Natures and (Cyborg) Cities,” Technonatures: Environments, Technologies, Spaces, and Places in the Twenty-First Century 5431, no. February (2009): 61–84, https://doi. org/10.1080/09505430600707970. 42 Richard Evans, Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years 1830– 1910 (London: Penguin, 1987); Easterling, Extrastatecraft. The Power of Infrastructure Space; John Pløger, “Foucault’s Dispositif and the City,” ed. Jean Hillier, Planning Theory 7 (2008): 51–70. 43 C. Tryde, “Om Infektion fra Kloakudtømmelserne i Kjøbenhavns Havn og Kanaler. Foredrag Holdt i Det Medicinske Selskab i Kjøbenhavn, d. 20 Nov. 1883,” ed. Det Medicinske Selskab (København: Det Medicinske Selskab, 1884). 44 Richard Evans, Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years 1830–1910 (London: Penguin, 1987); Peter Christensen, “Copenhagen 1711: Danish Authorities Facing the Plague,” in Body and City: Histories of Urban Public Health, ed. Sally Sheard and Helen Power (London: Routledge, 2017), 50–58; Peter Christensen, “ ‘In These Perilous Times’: Plague and Plague Policies in Early Modern Denmark,” Medical History 47, no. 4 (2003): 413–50. 45 Maria Kaika, City of Flows. Modernity, Nature and the City (New York: Routledge, 2005). 46 Mikkel Thelle, “The Meat City: Urban Space and Provision in Industrial Copenhagen, 1880–1914,” Urban History 45, no. 2 (2018): 233–52.

36  Mikkel Thelle 47 Johanna Annola, Annelie Drakman, and Marie Ulväng, eds., Med tvål, vatten och flit: hälsofrämjande renlighet som ideal och praktik, ca 1870–1930 (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2021). 48 Copenhagen Municipal Archive, Municipal Architect’s archives, Sofiegade Badeanstalt building case. 49 Patrick Joyce, The Rule of Freedom. Liberalism and the Modern City (London: Verso, 2003); Chris Otter, “Cleansing and Clarifying: Technology and Perception in Nineteenth‐Century London,” Journal of British Studies 43, no. 1 (2004). The scrubbing is reported in memoirs, see Note 46. 50 Jonas Frykman and Orvar Löfgren, Culture Builders a Historical Anthropology of Middle-Class Life Transl. by Alan Crozier Foreword by John Gillis (New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press, 1987); Richard Dennis, Cities in Modernity Representations and Productions of Metropolitan Space, 1840–1930 (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Matthew Gandy, “The Paris Sewers and the Rationalization of Urban Space,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 24, no. 1 (1999): 23–44. 51 See Copenhagen Municipal Archives’ memoir collection, collected from retired citizens in 1969.

3 Municipalization in Norwegian cities c. 1850–1920 Knut Dørum

The Norwegian Sonderentwicklung? In this chapter, I aim to explore the preconditions for and the driving forces behind municipalization in Norway c. 1850–1920. My departure point is that the capital of Norway – followed by some of the other big cities – pioneered the creation of ‘publicness’, which meant that the ‘commune’ initiated, took over and expanded functions related to what has been called ‘the welfare state’. As highlighted in the editorial introductory chapter, ‘the welfare city’ emerged earlier than ‘the welfare state’. The Nordic Model revolving around a welfare state for all citizens regardless of social class gained massive ground after c. 1945, but the governments of the Nordic countries found inspiring forerunners in the big cities. Oslo had become a successful host for a multitude of welfare institutions already in the 1920s and 1930s, though much of the countryside lagged behind and did not reach the same level of welfare until the 1950s and 1960s; some areas only attained it in the 1970 and 1980s. On the other hand, rural communes had taken steps to create some crucial municipal institutions to bring economic and social security to their inhabitants as early as the latter part of the nineteenth century. In 1840, a peasant politician in the parish of Ullensaker stated that ‘the commune is the best for the common good and the interests of the people, while the greedy businessman is unable to serve the community and the nation’.1 I argue that Norway possessed a generally unique element that also contri­ buted to the development of the welfare city: a nationwide ‘municipalization’ of economic and social life, understood in extended meaning. One aspect of this municipalization was the long and strong tradition of ‘communalism’, which refers to collective organization and ownership, moral economy and the principles of solidarity. Another is to be found in the socioeconomic structure that took the form of there being many small shopkeepers, a great majority of the peasants being self-owners, and many ships having 10–20 shareholders stemming from various social strata. Some have called this Norwegian structure ‘democratic capitalism’; in the nineteenth century, this had developed into cooperative ownership and operation of businesses and social services resting in the hands of rural communities, local associations or municipalities.2 The third aspect may DOI: 10.4324/9781003379232-3

This chapter has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 international license.

38  Knut Dørum be related to the introduction of far-reaching autonomous local government in 1837, pushed through by the popular opposition. The political power granted to various social groups, together with new opportunities for making reforms, nourished the idea that the municipality should take care of much of the infrastructure and well-being of all local citizens. Paradoxically, in the period 1814–1870, the dominating elites attached to the old regime appeared to be more eager than the popular representatives to expand both the state and the commune: the latter tended to mistrust state authority and anything that could be related to the authoritarian heritage of absolutism. Finally, the strong position of bourgeois liberals and socialists in Norway who were willing to let city governments carry out new visions of the common good, mostly viewed from below, contributed to the breakthrough of more fundamental municipalization in the cities and the countryside in the period 1890–1920. The reformers encountered significant reluctance from conservatives, but the ring-wing parties eventually came to share some of the reformers’ ideas and values associated with publicness, mostly for practical reasons. The professional ideal held by state bureaucrats strengthened the municipal position when it found itself in competition with private enterprises regarding city planning. My analysis will depart from two specific questions: first, can we talk about a Norwegian Sonderentwicklung regarding municipalization c. 1850–1920 when this country had established a form of local self-government that possessed extensive authority and the power to involve the commune in taking responsibility for public services as early as in 1837? Or is it more reasonable to argue that Norway evolved an increasing local publicness as a result of transnational trends and influences? The latter would suggest that Norway took part in a transnational transformation c. 1870–1920 during a time when many countries followed the same historical pathway, albeit one that varied with respect to communal ownership and operation versus private enterprise under municipal supervision and control. As we shall see, the answer is somewhere in the middle. The tradition of communalism Norway happened to be a country that implemented or expanded the municipalization of infrastructure, health care, education and social services comparatively early. It appeared to possess favourable conditions for publicness in the period 1837–1920. ‘Communalism’ or ‘Kommunalismus’3 had deep roots in traditions and practices that had played a significant role in Norway as early as the 1200s and had been enhanced in the centuries that followed. The period 1590–1720, however, experienced the fall of ‘the peasant state’ due to the decision of the central government in Copenhagen to deteriorate much of the self-government by transferring power and functions to local civil servants.4 Nevertheless, the eighteenth century witnessed a renaissance and new extension of local self-government in rural areas around 1740, when the

Municipalization in Norwegian cities c. 1850–1920 39 Danish-Norwegian state established a public school system and a public relief system that integrated peasants into their respective management as members of the commissions. Manifestations of growing local self-government during the period 1740–1837 were many. The peasantry had a responsibility to exert judicial authority in some cases, such as conflict resolution or peace-making, monitoring the poor relief system and ensuring access to school for almost every local inhabitant, administering the building and maintenance of churches, bridges and roads as well as the regulation of common land.5 During the eighteenth century, parish commissions developed into a larger municipal political-administrative institution by taking on various new public functions and by changing their designation to sognecommission or bygdecommission, thus signalling that they represented the entire community or that the parish was charged with particular tasks. In addition to monitoring the maintenance of the infrastructure, schools and poor relief systems, these commissions began to found municipal granaries (bygdemagasin) to lend out grain at a favourable interest rate to those in need in order to prevent starvation.6 Moral economy – emphasizing a responsibility for the poor, moral price setting and solidarity – can be seen as an ideological background for the municipal granaries. Municipal self-government after 1837 – urban and rural policies Still, the introduction of municipal self-government in 1837 marked a turning point by transmitting power and authority from state bureaucracy to rural or city citizens. The implementation of the municipal board (formannskapet) and the municipal council (kommunestyret) in the cities and the countryside made a huge difference. Those two institutions became largely autonomous in making political decisions and appear to have become increasingly dominated by representatives of the commoners. In urban areas, the reform of 1837 did not drastically alter the political-administrative system to begin with, at least in cases where the magistrate’s office kept much of its power and competence and conservative elites captured most of the seats in the new political-administrative institutions. However, when the patrimonial structures around family dynasties and ‘matadors’ in urban areas collapsed in the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s, a new middle class seized power in alliance with state officials. More dynamic cities emerged with politicians more inclined to encourage reforms.7 The first stage of municipalization spanned the 1840s to the 1890s. In the town of Fredrikstad, the municipal council made this declaration in 1851: ‘Owning the ground of the streets, piers and buildings is the key element for every local government. Public ownership means regulation, and bulwark against anarchy’.8 After 1837, the idea of the common good, phrased as det almenne bedste, det almenne vel, til gavn og tarv for communen and so on, came to permeate municipal rhetoric and the justification of policies: one should not uphold the interests of particular groups, factions and parties, and there should be limits on the power

40  Knut Dørum of rich and mighty families. Decisions ought to spring from what benefitted all groups within the community and the commune, including the poor ones. The patriotic concept of the common good Initially, the concept of the common good – shared by all political milieus – sprang from solidarity norms embedded in patriotism and the idea of upholding the nation and unity between all Norwegians. In the first half of nineteenth century, conservative politicians belonging to the class of civil servants were more eager than popular representatives in parliament to activate and enhance the state and the municipalities. Popular politicians were inclined to be anxious about any increase in state and municipal expenditures that could harm the numerous peasants, who were the main group of taxpayers. Popular politics tended to revolve around financial austerity and parsimony and were associated with attempts to limit the power of the state and the commune. Historical knowledge of state government told the peasantry that one should not expect anything from reforms from above except heavier public burdens and regulations, due to bureaucratic corruption, selfishness and greed. State officials, however, proved to be agents of involving the state in financing new infrastructure and communications, such as steamship routes, railways, and roads, in accordance with new and higher standards.9 Thus, they set forth the ideals of economic liberalism while believing in an expansive market economy aided by the state. Along with a more progressive and modernized bourgeoise, state officials accomplished a number of measures to secure municipal control over city areas and support and subsidize local initiatives to build and improve infrastructure. Consequently, prior to the 1870s and 1880s, conservative politicians could be more willing than liberals to spend public money on communal investments in infrastructure, poverty relief, hospitals and health care. In the 1880s and 1890s, when conservative moderation collided with liberal expansionism, conservatives and liberals switched roles. The cholera epidemics – a turning point The cholera epidemics provided a catalyst for transforming the health and hygiene standards of Norwegian cities, as they did in many other cities in the Western world. The epidemics killed thousands of people. During an outbreak in Kristiania in 1853, which lasted only five months, as many as 1,728 inhabitants died.10 As cholera ran its course, it revealed weaknesses in the city government and inspired demands for reforms that would meet the basic needs of urban residents. The cholera response generated the first wave of municipalization in urban areas. As the merchant Hans Bierch observed in 1858: Our history can be divided into two periods, one period prior to cholera, and another one after. Though, this dreadful calamity will encourage the best in

Municipalization in Norwegian cities c. 1850–1920 41 human beings, transforming towns and cities from being ruled by selfish and irresponsible men to be taken care of by united forces of talents and moral qualities gathered in the municipality.11 Several Norwegian cities or towns were attacked by cholera, the capital of Norway in particular. In 1853, cholera and the milder cholerine affected 45,000 inhabitants in the city of Kristiania and the Aker parish alone.12 The experience of cholera, which stretched from the early 1830s to the 1860s, sparked off new state and municipal institutions. This trauma led to an enhanced understanding of state and communal organizations as vital in handling not only epidemics, starvation and sudden economic crises but also other societal matters. As we shall see, the cholera epidemics hastened the instigation of water systems whose control lay in the hands of the communes. In Norway, both urban and rural communes played an important role in forming and reshaping commissions, the so-called Sundhedscommission, that dealt with conditions revolving around health, decease and epidemics. The most crucial role that these commissions played was their advances in the larger cities. Here the commissions urged local authorities to build or install municipal waterworks, water pipelines, sewerage and drainpipes and establish fire brigades. The enactment of Sundhetsloven in 1860 signalled a turning point regarding muni­ cipalities involved in infrastructure. This law transferred the management and financing of sanitary systems to the communes while keeping the highest authority over all matters of public health, including epidemic control, in the hands of the central government. All this resulted in more intense usage of quarantine and sequestration measures, which involved the isolation of the sick and the inspection and observation of travellers from suspect places, while any articles and clothes were to be fumigated. The prevailing miasma theory came to hinder local governments in their implementation of measures that could prevent the spread of disease and epidemics. For instance, physicians and medical specialists in the town of Kristiansand who believed in contagion theory ventured to contest the medical expertise of Kristiania’s central government. Here, the highest medical authorities rejected the proposition that epidemics could be related to direct and indirect contact between individuals. By advocating miasma theory, the central government unfortunately caused immense damage in urban communities through their orders that resulted in abandoning the quarantine stations and delaying communal steps to improve water systems and modernize the sewerage.13 The contagionists ultimately won the debate in the course of the 1860s and 1870s, resulting in municipal measures aimed not only at implementing a new sanitary system but also at demonstrating concern over the standard of dwellings, streets, roads, quarters, docks and molos. In the 1850s, Bergen commune found it necessary to invest capital in building a waterworks and water system to bring clean water to the citizens, in addition to a municipal gasworks.14

42  Knut Dørum In the course of 1846–1858, the city of Kristiania established a municipal water system for the entire city. In the 1860s and 1870s, Kristiania witnessed the introduction of the poudrette system, which was outsourced to private entrepreneurs but remained under strict municipal control. The municipal council ended up divided in the question of private enterprise versus municipal ownership. The adherents of privatization held that competition would single out the most efficient and clever entrepreneurs with sufficient capital and technical competence and was thus the best alternative. The adherents of municipalization believed that a monopoly in the hands of the commune, with its huge size and capacity, was best suited to guarantee that all households or dwellings would be renovated to the same proper standard. The conservative majority secured privatization on strict terms, and private poudrette factories learned that farmers were willing to pay well for human excreta in large batches for the purpose of fertilizing fields and pastures. Nevertheless, by 1846–1847, the Kristiania commune had taken charge of the water supply and an upgraded fire brigade and had begun to regulate the standards of buildings and streets, together with planning the entire infrastructure of the city.15 In the 1890s, it was obvious that the enlarged capital needed more municipal control over its sanitary systems. In 1898, the capital established a municipal organization and dismissed all private contractors.16 The dynamo effect of the savings banks Another driving force behind the Norwegian municipalization process is to be found in the banking system. In the 1820s, the savings banks (sparebanker) became the crucial instrument for conducting municipalization in the larger cities. Rural and small-town municipalities followed in the 1840s and 1850s by establishing their own savings banks. Some communes chose to establish the bank themselves and provide all funding and management. Others stayed away from direct ownership, instead facilitating the bank’s foundation through subsidies and legal support or by deciding the recruitment of management. Usually, the same men holding positions on the municipal board and council ended up monitoring the bank. In both urban and rural municipalities, the savings banks spent much of their surpluses and profits on investments in cultural activities, health and social institutions and transport and communication systems. In the period 1870–1914, one-fourth of the savings banks’ surpluses found their way into donations to various purposes such as infrastructure, poor relief, schools, libraries and museums.17 The savings banks claimed that their mission was to promote ‘the common good’ and the well-being of all citizens and that they planned not to run any business enterprises. Municipal expenditures rose enormously from 1851 to 1885, compared with the decades in the first half of the nineteenth century. The rural municipalities experienced a steady increase: from 2.5 million kroner in 1851 to 7.1 million kroner in 1866 and 10.5 million kroner in 1885. The growth of expenditures in urban municipalities reached higher levels and

Municipalization in Norwegian cities c. 1850–1920 43 peaked at 1.63 million kroner in 1851, 5 million kroner in 1866 and 15 million kroner in 1885.18 The heavy investments in gasworks, electricity works (power plants), tramways, public baths, libraries and so on, however, took place after c. 1890 due to inventions and the dissemination of more advanced technology and vehicles. That laid the foundation for more comprehensive municipalization. More importantly, however, the parties Venstre and Høyre, founded in 1884, gave birth to a vast competition for voters. Politicians had to address their politics to larger groups of political citizens. Municipalization from above – a project of civilization Urban municipalization cannot be seen as isolated from the novel policies enacted by state and local governments. By the 1860s, social politics had become crucial for a new generation of politicians. In parliament, they discussed issues of poverty, such as how to hinder the impoverishment of the working class and how to seek out better lives for the underprivileged. The solution was not necessarily publicness: both conservative and liberal parliament members saw private voluntarism as the most efficient and helpful way of dealing with social issues in various contexts. Philanthropic organizations where women played a significant role in helping orphans, poor families, single mothers, those who were disabled for work and other similar groups dominated until the 1920s. The missionary organizations and Norske Kvinders Sanitetsforening (‘the Norwegian Women’s Sanitary Association’) took the lead in the beginning, followed later by other humanitarian organizations.19 The urbanization of society in the 1800s concerned, frightened, fascinated, inspired or overwhelmed observers, writers, scientists, architects, planners, medical doctors, clergymen, industrialists, merchants, commoners and, above all, those who ruled. That applied all over the North Atlantic world, and Norway was no different. Not only did cities and city dwellers become much more numerous, but also society as a whole was increasingly citified. Between 1800 and 1910, the percentage of Europeans who could be considered urban inhabitants tripled, and in America, it increased sevenfold.20 The heightened interest for city life was inevitable. Cities had been perceived in a negative way for many decades: people feared that life in the city might be worsened due to the indisputable fact that population growth in the countryside led to migration which boosted urbanization. Urban expansion implied overcrowded and unhealthy houses and streets, contagious diseases, as well as the rise of unregulated areas, poverty, crime, prostitution and starvation. Based on this background, the Norwegian state initiated publicness in the cities through lawmaking and regulations, just as other North Atlantic states did. The central government strived to regulate standards of housing, streets, sewer lines, water systems and health conditions. First and foremost, the Norwegian parliament passed a series of public health measures mandating local authorities

44  Knut Dørum to take certain actions. In the town of Fredrikstad, the municipal board pronounced in 1884 that the urban life is depending on the willingness to rule. Law and order, and regulations of every inch of the city must be carried out in all the cities of Norway. Beggars and prostitutes, rats and mice, dirt in the streets and spreading deceases are the consequences of wild organic urban life. In creating civilization, the state must be the master and the commune the servant.21 We must not forget that a significant part of municipalization can be seen as having been engineered by the state. In 1845, the Norwegian government enacted an ordinance that stipulated norms for the construction of houses, buildings and street-nets according to particular lengths, depths and heights. It also prescribed standards for water systems and sewers. In the decades to come, the central government would enact municipal measures, institutions and positions that could cope with school reforms, health issues, epidemics, poverty, overpopulation, sanitary systems, street and house construction, city planning and so on. The Norwegian political scientist Rune Slagstad sees a continuation in politics from the time when state officials ruled the country (1814–1884) through the dominance of the liberal party Venstre (1880–1935) to that of the labour party Arbeiderpartiet (1935–1965).22 All of these regimes aimed at shaping the state to fill the role of a societal entrepreneur executing modernization projects. Venstre­ staten (‘The Left State’) intended to democratize society through the creation of a common school for all Norwegians. The liberals wished to enlighten the people and increase knowledge, competence and self-consciousness among both labourers and peasants. Furthermore, the liberals made huge efforts to secure a decent life for everyone, which meant that the state and municipality had to ensure health and social services. In 1913, the minister Johan Castberg – who had been a member of three liberal governments – announced that ‘the state’s positive tasks’ had been vastly extended.23 The socialistic Arbeiderpartiet went much further in their desire for a new society ruled by the working class, prepared by radical reforms after winning national or local elections. That also implied the total municipalization of infrastructure, social and health services as well as popular education, entertainment and recreation. The cities merged as they became epicentres for every political and social experiment. The capital of Norway turned out to be the main stronghold for reforms. Moreover, the reformers considered the municipalities as the departure point for the creation of public welfare for a long time. Ideology and rhetoric – the self-made man, or professionalism and solidarity? In the political rhetoric of the 1850s and 1860s, words such as ‘future’, ‘new age’, ‘the new country’, ‘progress’ and ‘reforms’ began to appear as mottos

Municipalization in Norwegian cities c. 1850–1920 45 and slogans. These statements manifested the belief in modernity and solidarity addressed to the citizens that would involve both the state and the communes in many respects. However, common people were also the ones who were supposed to pay all the taxes and dues that publicness required. In the third largest city of Norway, Trondheim, the municipal budget had tripled from 1850 to 1875. In 1886, the liberal opposition accused the municipal board’s conservative majority of not sufficiently reducing the expenditures of the city, thus highlighting the ideal of parsimony. They clearly expressed their concern that the unprivileged were being forced to carry heavier public burdens in the form of taxes and dues.24 More than any other political group, the peasant opposition was critical of state and municipal expansionism by which the elites – particularly state officials – constantly pursued during the period c. 1840–1870. Søren Jaabæk, the leader of the popular movement Bondevennene (‘the Peasant’s Friends’) from 1865 to 1873, acquired a reputation for saying no to all actions and initiatives proposed in parliament that would cause state or municipal budgets to rise.25 Conservatives and liberals attached to the bourgeoise both sought to promote ‘the entrepreneurial ideal’, inspired by Anglo-American ideological trends.26 This ideal derived from the new market-oriented capitalism that emphasized free trade and free enterprise, and which trusted that the market’s invisible hand of competition would balance supply and demand into economic growth and a higher standard of living. According to this ideal, the entrepreneur – also idealized as the self-made man – ought to be considered the lynchpin of society. By individual competition and the acquisition of capital, the self-made man, however humble his birth, could climb the ladder of social hierarchy. In other words, a man without any initial property and patronage, without any education other than self-education or any advantage other than inborn talent, could make his way to wealth and status by means of self-help and force of character alone. This ideal rose to dominate political rhetoric and grew as a myth claiming that hard work and high moral standards could bring any poor person out of misery and improve their status and position. It maintained that poverty was self-inflicted and an individual matter. In 1875, ‘a conservative politician’ in the Ullensaker parish proclaimed: Helping a poor man to be idle on the cost of the commune and the society, will do more damage for the poor than it will harm our budgets. It ruins his morality and undermines his self-respect and withers the ideals and norms in which the society are rooted.27 In the 1880s and 1890s, Høyre and Moderate Venstre fronted a policy that insisted on austerity and parsimony during a time when Norway and many other countries were experiencing economic depression. However, in the 1880s, the conservative majority of Stavanger’s city council found it necessary to assert that several matters, such as founding savings banks, should not be categorized as communal, but be regarded as a matter of private initiative. Increasing

46  Knut Dørum unemployment and poverty should also be partly resolved by private organizations, but most of all by encouraging individuals to strive to live in accordance with high moral standards. Higher morality was seen as the way out of the troublesome economic situation.28 ‘The entrepreneurial ideal’ was becoming consolidated in the latter part of the nineteenth century as the norm of political theory in the North Atlantic world. However, administrative practice in state and municipal government both gave assistance to and challenged these individual-oriented laissez-faire norms. ‘The entrepreneurial ideal’, linked to the business world, and ‘the professional ideal’ created by the state bureaucracy both appear to have praised competition between the best men, individual achievements, the ideals of hard work and high moral standards on a personal level and promotion by merit; they also shared the same condemnation of patronage, corruption, nepotism, amateurism, inefficiency, extravagance and waste, which were associated with the old autocratic regime. On the other hand, state officials also developed a modern professionalism that represented not only professional efficiency, retrenchment and economy, publicity and full financial accountability but also an impersonal central agency, owing loyalty not to any individual but to the state as a whole. The professional ideal also implied the selection of talent, expertise, efficiency and economy, which was interpreted as an effective solution for social problems and the abolition of waste arising from economic and social neglect, all framed by a state bureaucracy. A state official in the small parish of Frogn claimed in 1850 that ‘[the] state and its bureaucracy are better prepared to organize, lead and accomplish society than any entrepreneur or businessman. We are the professionals’.29 In other words, to meet the social demands caused by population explosion and urban growth, it was necessary to utilize and extend the state with all its financial and organizational resources.30 Bureaucratic professionalism undoubtedly came to permeate the minds of Norwegian state officials, inspiring them to promote state expansionism prior to the 1880s. In the 1880s and 1890s, bourgeois liberals and radicals in Norway launched a more expansive way of thinking related to the common good of the city, anchored in new social causes and ideological grounds. A sort of social liberalism dominated before the socialists gained more political ground after c. 1900. This parallels what liberals in countries such as Great Britain and Germany agitated for and carried through.31 The commune should take the lead in improving the well-being of its habitants. For bourgeois liberals, social equality, justice and universalism (e.g. the desire to introduce a common school system for everyone) merged into arguments for creating a better nation, coming together with goals of enhanced local self-government and more power to the people generally, as well as the fulfilment of parliamentarism. Local self-government occupied a central position in liberalism in the late nineteenth century, and municipalization re­presented a united liberal attempt to deal with both the growing social question

Municipalization in Norwegian cities c. 1850–1920 47 and urban demographic and economic expansion. The dissemination of liberal ideas included the concept of letting the city carry out the political and social integration of all social strata, especially the working class. The emergence of a more general acceptance of local provisions for education, sanitation, recreation and infrastructure resulted in the triumph of liberalism, which stressed that solidarity, harmony and interaction should prevail between the social classes. A united community where everyone had a say and enjoyed access to advantageous education, solid health services, reasonably paid occupations and proper housing became an organic explanation of what one could designate as ‘a better future for the people’, ‘progression for society’ and ‘modern civilization’. Liberal national governments recognized that local authorities were destined to become the executor, not the motivator, of social reforms. Liberals wanted to protect local government and the people from state interference and bureaucracy, as well as from egoistic, irresponsible and profit-oriented businessmen. In 1895, the liberal party Venstre proclaimed in the parish Ås: ‘Let us increase popular self-government on the cost of expensive and inefficient state-bureaucracy and greedy and ruthless self-made men. Power to the people’.32 Socialists and social democrats paved the way for the creation of a society favourable to the working class and governed by the leaders of the trade unions and Arbeiderpartiet. Both bourgeois liberals and socialists/social democrats saw that the state and municipality could both serve as instruments for implementing reforms. However, they had different perspectives on politics and disagreed over their visions of society. In cases where liberals saw collaboration, interaction and harmony, socialists found enemies, class conflict, war and battles to be won. While social liberals found their heroes among middle-class social entrepreneurs – individuals engaged in care for others and philanthropic issues framed by both private initiative and local publicness – socialists and social democrats praised the independent and productive worker and stressed the importance of labour as the sole justification of remuneration, recruitment and promotion in life. The latter implied that the labour movement had to seize power and transform the state and the commune as tools in the making of a classless socialist society. The conservative party turned out to be squeezed between bourgeois voters demanding low taxes and harbouring a general scepticism towards public management on the one hand, and, on the other hand, social programmes launched by liberals and socialists promising a better life for the working class. Already in 1885, 1888 and 1891, the conservative party – Høyre – distributed pamphlets with programmes proclaiming that the working class deserved help to improve their living conditions. The party found itself veering into a competition with the leftist party, where the goal was to be the most attractive social reformer.33 Municipalization appeared to be the solution that won strongholds among both conservatives and liberals after 1890.

48  Knut Dørum The breakthrough of urban municipalization 1890–1920 The introduction of the party system would transform municipal policies. The decision-making process ended up being more politicized, which implied that politicians were supposed to do more than administer strict budgets: they should run political programmes ideologically motivated by their promises of progress and improvement and addressed to their voters and adherents. A statement from a politician in 1891 confirms this impression: ‘Having responsibility for a commune is no longer an administrative task. It has become running a community proportionate with what a government does for its country’.34 Norway’s inhabitants demanded a more convenient society with regard to modern infrastructure, especially in the urban areas. This, combined with the success and expansion of the labour movement in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, set political programmes in motion. Furthermore, the electoral reform of 1884 increased the number of voters and integrated new strata of both the middle class and the upper layers of the working class into the political system. The competition for voters grew much larger when the parliament enacted universal suffrage for men in 1898 and for women in 1913. The capital, Kristiania, became the driving force in the municipalization process due to its economic muscles. As early as 1854, Ole Munch Raeder, a minister in the Norwegian government, concluded that the interest that had been fostered for the benefit of the capital along with ‘the liberality in the act of granting funding that could bring growth to the city’ would certainly spread to other areas. He talked about a shift in the perception of both the city and its government.35 The formation of a modern capital, with the commune as the engine of development, became gradually an ideal for other cities and towns. The municipal council of Ullensaker parish asserted in 1894 that ‘[the] capital of Norway looms as a giant guiding the dwarfs of smaller urban cites to walk the right path to wealth and abundance’.36 The capital had resources that could be invested in new infrastructure and stronger judicial institutions to protect regulations, as well as institutions better able to handle health and social services. Requiring ownership of crucial land properties became the primary goal for city governments. In the 1840s and 1850s, the Kristiania commune sought to purchase land estates, and in the 1870s, most of the land on which the city was situated had become municipal property. These actions paved the way for municipal ownership of churches, the gasworks, the water system, and the regulation of squares and streets. It is important to note that the Kristiania commune seldom took the initiative to exert expropriation. However, the commune did put pressure on private landowners to give up properties through controlled transactions. Agreements could be reached, or arrangements made, that allowed the commune to acquire land at reasonable prices without competitors and hard price bargaining.37 As mentioned, the Kristiania commune organized a more appropriate and adequate waterworks and water system in the years 1846–1858 as a result of the

Municipalization in Norwegian cities c. 1850–1920 49 experience of the cholera epidemics. Already in 1858, the capital saw a communal fire brigade become a department of 100 employees. In 1859, a modern police corps inspired by the British ‘New Police’ was established. By 1900, the corps consisted of 535 men. In 1878, Kristiania commune took over the private gasworks, according to the agreement that had been signed 30 years earlier. In 1891, the commune decided to establish and run an electricity company that would provide the entire city with a new form of energy. As mentioned, this was followed by the instigation of municipal sanitary organization in 1896. In the same year, an employment agency came into being, and a municipal tramway followed in 1897. Paradoxically, the conservative party Høyre (‘the Right’) stood behind several of these reforms in Kristiania. The electricity company run by the commune emerged as a result of decisions taken by the conservatives.38 Around 1900–1901, the budget of Kristiania commune accounted for 24% of the Norwegian state budget, demonstrating that the capital of Norway was at the forefront of municipalization.39 Both conservative and liberal politicians regularly referred to ‘the inevitable demands of the times’. One could not escape from the responsibility that came with conducting the mission and duties of a virtuous politician. Not least did this political morality spring from old paternalism just as much as from a new definition of what authority ought to be attributed to politicians. As Rolf Danielsen has highlighted, the cities and towns were drawn into a process that compelled the commune to take over responsibility for various societal tasks. Nevertheless, the municipal takeover unfolded over a long period of time, due to the fact that the ideal of private initiative hampered municipal programmes and led to various half-way commitments. This process had already started in the 1840s and 1850s but really escalated from the 1870s onwards. In 1843, Trondheim Communal Hospital was released from its connection to the old poverty relief system but continued to help and treat underprivileged groups. In fact, a modern communal hospital serving all citizens and the entire city did not emerge until 1902. For a long time, politicians preferred to grant subsidies instead of pushing for municipal ownership. When the commune injected immense capital into the municipal schools in the 1870s, a negative balance on the budget followed for the first time in 1877. This experience instilled a sense of caution. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, it became clear that Trondheim commune had to intervene to aid private institutions. In the 1880s, the independent foundation underpinning the Cathedral school in Trondheim was headed for bankruptcy. The government of the city decided to save this institution by means of several grants. In 1892, the municipality felt compelled to purchase two of the city churches – which at the time functioned as autonomous foundations – after many economically troublesome years. In the 1880s and 1890s, the communal politicians in Trondheim approved the subsidization of several philanthropic societies. Nevertheless, these decades marked a watershed. In 1895, no one voted against the commune buying out the private owner of the city bath in order to run it themselves; this was followed by the construction

50  Knut Dørum of new municipal baths before the century had ended. For a short period in the 1890s, the Trondheim commune ventured to own and operate a telephone company, until the central Norwegian government drew the conclusion that it should be incorporated into a national telephone network. In the 1880s and 1890s, a long debate took place over whom was supposed to operate the coming electricity works (power plants). It took years before any settlement was reached, after having been postponed by politicians who both hesitated to let the commune have the responsibility and constantly rejected applications from private entrepreneurs. In 1891, the Trondheim commune received an offer to purchase crucial waterfalls and properties from one of the old patrician families in the city – Thoning Owesen – but decided to turn it down. Finally, in 1895 and 1898, the commune acquired these waterfalls step by step from a prosperous man named Thomas Angell; this laid the foundation for a municipal electricity company and tramway in 1901. In Trondheim, arguments for municipalization also came up against arguments for private entrepreneurs. However, practical and economic reasons were often referred to as justifications in the debate.40 The process of municipalization in Bergen city also lasted more than a halfcentury. When building three hospitals for lepers in the period 1845–1857, Bergen rushed to gauge the available opportunities.41 Another manifestation of this enthusiasm for publicness was the municipal waterworks and gasworks constructed in the 1850s, followed by a communal agency for roads and streets. Already in the 1850s, the Bergen commune took the initiative to improve city sewers. In 1857, it was proposed that the municipality should be in charge of all sanitary systems. However, it took years before the municipality became the owner and operator; ultimately, this did not occur until 1881. The majority argued that private operators would be most economic-minded and rational; however, the commune proved to be a better alternative due to resources and organization.42 In 1896–1897, a committee suggested that a municipal electric company would be more affordable than a private one, combined with a stronger ability to make firm decisions because of political competence. Prior to 1896–1897, the idea of private enterprise had prevailed in discussions about electricity.43 Smaller cities also took part in municipalization. The town of Arendal’s debt increased from about 17,000 kroner to over 800,000 kroner in the period 1854–1893: the commune managed to build large churches, a new church, a new road and street system, install a new water and sewage system, and establish a town engineering office and several municipal bridges.44 The economic resources of the city of Stavanger (the fourth largest city in Norway) could not keep pace with what the capital had at its disposal in the 1880s and 1890s. The economic depression also seemed to strike Stavanger harder than the capital. This resulted in a conservative majority in Stavanger’s local government that sought to cut public expenditures and have control of the city’s budget. In addition, the liberal party Venstre chose to steer clear of social radicalism and supported the austerity and parsimony policy, which lasted until 1914.45 Despite

Municipalization in Norwegian cities c. 1850–1920 51 all of that, the city of Stavanger experienced a vast municipal expansion. In the period 1890–1914, the municipal budget doubled seven times. Establishing a municipal electricity company, a municipal gasworks, making investments in the harbour, expanding the water and sewer systems under the control of the commune as well as creating new municipal hospitals, a municipal orphanage and municipalizing the school system put extreme pressure on the city budget. The historian Anders Haaland explains this expansion by referring to all the reforms that sprang from novel policies enacted by the central government in 1900, and the challenge that socialistic Arbeiderpartiet represented.46 The town of Fredrikstad expanded during the 1860s, and in the years 1873– 1875, new regulations, the building and maintenance of roads and streets, the construction of houses and the establishment of an engineering office and staff resulted in an immense increase in the town’s debt. The municipal debt rose from 45,710 to 137,445 speciedaler in that period.47 That led to cuts, which brought stagnation to municipal investments in the years prior to the turn of the century. In Fredrikstad, private charity and social and philanthropic organizations established orphanages, retirement homes for the disadvantaged and summer holiday camps for poor children, in the decades around 1900.48 Socialists directed criticism against what was known as ‘the upper-class sportsmanship of charity’. The socialist Adolf Berggraf remarked that this kind of charity would humiliate and demoralize its recipients. The female teacher and the leader of Fredrikstad og Omegns frisindede Kvindesagsforening (‘Fredrikstad and Surroundings Liberal-Minded Women’s Association’), Thora Hansen, argued that the commune should finance school meals.49 The conservative majority put a stop to any wider expansion of Fredrikstad. In 1901, the newspaper Fredrikstad Tilskuer expressed anxiety about getting a government comprised of a Left-party majority that would implement universal suffrage. The disastrous consequences of such a government would be politicians who could not afford to cover the municipal expenses but would instead have the power to spend public money at their own selfish discretion.50 However, in the years 1910–1912, the municipal hospital enhanced its capacity, a hospital for tuberculosis was built and a city physician was employed.51 The growth in municipal debt demonstrates that the period 1890–1920 marked a turning point. Those were the years when cities and towns took the initiative to control and operate a multitude of societal functions. The debt of the rural communes stood at 8,005 million kroner in 1890 and had risen to 33,034 million kroner by 1910. The relative growth of urban municipal debt turned out to be somewhat weaker, increasing from 32,212 million kroner in 1890 to 112,855 million kroner in 1910.52 However, the cities had been forerunners, while the rural communes were lagging behind. Studies of the rural community of Nærøy in Trøndelag indicate that the municipal board and council in the latter part of the nineteenth century blocked many of the private initiatives that urged the politicians to build or upgrade bridges and local roads. The policy to keep public costs,

52  Knut Dørum expenses and debts low and spare the inhabitants from tax increases remained in place. However, a poor commune also had to invest significantly in a reformed school system that included regular buildings and educated teachers entitled to their own residences, along with the maintenance of roads and bridges. The budgets peaked in the 1890s.53 It is important to note that rural communes developed strong traditions for municipal action but lacked economic resources. In rural areas, cooperative economy revolving around peasant associations, congregations and municipalities seemed to have advanced to a wider extent than in the urban areas. Nevertheless, the cities possessed much greater needs and challenges that had to be coped with, and many political actors appointed local authorities to take care of the modern infrastructure and the new social services. The socialist commune The socialist cities, or municipal socialism, marked a radical shift in the definition and perception of the city. By rethinking city life and whom the city ‘should serve’, municipal socialism turned how to perceive the meaning of urbanity on its head. The Norwegian socialist Hans Thunberg asserted in 1903: ‘Socialism highlights that the people are not meant for the city. It’s the other way around. The city is meant for the people. The city should be the servant, and the people should be its master’.54 In 1910, during the local election, the Labour party campaigned using the slogan, ‘The commune taking over all businesses that are socially beneficial’.55 The Norwegian socialists found their forerunners in Europe and the USA. In the Anglo-American literature, ‘municipal socialism’ has been used to describe the willingness to establish public ownership of streetcar lines, waterworks, sewage disposal services, electricity companies, tramways and so on and is also attached to reforms intended to provide services such as house construction for labourers, clearing slum and ensuring sustainable economic aid to the disadvantaged.56 The USA, England and France came to foster municipal socialism in many communities during the period 1890–1917. To live up to its name, municipal socialism must be deeply anti-market, insisting on a public management ethos that is committed to clearly articulated forms of equity and sustainability and is not beholden to market mechanisms. Second, municipal socialist experiments must be profoundly democratic, engaging a wide range of municipal residents in decision-making and operation.57 This is an ideal type of municipal socialism. In reality, the rise of the socialist city in many respects coincided with a longer process of municipalization that began in the mid-nineteenth century, in which all political milieus participated. The principles of municipal socialism could build on what had been regarded as natural monopolies, such as gas and water. In practice, bourgeois liberals and socialists pursued many of the same political goals because they both wanted to let the municipality run public services. As mentioned, practical reasons, technicalities

Municipalization in Norwegian cities c. 1850–1920 53 and assessment of resources and capacity had singled out the commune as the best entrepreneur in many cases, regardless of political affiliation or whether conservatives or liberals ruled the city. Mathematics seems to have won in several occasions, which often meant the victory of the commune. Nevertheless, urban socialism aspired higher, wanting to monopolize many of the societal functions in the hands of the municipality. In cases where liberals believed in a combination of private initiative and publicness, socialists sought a more ground-breaking transformation of society. In many respects, the social democrats and socialists went far further in creating a commune that could run the city. In 1899, the labourer newspaper in the town Larvik – Fremad – argued that municipalization, or kommunalisering, would be much better than private entrepreneurs. The commune would seek the best for its citizens and would have the ability to run many businesses in the most rational way, without losses and high expenses, whereas the private initiators would be driven by selfish profit.58 In 1913, the conservate newspaper – Akerposten – an editorial maintained that a socialist victory in the coming election would lead to stagnation, municipalization and an increase in taxes in Aker commune. Many of its inhabitants would flee the commune in order to avoid the higher taxes. The editorial predicted that the consequences of a socialist commune would be municipal food storage, the municipal sale of coal and coke and foodstuffs, free doctors, free nursing, communal factories and municipal housing construction.59 In 1911, the conservative party Høyre succeeded in enacting a law in parliament that set a fixed maximum limit for tax levies in the municipalities. The law referred to the dangers embedded in municipal socialism. According to this perspective, the socialists were able to threaten or ruin all private businesses and restrain the freedom of the citizens.60 In 1916 in Oslo, Arbeiderpartiet came to power by winning the local election and was able to mark a turning point. This ‘socialist commune’ began a new wave of expanding the municipality. The municipal board and council in Kristiania implemented free textbooks in schools in 1914, a retirement pension in 1918 and a pension for single mothers in 1919. Municipal house construction started in 1911, the commune took over chimney sweeping in 1920 and the last private cinemas were closed in 1926 after the majority of the politicians had determined that municipal cinemas should be the overall standard in 1918–1919. In addition, in 1924 a new meat market and in 1926 a new fish market were connected to the Oslo (Kristiania until 1924) commune’s policy of regulating prices and providing the working class with better food at reasonable prices. Next, the tramway became half-communal in 1923, until Oslo commune completed the takeover in 1934. Finally, in 1931, the last remnant of private waste disposal vanished after full municipalization.61 One should note that the municipal sectors attached to Kristiania grew vastly for a long time despite having a mostly conservative majority in the municipal boards and councils. The liberal party Venstre only managed to seize power

54  Knut Dørum in 1894 and 1897, until the socialistic Arbeiderpartiet had won enough adherents and voters to challenge the conservative party Høyre and achieve the main position and majority in municipal government in 1916. This means that the conservative party in Kristiania could regularly communicate moderation and highlight private initiative in its rhetoric but, in practice, welcomed extended municipalization together with Venstre. The debate that occurred in Kristiania during 1906–1919 about what kind of administrative-practical and financial arrangement one should apply to the sweeping of chimneys – municipal or private – followed the conflict line as follows: we find on one side social democrats and the leftist party and on the other side the conservative party Høyre and Moderate Venstre (‘Moderate Left’), a faction that had broken off of Venstre on the right flank. All parties regarded sweeping as a municipal task, but they did not agree on questions related to municipal ownership and operation versus private enterprise. However, in the debate held by the municipal board and council, the arguments revolved around technicalities, practical issues, efficiency and how municipalization or continued privatization would increase benefits and reduce costs. The board members restrained from expressive and polemic ideological rhetoric; instead, they emphasized points grounded in economic and practical concerns.62 In the debate that was raised in 1918–1919 over private monopoly versus municipal monopoly regarding the operation of the cinema in the city, other types of arguments appeared. Now, Arbeiderpartiet was accused of attempting to deprive of businessmen their livelihood and crucial income. This argument from the conservatives was countered by the representatives of Arbeiderpartiet, who stated that the commune would be better able to handle the business of cinemas, and more capable of tackling moral issues when censorship of films that might ruin juveniles’ attitudes and norms seemed to be necessary.63 The same also goes for the debate on whether the Kristiania commune should take over the provision of coal and coke or not. Høyre asserted that the municipality turning a profit on this business would harm the citizens who were supposed to earn a decent living on trade. Arbeiderpartiet argued that the municipal fuel company would be the only actor that could ensure all citizens coal and coke, at reasonable prices.64 In 1913, Fellesstyre for Arbeiderpartiets Kvindeforeninger (‘the Board for the Labour Party’s Women’s Associations’) addressed a proposal for a pension for single mothers to the political authorities in Kristiania. A committee was formed in 1917 comprising representatives from all parties. The majority of the representatives endorsed a wide remit for the pension that would include widows, as well as separated and unmarried women: they were motived by the wish to aid families and children economically and prevent impoverishment and unfortunate conditions for bringing up children, and above all, they wanted to create equal and better terms for various groups of underprivileged women. The conservative minority would eventually restrict the pension to widows on moral grounds. The socialistic proposal was regarded as an encouragement for young women to live

Municipalization in Norwegian cities c. 1850–1920 55 a promiscuous life with casual partners, without any intention of marriage and obtaining stable housing and occupation.65 Nevertheless, even though ideological arguments did play a decisive role, the participants sought to convince their fellow debaters and the public sphere by referring to economic and practical factors: that the commune or a private entrepreneur was the most competent to deal with a particular societal function and task. In his chapter about the Nordic tramway debate, Mats Hallenberg observes that, in 1905, economic arguments carried the most weight in Kristiania, and the organization of transport services was primarily discussed from a financial perspective. That differed sharply from the debate in 1890 when the radicalized Venstre had utilized a far more ideologically grounded rhetoric. Municipalization as winning projects Municipalization in Norway c. 1850–1920, as in other countries, dealt obviously with contentious politics, conflicts and colliding ideologies and political goals. In the period 1814–1870, the conservatives tended to be more eager than the liberals to enhance the functions of state and local government. The liberals and radicals at that time had come to mistrust all that could be related to the old regime and an autocratic state. Therefore, the popular and liberal-bourgeois opposition used to be reluctant to support state-activism and wanted to restrict municipal expenditures. By the 1860s and 1870s, these patterns had gradually begun to change, and the conservatives and liberals switched roles. The conservative policy of austerity and parsimony encountered the liberal and radical policy of state expansion and municipalization. However, prior to the 1880s and 1890s, various groups of bourgeois politicians claimed that poverty was self-inflicted and ought to be resolved by religious and moral measures. However, liberals and radicals argued more frequently that private initiatives could not catch up with urban expansion and the infrastructural and social issues caused by that vast population growth. Nevertheless, the complexity of the cities called for local authorities that could organize the construction of new infrastructure, secure health and social services and guarantee socially inclusive education and recreation, which nobody could neglect. Also, conservative politicians felt compelled to seek publicness as a solution to social issues and new infrastructure. Apparently, the rising professional ideal in state bureaucracy after c. 1850 saw state intervention as the solution to social and infrastructural demands due to the fact that state and municipal organizations would be economically larger and stronger, as well as more accountable, solid, efficient and stable than private entrepreneurs. In fact, many conservatives in Norway had backgrounds as bureaucrats. With its strong tradition of peasant communalism, urban governance and local self-government – combined with a reform in 1837 that introduced power­ ful municipalities with wide-ranging political-administrative competence and

56  Knut Dørum authority – Norway had unique conditions for the expansion of publicness in both urban and rural areas. In addition, the structure and dynamics of democratic capitalism and the cooperative organization of economy were strengthened and sped up. The saving banks became driving forces for both rural and urban municipalities in this process. The cholera epidemics spurred the state and the communes to carry out rapid reforms facilitating water supply, sewers and health care, particularly in the 1840s and 1850s. The party system that took form in the 1880s, and the competition between parties over winning votes, triggered politicians to give priority to municipalization. Nevertheless, the period 1890–1920 marked a turning point where technological innovations, boosts in the economy, increased trade and breakthroughs for massive industrialization, as well as the consequences of long-term population explosion, had compelling effects on politics. The politicians had to govern their cities to avoid chaos, high crime rates, prostitution, impoverishment, epidemics, social unrest and political radicalization. Therefore, the real breakthrough of municipalization in many Western countries occurred in these decades around 1900. Obviously, the liberals and socialists wanted to expand the responsibilities of the city more than the conservatives, and municipal socialism took municipalization somewhat further. A  quite different understanding was launched, with municipal socialism targeting the total control of infrastructure and health and social services by the municipality, in addition to a full attack on market economy and capitalism. In Norway, the socialist commune of Kristiania fuelled municipalization in the capital from 1916 until the crisis of the 1920s, which generated severe obstacles to municipal expansion and investments. Municipal socialism can easily be interpreted as drastic and transformative, but in many cases, the socialist commune brought forward tendencies in city politics that had their roots in the last two or three decades of the nineteenth century. Importantly, all categories of politicians had to deal with balancing the budget, the economy, technicalities and practical considerations. After 1920, much of the impetus for municipal socialism faded away because of the severe economic depression. Can we talk about a Norwegian Sonderentwicklung? Norway enjoyed favourable preconditions for municipalization, as mentioned earlier. Both rural and urban communes were involved in municipal expansion already in the 1840s and 1850s. However, it seems as though Norway generally followed the same patterns of municipalization as in the USA, Great Britain, France, Germany and the other Nordic countries, among others. Timing and chronology varied, but the tendencies were similar. It is worthwhile mentioning that municipalization took different directions in each country with respect to the mixture of private enterprise and municipal ownership. Simultaneously, it is important to note that technological innovations affected many countries in the period c. 1890–1920. Therefore, the decisive stage of municipalization in most Western countries could be placed in these decades. On

Municipalization in Norwegian cities c. 1850–1920 57 the other hand, the Norwegian communal traditions and the democratic capitalism that structured the country led to a more comprehensive municipalization than was the case in many other countries. Compared with Denmark, Sweden and Finland, Norway got a head start when widespread communal self-government, together with a significant delegation of power from state to local authorities, was introduced already in 1837. This head start manifested itself in the many savings banks that the communes facilitated, based on philanthropic ideals, and in the heavy communal investments in regular schools based on the principle of universalism; both of these elements also gradually came into being in the cities. In other words, local authorities sought to establish banks and schools to benefit every citizen. The Norwegian head start seems to have vanished prior to the 1870s, due to the strong urban growth and capital-intensive technical innovations that unleashed widespread local publicness all over the Nordic countries, as well as in other North Atlantic countries. Municipalization as transnationality is reflected in all the references politicians and bureaucrats in the capital of Norway made to other Europeans cities, especially Berlin, sometimes also London. In the Kristiania/Oslo archives, we find many reports in German that originated from the city bureaucracy in Berlin. Berlin became the ideal and model for Norwegian city municipalization, as it did for other capitals in the Nordic countries. In many countries, ‘the professional ideal’ to a certain extent prevailed over ‘the entrepreneurial ideal’. State bureaucracy had more resources and stood out as more organized than private contractors. Notes 1 UKA (Ullensaker kommunearkiv),Ullensaker formannskap, korrespondanse. Letter from Ole Knudsen Dahl, September 24, 1840. 2 Francis Sejersted, Demokratisk kapitalisme (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1993). 3 ‘Kommunalismus’ is elaborated by Peter Blickle as a term applied on local government in Europe c. 1400–1800. 4 Steinar Imsen, Norsk bondekommunalisme fra Magnus Lagabøte til Kristian Kvart, vol. 2 (Oslo: Tapir, 1994). 5 Steinar Imsen, Norsk bondekommunalisme fra Magnus Lagabøte til Kristian Kvart, vol. 1–2 (Trondheim: Tapir, 1990/1994). 6 Knut Dørum, “Et oppgjør med eneveldet og standssamfunnet. Dannelsen av en folkelig offentlighet i norske bygder 1814–1850,” Historisk tidsskrift 92, no. 1 (2013): 91–123. 7 Edgar Hovland, “Grotid og glanstid: 1837–1920,” in Folkestyre i by og bygd. Norske kommuner gjennom 150 år, ed. Hans Eyvind Næss (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1987), 61–62. 8 FKA (Fredrikstad kommunearkiv), formannskap, korrespondanse 1851. Report from the municipal council, April 24, 1851. 9 Jens Arup Seip, Utsikt over Norges historie, vol. 1–2 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1974/1981); Sverre Steen, Lokalt selvstyre i Norges bygder (Oslo: J.W. Cappelens forlag, 1968).

58  Knut Dørum 10 Jan Eivind Myhre, Hovedstaden Christiania: fra 1814 til 1900 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1990), 222. 11 FKA (Fredrikstad kommunearkiv), formannskapet, korrespondanse 1858. Statement from merchant Hans Bierch, December 7, 1858. 12 Myhre, Hovedstaden Christiania: fra 1814 til 1900, 222. 13 May-Brith Ohman Nielsen, Mennesker, makt og mikrober. Epidemibekjempelse and hygiene på Sørlandet 1830–1880 (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2008). 14 Egil Ertesvåg, Et bysamfunn i utvikling. Bergen bys historie, vol. 3 (Bergen: Alma mater forlag, 1995), 489. 15 Inge Torstenson, Fra nattmann til renholdsverk. Avfall og renovasjon i Oslo gjennom tusen år (Oslo: Pro Ark AS, 1997), 37–53; Myhre, Hovedstaden Christiania: fra 1814 til 1900, 339. 16 Torstenson, Fra nattmann til renholdsverk, 73. 17 Lars Fredrik Øksendal, Til allmenn nytte. Om gaver, sparebanker og sparebankstiftelser gjennom 200 år (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2022), 17. 18 Hovland, “Grotid og glanstid: 1837–1920,” 82. 19 Anne Lise Seip 1984, Sosialhjelpstaten blir til: norsk sosialpolitikk 1740–1920 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1994), 165 ff. 20 Andrew Lees, Cities Perceived. Urban Society in European and American Thought: 1820–1940 (Vermont: Echo Point Books & Media, 2014), 1–13. 21 (FKA) Fredrikstad kommunearkiv, formannskapet, korrespondanse 1884. Report from formannskapet, July 1, 1884. 22 Rune Slagstad, De nasjonale strateger (Oslo: Pax forlag, 2015). 23 Seip, Sosialhjelpstaten, 165. 24 Rolf Danielsen, ‘En exempelløs fremgang. 1880–1920’, Trondheims bys historie, vol. 4 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1997), 157–61. 25 Alf Kaartvedt, Drømmen om borgerlig samling 1884–1918, in editor Francis Sejersted, Høyres historie, vol. 1 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1984), 9–13. 26 Harold Perkin, Origins of Modern English Society (London and New York: Routledge, 1966), 221–230. 27 UKA (Ullensaker kommunearkiv), formannskap, korrespondanse 1875. Letter from “a conservative voter,” December 4, 1875. 28 Hans Eyvind Næss, “Antiradikalisme and sparsommelighet 1883–1918,” in Hans Eyvind Næss, Partiet og politikken. Stavanger Høyre 1883–1983 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget), 80–93. 29 FK (Frogn kommunearkiv), formannskapet, korrespondanse. Report from the bailiff, December 2, 1850. 30 See Perkin, Origins of Modern English Society, 319–339. See also Seip, Utsikt over Norges historie, vol. 1, 90–93. Whereas Perkin utilizes the term ‘the professional ideal’, Seip sums up much the same in the expression ‘patriotic liberalism’ (in Norwegian ‘patriotisk liberalisme’). 31 Jan Palmowski, “Liberalism and Local Government in Late Nineteenth-century Germany and England,” The Historical Journal 45, no. 2 (2002): 381–409. 32 ÅKA (Ås kommunearkiv), formannskap, korrespondanse 1895. Proclamation from the liberal party Venstre, July 12, 1895. 33 Seip 1984, Sosialhjelpstaten blir til: norsk sosialpolitikk 1740–1920, 284–286; Olav Arild Abrahamsen, “Høyres organisasjonsoffensiv og valgkamp i 1884” (Master’s thesis, University of Oslo, 1977). 34 UKA (Ullensaker kommunearkiv), formannskapet, korrespondanse 1891. Report from formannskapet, March 2, 1891.

Municipalization in Norwegian cities c. 1850–1920 59 35 Jan Eivind Myhre, Hovedstaden Christiania: 1814–1900 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1990), 337. 36 UKA (Ullensaker kommunearkiv), formannskapet, korrespondanse 1894. Report from formannskapet, October 14, 1894. 37 Myhre, Hovedstaden Christiania: fra 1814 til 1900, 330–42. 38 Ibid., 479–83. 39 Knut Kjeldstadli, Den delte byen, in Oslo bys historie, vol. 4 (Oslo: Cappelen, 1990), 258. 40 Rolf Danielsen, ‘Den exempelløse Fremgang’: 1880–1920, vol. 4 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1997), 157–94. 41 Ertresvaag, Et bysamfunn i utvikling. Bergens bys historie, 279. 42 Ibid., 215 and 489. 43 Ibid., 500–1. 44 Håkon Haugland, I sjøfartens tid. Arendal 1723–1900, Arendal by- og regionshistorie (Oslo: Cappelen Damm akademisk, 2020), 379–81. 45 Anders Haaland, Industribyen 1890–1965. Stavangers bys historie, vol. 3 (Stavanger: Wigestrand, 2012), 162–66. 46 Ibid., 161–91. 47 Martin Dehli, Sagbrukstiden 1860–1914. Fredrikstad bys historie, vol. 3 (Fredrikstad kommune, 1973), 53 ff. 48 Ibid., 378 ff. 49 Ibid., 381–82. 50 Ibid., 456. 51 Ibid., 388–90. 52 Hovland, “Grotid og glanstid: 1837–1920,” 118. 53 Runbjørg Bremset Hansen, Nærøyfolket 1800–1920 (Nærøy: Nærøy kommune, 2000), 345–47. 54 (ÅKA) Ås kommunearkiv, formannskapet, korrepondanse 1903. Letter from ‘socialist’ Hans Thunberg to the municipal board, 14 April 1903, related to the question about urbanization in Ås. 55 Seip, Sosialhjelpstaten, 167. 56 Shelton Stromquist, “Municipal Socialism from Worldwide Connections,” in Socialism, ed. Marcel van der Linden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 366–88. 57 Ellen Leopold and David McDonald, “Municipal Socialism Then and Now: Some Lessons for the Global South,” Third World Quarterly 33 (2012): 1837–53. 58 Fremad, November 14, 1899. 59 Akerposten (newspaper), October 4, 1913. 60 Knut Dørum, Demokrati og medborgerskap (Oslo: Cappelen Damm, 2024). 61 Kjeldstadli, Den delte byen, 259–60. 62 Oslo byarkiv, Komiteer og utvalg. A-20099/FY. Kommunens overtakelse av Feiervesenet 1918–1919. 63 Aktstykker vedkommende Kristiania kommune i aaret 1918–1919. Kristiania bystyres forhandlinger, 136–41. 64 Aktstykker vedkommende Kristiania kommune i aaret 1918–1919. III. Kristiania bystyres forhandlinger, 193 ff. 65 Cecilie Lintoft, “Kristiania morspensjon – Norges første kommunale morstrygd,” Tobias (2019): 6–13; Aktstykker vedkommende Kristiania kommune i aaret 1919– 1920. III. Kristiania bystyres forhandlinger. Forhandlinger i bystyremøtet lørdag den 25. september 1919.

4 Theatre and the making of the welfare city Gothenburg’s performance stages, 1880s–19341 Christina Reimann In 1917, a Gothenburg city councillor charged with examining the municipal theatre project claimed that it had ‘by now become generally accepted’ that ‘a municipality, which has grown to some considerable extent and acquired a certain material prosperity, has an obligation to satisfy its inhabitants’ not only material but also spiritual well-being’.2 Taking inspiration from the ‘infrastructural turn’ in urban history, recent research has identified cultural infrastructure, such as publicly funded theatres, as a central component of urban welfare.3 Historians have come to consider municipality- and state-sponsored cultural institutions as essential to the governance of growing cities during the long turn of the century and critical for establishing welfare as a major organizing principle of (urban) politics.4 From the 1870s to the 1930s, city governance was underpinned by a general scepticism towards the urban phenomenon; this scepticism was particularly strong in industrial centres, but it was also strong in smaller cities like the western Swedish port city of Gothenburg.5 In the context of urban reform just like ‘appropriate’ housing,6 ‘decent’ entertainment for the urban populace became a yardstick by which to measure a city’s ‘modernity’ in terms of popular welfare and education, as well as cultural reputation. Drawing on city council resolutions and newspaper articles, as well as on travel guide books, contemporary literary accounts and documents produced by associations and public bodies, this chapter traces the transformation of some of Gothenburg’s theatres from private enterprises into municipality- and state-run affairs. This transformation highlights the often-conflictual negotiation processes inherent in the making of welfare cities, especially if this concept encompasses not only material but also cultural infrastructures. Making some of Gothenburg’s theatres into public institutions while excluding others reveals the often competing claims of turn-of-the-century urban welfare: cultural institutions had to be made accessible, both financially and content-wise, to the growing urban populace while at the same time fulfilling the city authorities’ purpose of educating and elevating the (working) people. Public funding was to guarantee that ‘good’ theatre became an economically affordable and thereby socially integrating institution while at the same time conforming to a certain moral and DOI: 10.4324/9781003379232-4

This chapter has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 international license.

Theatre and the making of the welfare city 61 artistic standard. Crucially, reflections and arguments relating to the chronically stressed municipal finances, which were to be safeguarded or used to supposedly more urgent ends, marked the public–private negotiation process throughout. Against this background, the chapter uncovers various forms of urban actorship involved in transforming theatre into a public infrastructure and traces the entanglements between private initiatives, municipal decision-making, state support and the relatively weak involvement of popular movements. By unpacking the entangled components of emerging urban welfare, my approach unravels the welfare city as having its origin and catalyst not only in considerations of ‘the common good’ but also, equally, in private interests. Gothenburg’s theatre history demonstrates the extent to which local contingencies determined the establishment of cultural infrastructures: the transformation of the theatre scene was firmly anchored in Gothenburg’s particular socio-­cultural and material urban fabric, as well as embedded in a socio-political process whereby the city’s nineteenth-century donation culture was gradually replaced by tax-funded investments beginning even before the social democrats secured the majority at the city council in 1923.7 Rather than looking at the artistic and literary dimension of theatrical pieces,8 the study views theatres themselves in their urban and transnational contexts, throwing into relief traits of public gover­nance, a changing built environment and an urban pleasure culture.9 Between the 1870s and 1930s, Gothenburg went through an intensive urban change: the port city grew significantly and transformed from a trade-focused city into an industrial one that attracted growing numbers of migrants, mainly from the rural hinterland. In the face of a growing urban working class, and particularly in order to counter alcohol abuse, the city authorities and liberal workers’ associations became increasingly concerned with the leisure activities of the urbanites. Starting in 1895, the municipality and the local patrons jointly sponsored so-called people’s concerts at the workers’ institute, and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1905.10 The regular performances of classical music concerts, which were affordable for the general population because of public and private sponsorship, laid the foundation for a public cultural infrastructure that was meant to integrate, educate and discipline the urban (working) population of Gothenburg.11 However, the institutionalization of cultural performances did not follow the logic of urban governance alone; it also bore the imprint of the Gothenburg cultural elite, which – with important patrons at its apex – was ambitiously striving to provide the economy-oriented port city with a high-culture profile.12 To implement this cultural agenda, theatreinterested circles called for public support and became a major driving force for making theatre into a cultural infrastructure. If we accept, following Simon Gunn, that ‘infrastructure is what keeps the modern city going’ by providing ‘its sources of power and the means of life for its inhabitants,’13 cultural institutions and the theatre in particular, played a key, albeit ambiguous, role for the process of urban ‘infrastructuring.’ This process

62  Christina Reimann involved a broad alliance of state and city authorities, municipal reformers, voluntary associations and cultural entrepreneurs that intended to improve the urban dwellers’ physical and moral conditions – and the city’s cultural reputation.14 While classical music was widely recognized both as a means for (working) people’s cultivation and as a signifier of cultural standing,15 the cultural value of theatre was more contested, as was the extent to which private and public funds should be used for running theatres. The chapter starts by sketching the spatial-historical context of Gothenburg’s theatre history, which then unfolds into two chronologically overlapping parts where each sub-section deals with one particular theatre location. I focus on five of Gothenburg theatres, situated at Lorensberg amusement garden (Alhambra, Folkteater and Lorensbergsteater), Järntorget square (Nya Teater) and Götaplatsen square (Stadsteater), but exclude Stora Teatern. Stora Teatern, Gothenburg’s venerable theatre from 1859, was located in Kungsparken, the green belt that had replaced the razed city walls in the mid-nineteenth century (Map 4.1). The

Map 4.1 Gothenburg 1900, theatre locations. 1. Slottsskogen (open-air theatre 1915–1945), 2. Järntorget (Nya Teatern 1909–1925), 3. Kungsparken (Stora Teatern 1859–), 4. Lorensberg (Alhambra 1891–1896, Folkteatern 1897–1942, Lorensbergsteatern 1916–1934), 5. Götaplatsen (Stadsteatern 1934–), and 6. Kungsgatan (Lilla Teatern 1922–1935). Regionarkivet Västra Götalandsregionen och Göteborgs Stad.

Theatre and the making of the welfare city 63 theatre, also known as Storan, was located close to the early modern city centre, within the former ramparts, and had a long-standing position in Gothenburg’s cultural life. Storan, while at the core of Gothenburg’s urban development in the mid-nineteenth century,16 was not part of the expansion of public life into new city quarters to the same extent as Lorensberg’s theatres, Nya Teatern at Järntorget and Stadsteatern at Götaplatsen.17 Nonetheless, Stora Teatern also began receiving public funding in 1923, and in 1938, the municipality eventually purchased its neoclassical building. Storan was transformed into a venue dedicated to musical theatre in 1920 and operates as such until today.18 Theatre’s urban and transnational integration In 1884, the director of Gothenburg’s main theatre, Stora Teatern, asked the municipality for financial support. The city councillors agreed with him – and with other European municipalities – that public funding should enable theatre directors to produce performances of ‘moral value.’19 Although the city council denied Stora Teatern any public funding that year, Gothenburg city councillors gradually came to consider theatre as part of a cultural infrastructure that ‘modern’ cities had to offer in order to preserve their national and international reputation and to instruct and duly entertain the urban population. In the early twentieth century, municipal and state funding became crucial for the maintenance of theatres in a context where fixed actor ensembles replaced touring theatre companies and where private investments shifted over to new entertainment media, especially the rising film business.20 The Gothenburg municipal theatre Stadsteatern, situated at the then-new ­Götaplatsen, was proposed in the 1890s, planned in the 1910s and, after a long delay and much debate, inaugurated in 1934. In 1929, the city council, led by the social democrats, decided definitively to build this theatre. During the crisis-­ridden 1930s, the rising costs created by the new Stadsteater again caused repeated discussions among the city councillors, but the very existence of a municipally funded theatre was not principally called into question any longer. However, the development of some of Gothenburg’s theatres into publicly funded cultural institutions was not a linear process that experienced a major shift in 1923 when the social democrats won the majority in the city council. Gothenburg’s uneven history of public theatre reaches back to the late nineteenth century. Although the municipality became a potential supporter of theatrical entertainment as early as 1884, Stadsteatern was founded primarily because of private initiative and donation, with the support of municipal and state funding. Stadsteatern’s predecessor, Lorensbergsteatern, situated at the traditional amusement garden of Lorensberg, was built in 1916 and had been ‘offered’ to the city by Sophus Petersen, a private investor and the manager of Lorensberg’s restaurant. Although the idea of a publicly funded theatre was not at all widely shared among the Gothenburg socio-cultural elite in the 1910s, Lorensbergsteatern became the first theatre in Sweden to receive municipal funding for its operational business.21

64  Christina Reimann Gothenburg’s main public park, Slottsskogen, had been laid out by public spending in 1875. Unlike green spaces in other Swedish cities, it did not develop into a Folkets park, a people’s park, with a theatre run by the workers’ movement.22 Instead, Slottsskogen received a privately run open-air summer theatre that, from 1914, provided regular seasonal income to the public coffers. In 1908, when the workers’ association Arbetareföreningen inaugurated its new headquarters at Järntorget square in the sea- and factory workers’ district, the building’s theatre hall, Nya Teatern, was rented out to a private operator. Unlike Stadsteatern and Stora Teatern, Nya Teatern did not receive the municipal funding necessary for its maintenance, forcing it to close in 1925. Nevertheless, the city authorities otherwise took considerable efforts to provide the working classes with ‘decent’ amusement. Theatres played a role in the negotiation of Gothenburg’s urban self-­ understanding as well as the inner-urbanization process at a time of accelerated urban change not only in terms of their funding and management but also with respect to the performances themselves. While concert halls were generally associated with urban high society, theatres, with programmes ranging from variety shows and popular comedies to classical pieces, played a more ambiguous role within urban society, not least for the project of popular education.23 Depending on their respective profile and management, different theatres could – sometimes simultaneously – fulfil very different social functions ranging from sheer entertainment to intellectual stimulation, from popular education to public dialogue, from centres of urban sociability to stages representing social status. Theatre responded to urban trends and developments in so far as, for example, the success of the short spectacular performances of variety shows and revue theatre was in step with the acceleration of urban life,24 and the colourful productions responded to the explosion of visual culture in late nineteenth-century urban spaces.25 During the 1890s, the popularity of light comedies and revues at the people’s theatre Folkteatern at Lorensberg amusement garden, as well as the literal institutionalization of folksy-rural plays at the open-air theatre at Slottsskogen, testified to a considerable need among the urban population for both diversion and reassurance in a rapidly changing urban environment. The local anchoring of the revues at Folkteatern and the romanticization of the Swedish countryside in folksy plays were important characteristics of Gothenburg’s theatre during the long turn of the century, as were the transnational connections that the theatres established and relied on. Theatres were receptors for international trends and functioned as transnational communication tools. A number of plays were adapted from German – though translated to Swedish, unlike in earlier periods – and many directors had either learnt their profession or worked abroad, especially in Germany, thereby nourishing theatre’s cosmopolitan aura. Performances at Lorensberg also followed transnational colonial discourses by staging or exhibiting ‘exotic’ people. Especially during the 1890s, as ‘exhibitions’ of foreign ethnicities were an intrinsic part of colonialist discourses on Western European ethnocentric superiority, African or Eastern European tribes were at times made

Theatre and the making of the welfare city 65 to camp at Lorensberg garden.26 By hosting these ‘exhibitions’, Lorensberg contributed to the production of Swedish colonialism and the transnational construction of colonial patterns that marked turn-of-the-century European societies.27 Though they were connected to the outside world, Gothenburg’s theatre scenes were also firmly anchored in the local urban space: by drawing people to their performances and by their sheer material presence, theatres contributed to shaping the urban environment. At Lorensberg, Järntorget and Götaplatsen, theatres became dynamic centres of Gothenburg’s public life. Dressed for their visit, promenading to and from the theatre or stepping out the tramway in front of it, the public played a role in converting these districts into theatrical spaces where modern urban life was put on stage and social status was represented and communicated.28 Theatres were also at the heart of an accelerated change within the material urban landscape; the most blatant example of this phenomenon was Lorensbergsteatern, which was built in order to oppose an urban planning strategy that would have erased Lorensberg, the old amusement garden. The construction of Stadtsteatern at Götaplatsen, in the city’s new (cultural) centre for public life, was conceived and carried out in a time- and money-intensive process to satisfy Gothenburg’s need for a new theatre of ‘cultural value’, which interested elite circles had been arguing for since the late nineteenth century.29 Gothenburg saw many more, often ephemeral, private-run theatres that never received any public funding. Excluded from the circle of municipally funded theatres was, for example, the small but innovative Lilla Teater, or Lillan. Between 1922 and 1935, Lillan was the first Swedish theatre to be directed by a woman, the actress Viran Rydkvist, and staged plays that engaged with women’s rights and living conditions.30 Rydkvist also initiated Slottsskogen’s open-air theatre, which lasted from 1915 to 1945. The theatre ‘in the bushes’ was not only a lucrative enterprise but also a performance space that was well received – and obviously badly needed – by the Gothenburg public as an escape from reality and a means of socio-cultural as well as national reassurance in times of world wars and crises.31 The Gothenburg public, commentators and Slottsskogen’s board of directors were pleased with the little open-air theatre in the bushes with its folksy programme and resisted repeated endeavours to install a large-scale Folkparkteater with artistic ambitions.32 To be sure, there were theatres both within and outside of the scope of public and political attention. To grasp the dynamic role that theatre played for Gothenburg’s development into a welfare city, this chapter focuses on those theatres that stood at the centre of public attention. 1880s–1925: the private business of theatre entertainment During the second half of the nineteenth century, variety entertainment developed into an internationally successful genre that was closely connected to the emerging metropolitan culture. Variety entertainment, a new type of popular culture with physical and often-sexualized performances at its core, had its operational centre at the Berlin Metropoltheater, the Parisian Folies-Bergères and the

66  Christina Reimann London Empire Theatre, but it was equally successful at the Alhambra at Gothenburg’s Lorensberg garden.33 Theatre at Lorensberg

Variety theatre performances at Lorensberg garden drew a mixed public, in terms of social class as well as gender.34 As was the case in the European metropoles, prostitutes attended the Alhambra alongside bourgeois women, challenging social and sexual conventions.35 French and German variety artists were celebrated by audiences in Gothenburg and, in line with transnational colonialist practice, the Alhambra saw performances by African performers.36 At the same time, in Gothenburg like in the European metropoles, variety theatre aroused harsh critique that tapped into general big-city criticism, as well as discourses around decadence, sexuality and gender.37 In Sweden, the moral panic provoked by variety entertainment was such that, in 1896, national legislation put a ban on alcohol sales during variety shows, which caused the ruin of many variety theatres. This was also the case at the Alhambra, whose final variety show was staged on 30 September 1896. No newspaper reporting regarding this final variety evening exists, but according to a leaflet on Lorensberg, published by the liberal and culturally oriented newspaper Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidningen (GHT) in 1912, a big and cheerful crowd came to watch the show, which was ‘followed by an indescribable orgy.’38 The popularity of Alhambra’s variety theatre was one episode of Lorensberg’s spontaneous, almost accident-like, development into Gothenburg’s centre for entertainment and, from 1916, artistic theatre. Lorensberg gradually became the cornerstone of a public cultural infrastructure that took shape parallel to the city’s material urban expansion. The accident-like development was a product of Lorensberg’s continuous adaptation to city planning and governance, as well as to business interests and changing social needs regarding entertainment. A garden restaurant had existed at the city-owned estate situated in Gothenburg’s south-eastern outskirts since the 1820s, but the construction of the boulevard Kungsportsavenyn in the 1870s and especially the opening of the tramway in the 1880s contributed to the amusement garden’s incorporation into the expanding urban landscape until it turned into the city’s main institution for bourgeois pleasure.39 During the 1880s, Lorensberg’s managers transformed the traditional garden restaurant into an urban amusement garden by constructing a circus building, an outdoor music pavilion and an outdoor performance stage.40 The restaurant managers leased the estate from the municipality and erected all buildings at their own cost. The manager Victor Norman, for example, constructed a provisional additional restaurant building to cater for the guests of the 1891 industry exhibition, which took place in Lorensberg’s neighbourhood. After the exhibition, and most certainly as a smart business-oriented response to the international success of variety performances, Norman transformed the wooden construction into a variety show theatre. Not only did he stand to gain from renting

Theatre and the making of the welfare city 67 out the Alhambra to touring variety artists, but his restaurant also catered to the audience members seated in the stalls, establishing a lucrative and popular cultural practice that only came to an end with the 1896 alcohol ban.41 Not only did the variety theatre vanish: from the 1870s onwards, Lorensberg garden’s entire existence was threatened by the city expansion plans and the construction of Kungsportsavenyn boulevard. From that point onwards, the lease contracts between the municipality and Lorensberg’s managers stood under the condition that the city could reclaim the estate, though its land was already diminishing bit by bit.42 Beginning in the late nineteenth century, the popularity of the amusement garden as well as the public rhetoric praising Lorensberg for its rustic style must be viewed against the background of the constant ‘extinction threat’ it faced from the expanding modern city. In the nostalgic view of its commentators, this made Lorensberg appear as a remnant of a perceived ‘old Gothenburg’.43 Although it never received any municipal or state funding, Folkteatern at Lorensberg would arguably develop into a genuine public institution. From 1897 until its destruction by fire in 1942, the originally provisional building, which had previously contained Norman’s restaurant and the Alhambra variety theatre, instead housed Lorensberg’s Folkteater. This theatre wound up bearing considerable importance for Gothenburg’s public life and urban sociability (Figure 4.1). Low ticket prices, albeit without public sponsorship, allowed a socially mixed public to enjoy Folkteatern’s popular programme, which was

Figure 4.1 Axel Engdahl (middle) at Folkteatern Lorensberg, 1913. Göteborgs Stadsmuseum Arkiv, Public Domain.

68  Christina Reimann characterized by light comedies, operettas and revues.44 Lorensberg’s managers rented the building to theatre directors, whose primary task was to ‘establish a successful business’, as Gothenburg’s main newspaper for cultural reviews, the liberal GHT, noted in its report of Folkteatern’s opening night in 1897.45 Public commentators developed a habit of emphasizing the theatre’s rustic style, nourished by mediocre décor and acoustics, both to praise Folkteatern’s cosiness and to lament its meagre artistic standard.46 Not seldom was the theatre’s popularity mentioned as a proof of the Gothenburg public’s allegedly mediocre cultural interest and education.47 Lorensberg’s Folkteater was deeply rooted in Gothenburg’s social fabric. This was particularly evident between 1903 and 1922, during the artistic management of the Gothenburg actor, theatre director and playwright Axel Engdahl. Engdahl became identified with a supposedly Gothenburg-specific sense of humour and local self-understanding and turned the ‘old wooden box’ of Folkteatern into a highly profitable business.48 The popularity of Engdahl’s revue shows roused voices that lamented the purely entertaining character of Gothenburg’s privately run theatres. From the late nineteenth century, some members of the Gothenburg cultural elite started to promote the idea of a municipally supported theatre of high cultural standard. These interested parties agreed that the purely businessfocused character of Gothenburg’s theatres was one of the main reasons why high-quality plays were doomed to fail and that public sponsorship was the only remedy.49 Thus, the initiative for transforming Gothenburg’s theatres into a public cultural infrastructure emerged from private interests, which coincided well with the city authorities’ ambitions to foster Gothenburg’s profile as a ‘modern’ city that provided moral entertainment to its populace. In 1900, the municipal abstinence commission added to the debate by arguing that theatre, even in its popular form at Folkteatern, was a valuable educational tool in the struggle against drunkenness and that municipal engagement was desirable – but, they continued, apparently not necessary at the moment, as the workers’ association was planning to integrate a theatre into their new building under construction at Järntorget.50 Nya Teatern at the workers’ association headquarters

The municipality had sponsored classical concerts at the workers’ institute (Arbetarinstitutet) and elsewhere in the city to provide culturally elevating entertainment for the working classes since the late nineteenth century.51 However, the municipality did not contribute to the workers’ association’s plans for the theatre included in their new headquarters at Järntorget. City councillors trusted that this new ‘workers’ theatre’ would eventually replace Lorensberg’s Folkteatern, which was thought to disappear any time soon and which, as the abstinence commission had emphasized, served an important social function.52 However, in contrast to the anticipations of the city councillors and the abstinence commission,

Theatre and the making of the welfare city 69

Figure 4.2 Nya Teatern at Järntorget. Göteborgs Stadsmuseum Arkiv, Public Domain.

Nya Teatern did not develop into a proper workers’ movement stage, let alone a politically engaged theatre. On the contrary, Nya Teatern turned into Gothenburg’s first modern theatre with a high artistic standard and attracted a socially mixed public. Nonetheless, Nya Teatern did not receive any considerable municipal support. Arbetareföreningen’s monumental building at Järntorget was inaugurated in September 1909 (Figure  4.2). The edifice became an architectural metaphor for the workers’ association’s rising political and societal importance and for its establishment specifically in the western parts of the city, which was mostly populated by sea- and factory workers.53 Nya Teatern was situated at their headquarters but was not run by the workers’ association; for Arbetareföreningen, the theatre was less of educational or ideological than of economic significance.54 By renting out rooms to a theatre, as well as to organizers of other events and activities, the association could boost its income and expand its social profile. Since 1909, the biggest hall in the large building, where Arbetareföreningen itself also held its general meetings, was rented out to theatre performances at least three evenings a week: the more shows there were given, the better the association’s finances, as the yearly reports repeatedly noted.55 Although they did not express any explicit requirements regarding the theatre’s repertoire,56 the workers’ association was not entirely disinterested

70  Christina Reimann regarding the type of performances given in their building. When deciding whether to rent out the big hall to a theatre director with a fixed ensemble, Arbetareföreningen had ‘good hope’ that ‘the association’s theatre will be showing a good and valuable while at the same time entertaining repertoire’.57 With the Freie Volksbühne in Berlin, founded in 1890, as a major example,58 the theatre was in line with the workers’ association’s general purpose of providing popular education and moral entertainment.59 Yet unlike the Volksbühne, where German naturalistic pieces were performed to foster the workers’ emancipation and national consciousness,60 Nya Teatern was not conceived as a political tool in a class struggle; instead, it was intended as a means to integrate the urban population. While the workers’ movement established its ‘own’ theatres in many other Swedish cities, until the 1940s, the popular movement’s contribution to the making of a public theatre infrastructure in Gothenburg was limited. Instead, the process of turning theatres into public institutions was mainly driven by a cooperation between the city authorities and the cultural elite, with important patrons at its top. During its entire operating period, Nya Teatern was jointly owned and managed by the Gothenburg-born actor and theatre director Hjalmar Selander and his wife, the actress Concordia Hård. With their fixed ensemble’s acting quality and an artistic, yet not too demanding, repertoire, as well as a specific ticket-price policy, the couple intended to attract a broad public composed of not only workers living close by but also the city’s bourgeois-educated public.61 The privately run theatre at Järntorget thus worked according to the same principles that would later guide the (partly) state- and municipality-sponsored Lorensbergsteater and Stadsteater, and thereby contributed, just like the commercial Folkteatern did, to making theatres into public institutions within the emerging welfare city. During their first years of operation, Selander and Hård succeeded in their goals and earned the theatre a national reputation for the solid quality of its performances, which combined dramatic art with folk comedies and showed a truly international scope.62 However, the Gothenburg press, with the liberal and culturally interested newspaper GHT at its top, did not devote any genuine attention to Nya Teatern and its remarkably varied programme, despite publishing and commenting actively on Lorensberg’s theatre life.63 The public debate on how to provide Gothenburg with an artistic theatre, driven by the city’s socio-cultural elite and gaining momentum during the 1910s, did not take any notice of the fact that Nya Teatern fulfilled a number of the stated criteria for ‘decent’ theatre.64 It was apparently unthinkable, from the viewpoint of the city’s cultural and political elite, that the theatrical centre of Gothenburg’s emerging cultural infrastructure could be situated at Arbetareföreningen’s headquarters in the city’s western workers’ district. Instead, the inclusive concept of a municipal theatre had to be aligned with the city authorities’ and cultural elite’s desire for an urban image that required the municipal theatre to be located in the ‘new’ urban centre at Lorensberg and the nearby Götaplatsen.

Theatre and the making of the welfare city 71 In connection with the opening of the artistically ambitious and partly municipally funded Lorensbergsteatern in 1916, Nya Teatern lost a significant portion of its audience, which had, to some extent, been ‘trained’ to enjoy artistic theatre at Järntorget.65 With its fixed ensemble but without any public funding, Nya Teatern represented a transitional type of theatre that, when it was established in the early 1900s, also had to compete with the rising popularity of cinema.66 In the wake of the twofold competition from Lorensbergsteatern and the growing number of cinemas, Hjalmar Selander applied repeatedly for municipal support for Nya Teatern. With the support of a few city councillors, Selander maintained that, just like Lorensbergsteatern and Stora Teatern, his ‘true people’s theatre’ deserved public support.67 The city council was divided over the question but eventually decided not to support Nya Teatern because, ironically enough, in contrast to Lorensbergsteatern and Stora Teatern, which had been transformed into stockholding companies with public shares, the theatre at the workers’ association’s headquarters was a purely private business.68 While the urban cultural elite pushed for public engagement in artistic theatre, especially after 1910, the workers’ association did not support director Selander’s efforts, demonstrating once again that Gothenburg’s popular movements, in contrast to interested bourgeois circles, did not play any notable role in making theatre a public infrastructure. 1910s–1934: entrepreneurship and the origins of Gothenburg’s municipal theatre Rooted in Enlightenment ideals of an educational ‘peoples’ theatre’, ideas for theatres to reach the ‘popular masses’ took concrete shape in early-twentiethcentury France and Germany.69 In Berlin, theatre innovator Max Reinhardt opened the Großes Schauspielhaus to a large audience, while nearly all mediumsized provincial German cities received a municipally or regionally funded Stadttheater (municipal theatre).70 Beginning in 1905, many provincial Swedish cities appropriated the German municipal theatre model via the establishment of theatres in peoples’ parks (Folkparkerna) run by trade unions. The Swedish Folkteater movement took inspiration from the Berlin Freie Volksbühne and would begin to receive state funding in the 1930s.71 In Gothenburg, however, the German concept of Stadttheater was adopted in a more literal sense with the official planning, initiated in 1917, and opening, in 1934, of Sweden’s first municipal theatre. A specific entanglement of private donation culture, transnational impulses, state sponsorship and local political decision-making combined with urban planning provided Gothenburg, where no permanent theatre ensemble had existed all throughout the nineteenth century and whose citizens allegedly did not appreciate artistic theatre, with two theatres that would turn into Sweden’s gateway for European modernist theatre: Lorensbergsteatern and Stadsteatern.72

72  Christina Reimann Public–private–hybrid Lorensbergsteatern

Modernist theatre, coupled with the German idea of municipal theatre that charged theatre with a democratizing mission, provided the transnational context to Gothenburg’s early-twentieth-century theatre debate. Interested citizens and city councillors who pushed for the establishment of an artistic theatre in the port city were also driven by the perceived competition between Gothenburg and Stockholm, which, because of state-financed institutions like the theatre Dramaten, was also Sweden’s cultural capital. In Gothenburg, private initiative and capital, which was plentiful because of lucrative commerce and a low municipal tax burden, had been crucial for the implementation of cultural institutions since the middle of the nineteenth century – and were as well for the realization of the municipal theatre.73 Eventually, interested groups among Gothenburg’s cultural elite mobilized the private capital as well as the municipal and state sponsorship that jointly brought Stadsteatern into being. Gothenburg’s theatre-interested citizens had publicly requested the erection of a ‘morally valuable’ theatre supported by the municipality since at least 1898.74 In 1910, GHT conducted a survey among well-known Gothenburg citizens, which asked whether they considered the ‘theatre situation’ in Gothenburg to be satisfying.75 When all survey replies indicated that it was ‘non-satisfactory for a city with cultural ambitions’, a theatre interest group, Göteborgs teaterförening, was founded to remedy the situation.76 The pressure group successfully lobbied the city council to apply for royal lottery funds to help in financing the creation of a municipal theatre.77 The granting of royal funds, however, presupposed that the municipality would also step in with financial support. Among the city councillors, an agreement had been gaining strength since the late nineteenth century regarding the municipality’s responsibility to provide the growing urban population ‘not only with material well-being but also with culture’. The council thought that the municipality was already fulfilling its cultural mission by sponsoring the city orchestra and was willing to expand the mission by sponsoring a municipal theatre, too.78 In addition to state and municipal sponsorship, and in order to speed up the process, ten Gothenburg donors, some of whom had co-founded Göteborgs teaterförening, created a theatre fund.79 The fund was to be used by the municipality to erect and run a municipal theatre that the donors expected to open for the city’s jubilee in 1921.80 On the basis of this private fund and guaranteed municipal and state sponsorship, a stockholding company, AB Göteborgs Teater, was founded to establish a municipal theatre and run the temporary Lorensbergsteatern. The company’s board was composed of municipal politicians and cultural patrons, including the important art patron Carl Pineus, who at that time had begun to develop an active and effective engagement in theatre.81 During the shrinking economy of the 1920s, the construction of the new municipal theatre building ran into delays. This was mainly due to inflation but construction was also impacted by

Theatre and the making of the welfare city 73 the unfinished status of the urban development around Götaplatsen, which left the exact placement of the new theatre building an open question. In the meantime, spurred by the growing interest in theatre, as well as the continuous success of Folkteatern and the restaurant business at Lorensberg, Sophus Petersen offered the city council a deal: in exchange for a prolongation of his rental contract until 1930, Petersen would erect a new theatre building at Lorensberg at his own coast. Once his lease of Lorensberg expired, the theatre would turn into a municipal property, if the city’s plans for expansion around Kungsportsavenyn had not already made its destruction necessary.82 The businessman was convinced that, despite cinema having risen to become the main provider of popular urban entertainment, the Gothenburg public would continue to appreciate revue and comedy theatre. According to Petersen’s plans, the new theatre building would replace the ‘old wooden box’ and continue with the same popular Folkteater programme. The city council’s debate regarding Petersen’s suggestion crystallized around the municipality’s choice between urban development and the maintenance of a tremendously popular theatre. The councillors who opposed the construction of a new Folkteater were anxious that the persistence of Lorensberg garden would diminish the economic value of the real estate around Kungsportsavenyn, which was developing into one of the city’s finest quarters. The councillors who supported Petersen’s plans believed that Folkteatern’s societal importance outweighed the economic and status-enhancing value of urban development. Despite being a private-commercial institution par excellence, Folkteatern was, arguably, widely considered to be part of the socially integrating welfare city. A clear majority ultimately voted for the construction of a new theatre at Lorensberg and, consequently, against the quick urban development of the area that had been advocated by the municipal construction authority.83 For construction reasons, however, the new theatre had to be erected at a different site than initially planned, so the old Folkteatern remained in place until its destruction by fire in 1942. Materially speaking, the new theatre building was spectacular in two respects. First, the pace in which it was built: under Sophus Petersen’s private direction and because of three work shifts a day, Lorensbergsteatern stood ready in 1916 after only five months of construction work. Second, the theatre stood out due to its modern interior and technical equipment.84 In line with the continental theatre movement, Lorensbergsteatern was conceived as a democratic space. One single spectators’ room without balcony or boxes replaced the traditional spatial separation of the public into different social groups. All spectators should have the same view of the stage and all social classes should mix in the stalls.85 The German architect Curt Röder designed the stage area according to the newest technical standard that, most importantly, included an electrically driven turning scene. Quick scene changes with light effects that made the stage appear as an open space and the advanced lighting system revolutionized the theatre experience. Hence, instead of replacing Folkteatern both

74  Christina Reimann materially and conceptually, Lorensbergsteatern turned into an innovative and to some extent experimental theatre that absorbed artistic trends from Europe and, between 1918 and 1923, was widely considered to be Scandinavia’s most significant avant-garde scene.86 Lorensbergsteatern was also Sweden’s first partly municipality-funded theatre and thus the very centre of Gothenburg’s by then public–private cultural infrastructure. Theatre directors Per Lindberg and Knut Ström jointly managed and artistically directed Lorensbergsteatern. Both Lindberg and Ström had been trained in Germany, where theatre as a creative art with the director at its centre characterized the theatrical modernism most prominently represented by Max Reinhardt. The innovative quality of the theatre performances, nourished by light and music elements and a sophisticated stage design, as well as the duo’s renewed orientation towards the public led to the intense, if short-lived, success of Lorensbergsteatern. Lindberg and Ström’s co-productions of Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice in 1919 and Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will in 1920 were considered by the press to have revolutionized Swedish theatre.87 The Gothenburg public was also enthusiastic about the new theatre, which was sensational to the point that Stockholm newspapers sent correspondents to review the highly frequent premiers taking place at Lorensbergsteatern. During its first years, Lorensbergsteatern drew a faithful crowd of theatre enthusiasts and a sufficiently large group of curious people, especially since Per Lindberg’s interpretation of modernist theatre included an intense and expanded relationship with the public. He was inspired by the notion – and by the sponsoring municipality  – to offer theatre not only to the bourgeois and middling classes but also to working-class people and to all groups lacking any previous theatre experience.88 Subscriptions allowed school pupils and members of the workers’ institute Arbetarekommun to visit the theatre at a cheap price. Lindberg also endeavoured to build a relationship with the Gothenburg public by writing about his theatre concept in the local newspapers and publishing an illustrated theatre magazine to inform the public about upcoming productions.89 Despite all efforts, however, public enthusiasm did not last for long and Lindberg was soon confronted with the decision either to produce light, entertaining theatre or to resign as director, which he did in 1923. The short-lived success of Lorensbergsteatern and its economic loss spurred debates regarding the long-term financing of an artistic theatre in Gothenburg. Building the municipal theatre

During its first years, Lorensberg’s manager Sophus Petersen ran Lorensbergsteatern as a directing manager; however, he soon realized that no profit was to be made out of artistic theatre. On the contrary, the theatre business was close to bankruptcy after the first two years.90 Having invested heavily in the building, Petersen decided, in 1918, to rent it out to the shareholding company AB

Theatre and the making of the welfare city 75 Göteborgs Teater.91 The newly founded company possessed 2.6 million Swedish crowns in capital – the Gothenburg donors had given one million and the royal lottery fund contributed 1.6 million – while the municipality contributed circa 50,000 crowns92 per year to secure the rent for the building.93 Lorensbergsteatern was temporary, with the explicit aim of ‘preparing’ Gothenburg for its new municipal theatre by training the actors and the Gothenburg public to enjoy artistic theatre, by establishing a repertoire and by installing the technical equipment that would give the municipal theatre a smooth start.94 From a financial and economic point of view, Lorensbergsteatern demonstrated that high-quality theatre was a costly affair and only possible because of substantial support from both the state and the municipality. The state sponsorship from the royal lottery fund was bound to municipal funding: the greater the amount granted by the city, the greater the support from the state and vice versa.95 In 1922, as the municipality had just stepped in to finance Stora Teatern alongside Lorensbergsteatern, city councillor Carl Rybergh initiated a municipal commission to investigate the city’s ‘theatre question’. He argued that the municipality now had a financial responsibility towards two theatres whose costs would certainly continue to rise. A fundamental decision and long-term political programme were needed to determine the extent to which the municipality was willing and able to maintain one or several theatres.96 During the 1920s, the city council and the media discussed how to preserve high-quality theatre and thereby fulfil the city’s cultural mission, while at the same time attending to the difficult economic situation.97 International and national experts were charged with investigating the various technical and economic issues involved in building a new municipal theatre, as well as potential alternatives.98 A special commission examined whether Stora Teatern could be modernized to host the new municipal theatre, and if it was possible to follow the German municipal theatre model by having only one theatre building for both dramatic and musical performances.99 However, the city councillors conceded that the zeitgeist supported the erection of a highly modern theatre building that would allow for the staging of technically supported performances according to modern standards set, not least, by Lorensbergsteatern.100 Also, a modern theatre building was in line with Gothenburg’s ambitious city development projects that had been prompted by an international exhibition on urban planning arranged by planning director Albert Lilienberg at the Gothenburg jubilee in 1923.101 In 1929, on the basis of councillor Rybergh’s theatre commission investigation, the city council decided that the municipal theatre would be built at the new Götaplatsen in order to give the emerging welfare city its material expression. After years of public debate about whether and to what extent the municipality was to sponsor its own theatre, the now social-democrat-dominated city council stated that theatre was an important part of the city’s public service. According to its advocates, the ‘moral gains’ to be expected from a valuable theatre programme had to be seen as more important than the financial burden

76  Christina Reimann the municipality would take on. To be sure, the municipality had to reckon with continuous, and probably even rising, costs for the maintenance of the municipal theatre, but avoiding these costs would mean an unacceptable decline in artistic quality.102 In the mid-1930s, as the economic depression and the rise of sound films became a heavy burden for the theatres’ finances, their funding once again found itself on the city council’s agenda.103 Nonetheless, the councillors reasserted their fundamental decision from 1929 that theatre was a firm part of the public cultural infrastructure, even, or perhaps especially, in times of crisis. The city council and public opinion came to accept what was to become common sense in the post-1945 era, namely that the municipal theatre was not – and never going to be – a lucrative business but would rely entirely on public funding.104 Whereas Lorensberg’s theatres had been under constant pressure from the urban development around Kungsportsavenyn and Nya Teatern had been situated on the ‘wrong side’ of the city in the workers’ district, urban planning worked in favour of Stadsteatern’s highly debated construction project. Götaplatsen, the esplanade at the high end of Kungsportsavenyn, had figured at the centre of the 1923 jubilee exhibition while its urban design had still been in the making. According to city planner Lilienberg’s design, and as announced by the Swedish Tourist Association, the ‘monumental’ square was to become Gothenburg’s ‘cultural centre’ where the city’s ‘artistic ambitions and expectations’ would take material shape.105 A modern theatre building would fit the representative parade ground perfectly.106 In 1928, almost simultaneously with its decision to build the Stadsteater, the city council sanctioned the erection of a new concert house at Götaplatsen to replace the previous building, which had been destroyed by fire.107 Stadsteatern was opened in 1934, and the concert house was inaugurated in 1935, thus joining the monumental art museum and the Poseidon fountain at Götaplatsen to materially embody the industrious process of Gothenburg’s transformation from a trading port city into an industrial and architecturally, as well as culturally, ambitious welfare city (Figure 4.3). Conclusion The initiative for and basic sponsorship of Gothenburg’s municipal theatre was rooted in the city’s nineteenth-century patronage culture, while popular movements only played a minor role in making theatre into an intrinsic part of the emerging welfare city. The transformation process was not only marked by local idiosyncrasies and contingencies, but it also needs to be placed in its transnational context, which was characterized by the rising public and political importance of theatre in the vein of the theatre reform movement and German Stadttheater schemes. With the opening of the Stadsteater in Gothenburg, theatre was integrated into the architectural representation of the public realm at Götaplatsen with its distinct high-cultural imprint. The municipal theatre had mainly emerged from a combination of two forces: the ambitious striving for urban status by a

Theatre and the making of the welfare city 77

Figure 4.3 Götaplatsen with the municipal theatre under construction, 1933. Göteborgs Stadsmuseum Arkiv, Public Domain.

cultural elite and the authorities’ paternalistic idea of urban citizenship based on disciplined leisure and moral education. Theatre, which authorities and urban reformers had been observing with a watchful eye for its not-seldom ‘unmoral’ forms like variety shows, would not have been integrated into the developing concept of cultural infrastructure without public pressure for a ‘valuable artistic’ theatre from the city’s cultural elite. The theatre-interested bourgeois circles realized that the business-focused character of Gothenburg’s theatres would not allow for anything else than performances of light comedies and revues – if not variety shows themselves. They also understood that, in order to win public support for their cultural project to bolster up Gothenburg’s international status, a municipality-funded theatre had to be conceived not as an elite institution, but as a ‘theatre for all’, thereby matching the city authorities’ and popular movements’ paternalistic notions of urban citizenship. Hence, the making of some of Gothenburg’s theatres into a public cultural infrastructure, while driven by a multitude of actors, was mainly motivated by certain private actors’ interest in culturally valuable performances. This could be achieved most effectively by introducing theatre into the flourishing debate regarding a municipality’s responsibility for providing the urban population with ‘spiritual wellbeing’. As emphasized by the public character of Folkteatern at Lorensberg and the mixed profile of Nya Teatern, Gothenburg’s turn-of-the-century theatre history demonstrates that the welfare city was not exclusively a state- or municipality-dominated initiative, but, crucially, involved private actors as well.

78  Christina Reimann Albeit of less material value than water or transport infrastructure, cultural infrastructure put its material marks on the urban landscape. Indeed, public theatres were part of the authorities’ ‘infrastructuring’ project, which brought about an increased control over urban public life. However, one should not exaggerate the similarities between material and cultural public infrastructures, especially when it comes to the extent to which the municipality could – and intended to – exert control over theatre performances. To be sure, turn-of-the-century cultural welfare was closely linked to urban governance and embraced notions of accessibility, ownership and content. Yet, unlike waterpipes or tramways, theatre programmes could not – and would not – be brought entirely under the control of municipal funding bodies. On the contrary, one may assume that public performance theatres throughout the twentieth century contributed to shaping alternative subjectivities and individual conceptions of urban citizenship that differed significantly from the paternalistic notions of the welfare city envisioned by turn-of-century authorities. Notes 1 The author received financial support for the research of this chapter from HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area) as part of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme “Public Spaces”. The Open Access publication was funded by The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies as part of the research project “Baltic Hospitality”. 2 ‘Det torde nämligen vara en allmänt erkänd grundsats, att den kommun, som vuxit till större omfattning och förvärvat sig ett visst materiellt välstånd, har skyldighet att tillgodose sina innevånares ej blott materiella utan också andliga kultur’, GSH 1917, No 362: Beredningens betänkande med förslag till uppförande av byggnad för en stadsteater, 10. 3 Simon Gunn et al., “Cities, Infrastructure and the Making of Modern Citizenship: The View from North-west Europe since c. 1870,” Urban History (2022): 1–19. 4 Tom Hulme, After the Shock City: Urban Culture and the Making of Modern Citizenship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019); Simon Gunn and Tom Hulme, “Introduction: Unravelling Urban Governance,” in New Approaches to Governance and Rule in Urban Europe since 1500, ed. Simon Gunn and Tom Hulme (New York: Routledge, 2020), 1–22. 5 Hulme, After the Shock City, 5. 6 See the chapter by Mikkel Høghøj in this volume. 7 Jan Christensen, Liberalernas stad: Fattigvård och kulturdonationer i artonhundratalets Göteborg (Gothenburg: Daidalos, 2009). 8 Tomas Forser et al., eds., Ny svensk teaterhistoria: 1800-talets teater (Hedemora: Gidlund, 2007); Tomas Forser and Sven Å. Heed, eds., Ny svensk teaterhistoria: 1900-talets teater (Hedemora: Gidlund, 2007). For a systematic analysis of Gothenburg’s theatre scene see Forskningsprojektet Dramatik på svenska scener 1910–1975, ed., Teater i Göteborg: 1910–1975 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1978). A general overview is provided by Erik Hemlin, “Från Sillgateteatern till Lorensbergsteatern,” Göteborg Förr och Nu, Göteborgs Hembygdsförbunds Skriftserie 14 (1980): 5–68.

Theatre and the making of the welfare city 79 9 An important source for Gothenburg’s theatre history is the archival collection at the City Museum Archive, which is currently inaccessible because the museum is relocating its collection. 10 Olle Edström, Göteborgs rika musikliv: En översikt mellan världskrigen (Gothenburg: Göteborgs Univsitet, 1996), 30–31; Martin Fritz and Jan Ling, Musiken på Heden: Konserthus och orkesterförening i Göteborg 1905 (Sävedalen: Warne, 2014), 81–82. 11 Christina Reimann, “Amusement Leaves the Port: Pleasure Institutions and the Reshaping of Gothenburg’s Material and Nonmaterial Borders, 1860s–1923,” Journal of Urban History 48, no. 6 (2022). 12 Jan Christensen, Rikedom förpliktigar: Kulturdonationernas Göteborg 1850–1920 (Gothenburg: Lindelöws, 2020); Martin Fritz, Från handelsstad till industristad 1820–1920 (Stockholm: Nerenius & Santérus, 1996). 13 Simon Gunn, “Heterodoxies: New approaches to Power and Agency in the Modern City,” in New Approaches to Governance and Rule in urban Europe Since 1500, 263. 14 Reimann, “Amusement Leaves the Port.” 15 Simon Gunn, The Public Culture of the Victorian Middle Class: Ritual and Authority and the English Industrial City; 1840–1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 135. 16 Erik Hemlin, “Stora Teatern i Göteborg 100 år: Föredrag vid Teaterhistoriska Samfundets Högtidssammanträdande på Stora Teatern den 1 Juni 1959” (Gothenburg Univsitet, 1959), 3–4. 17 University Library Gothenburg, Oscar and Mary von Sydows Collection, Axel Fromell, “Stora Teatern i Göteborg, 1893–1929. Några blad ur dess historia” (1929). 18 Åke Axelsson, Stora Teatern 100 år: En krönika i ord och bild om skiftande teateröden under ett sekel (Gothenburg: A. Lindgren & Söner, 1959). 19 Göteborgs Stadsfullmäktiges Handlingar (GSH) 1884, No 6: Berednings betänkande öfver teaterdirektören F. Hedbergs framställning om anslag af staden till åstadkommande af en stående teater. 20 Forskningsprojektet Dramatik på svenska scener, Teater i Göteborg, 34–35. 21 Göteborgs Teaterfråga. Uttalanden af intresserade (Gothenburg: Göteborgs Handelstidningens Aktiebolags Tryckeri, 1909). 22 Ann M. Engel, Teater i folkets park 1905–1980: Arbetarrörelsen, folkparkerna och den folkliga teatern; en kulturpolitisk studie (Stockholm: Akademilitteratur, 1982). 23 Gunn, The Public Culture of the Victorian Middle Class, 135. 24 Tobias Becker, “Der Körper des Varietés. Theater, Großstadt und Sexualität um 1900,” in Metropolenzauber: Sexuelle Moderne und urbaner Wahn, ed. Gabriele Dietze and Dorothea Dornhof, Kulturen des Wahnsinns (1870–1930) (Cologne: Böhlau, 2014). 25 Vanessa R. Schwartz, Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in fin-de-siècle Paris (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 26 Bengt Petersen, Det var på Lorensberg: Landeriets, värdshusets och restaurangens historia (Gothenburg: Wezäta, 1978), 19; “Bland ziguenere [sic],” Göteborgs-­ Posten, May 13, 1898. 27 Fur Gunlögg and John L. Hennessey, “Svensk kolonialism, Sverige och kolonialism eller svenska och kolonialism? Introduktion,” Historisk tidskrift 140, no. 3 (2020); Alexander Honold, “Ausstellung des Fremden – Menschen- und Völkerschau um 1900: Zwischen Anpassung und Verfremdung: Der Exot und sein Publikum,” in Das Kaiserreich transnational: Deutschland in der Welt 1871–1914, ed. Sebastian Conrad and Jürgen Osterhammel (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006), 184–85.

80  Christina Reimann 28 Tobias Becker, “Vergnügungsviertel: Heterotopischer Raum in den Metropolen der Jahrhundertwende,” in Die tausend Freuden der Metropole: Vergnügungskultur um 1900, ed. Tobias Becker et al. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 163–64. 29 Per Ringby, “Göteborgs teaterfråga och opinionen,” in Teater i Göteborg, 171–72; “Ny teater i Göteborg. Det allmänna mötet,” Göteborgs-Posten, May 4, 1898. 30 “Viran Rydkvist död,” GHT, July 11, 1942; Anna Elvira Oscaria (Viran) Rydkvist, Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon, accessed April 1, 2023, www.skbl.se/sv/artikel/ Viran Rydkvist, art. by Mikael Strömberg. 31 Karin Helander, “Nationell exotism: Från när och fjärran,” in Teater i Sverige, ed. Lena Hammergren (Hedemora: Gidlund, 2004), 71–83. 32 Regionarkivet Stadsarkivet Göteborg (RSG), AB Göteborgs Lyriska Teater, SE/ O258/GSA_759–1, L2, 1 Tidningsurklipp 1901–41. 33 GHT, Lorensberg:s Etablissement-Göteborg (Gothenburg: Göteborgs Handelsoch Sjöfarts-Tidning, 1912), 19; Björn Ivarsson Lilieblad, Moulin Rouge på svenska: Varietéunderhållningens kulturhistoria i Stockholm 1875–1920 (Linköping: Linköpings Universitet, 2009). 34 Lilieblad, Moulin Rouge på svenska. 35 “Krogplanerna i Göteborg. Nu gäller det Slottsskogen igen!,” Nationalkuriren. Organ för Nationalgodtemplarorden i Sverige, February 22, 1907. 36 ‘Negerkomiker’. GHT, Lorensberg:s Etablissement, 19. 37 Becker, “Der Körper des Varietés.” 38 “Den glade publiken fyllde till trängsel salongen, och när programmet genomgåtts, följde en obeskriflig orgie,” GHT, Lorensberg:s Etablissement; Petersen, Det var på Lorensberg, 19. 39 Reimann, “Amusement Leaves the Port.” 40 Petersen, Det var på Lorensberg, 17. 41 GHT, Lorensberg:s Etablissement, 19. 42 GSH 1894, No 13: Drätselkammarens framställning om bemyndigande att utarrendera landeriet Lorensberg. 43 “Karl-Gerhard återbördad till Folkan,” GHT, January 3, 1938. 44 Ny Tid, November 26, 1897; Göteborgsposten, August 29, 1898. 45 GHT, September 20, 1897. 46 Göteborgsposten, April 30, 1898; Ny Tid, November 29, 1905; “Göteborgsrevy,” GHT, February 23, 1916. 47 GHT, Lorensberg:s Etablissement, 19; “Rikets andra stad i flygperspektiv,” Arbetet, May 8, 1923; “Karl-Gerhard återbördad till Folkan,” GHT, January 3, 1938. 48 Hemlin, “Från Sillgateteatern till Lorensbergsteatern,” 49; “Axel Engdahl död,” GHT, January 11, 1922; Albert Holmqvist, Revy om Axel Engdahl: En minnesanteckning (Stockholm: Åhlen & Åkerlunds, 1922). 49 “Ny teater i Göteborg. Det allmänna mötet,” Göteborgs-Posten, May 4, 1898; “Frågan om ny teater i Göteborg,” GHT, May 4 1898. 50 “Ur nykterhetsberedningens betänkande,” GHT, March 24, 1900. 51 GSH 1900, No 150: Yttrande af styrelsen för arbetarinstitutet ifråga om anordnandet af konserter, afsedda för arbetarklassen. 52 GSH 1900, No 32: Berednings betänkande i ärende angående åtgärder mot dryckenskapen i Göteborg. “Ur nykterhetsberedningens betänkande,” GHT, March 24, 1900; “Ett nytt föreningshus med folkteater,” GHT, September 12, 1903. 53 “Göteborgs Arbetareförening. Nybyggnadens invigning i morgon,” GHT, September 25, 1909. 54 RSG, Göteborgs Arbetareförening, SE/O258/GF_4629–1, F1, Årsberättelse 1908; Forskningsprojektet Dramatik på svenska scener 1910–1975, Teater i Göteborg, 103.

Theatre and the making of the welfare city 81



55 RSG, Göteborgs Arbetareförening, SE/O258/GF_4629–1, F1, Årsberättelser. 56 Forskningsprojektet Dramatik på svenska scener 1910–1975, Teater i Göteborg, 94. 57 RSG, Göteborgs Arbetareförening, SE/O258/GF_4629–1, F1, Årsberättelser 1908. 58 Engel, Teater i folkets park 1905–1980, 65. 59 Forskningsprojektet Dramatik på svenska scener 1910–1975, Teater i Göteborg, 91–92. 60 Andrew Bonnell, The People’s Stage in Imperial Germany: Social Democracy and Culture 1890–1914 (New York: Martin’s Press, 2005). 61 Letter by Hjalmar Selander to city council, in: GSH 1919, No 557: Skrivelse av drätselkammarens första avdelning i anledning av motion av herr Gutke om understöd åt Nya Teatern i Göteborg; Forskningsprojektet Dramatik på svenska scener 1910–1975, Teater i Göteborg, 103; Gösta Carlson, Göteborgs Arbetareförening 1866–2016: Från liberalism till socialism (Gothenburg: A-Script förlag, 2016). 62 Hemlin, “Från Sillgateteatern till Lorensbergsteatern,” 53–58; Åke Petterson, Teaterliv i Göteborg (Gothenburg: Tre böcker, 1992), 125–26. 63 Forskningsprojektet Dramatik på svenska scener 1910–1975, Teater i Göteborg, 166–78. 64 Göteborgs Teaterfråga. 65 Hemlin, “Från Sillgateteatern till Lorensbergsteatern,” 56. 66 Forskningsprojektet Dramatik på svenska scener 1910–1975, Teater i Göteborg, 34–35. 67 GSH 1919, No 557: Skrivelse av drätselkammarens första avdelning i anledning av motion av herr Gutke om understöd åt Nya Teatern i Göteborg. 68 GSH 1923, No 111: Yttranden av drätselkammarens första avdelning och stadsfullmäktiges beredning för teaterfrågor över motioner dels av herrar Lundgren och Steen om anslag till upprätthållande av verksamheten å Nya teatern. 69 John McCormick, Popular Theatres of Nineteenth-Century France (London: Routledge, 2002). 70 Sven Å. Heed, “Stadsteatertanken i svensk teater,” in Ny svensk teaterhistoria. 71 Engel, Teater i folkets park 1905–1980. 72 Christensen, Rikedom förpliktigar, 258–63; “Rikets andra stad i flygperspektiv,” Arbetet, May 8, 1923. 73 Christensen, Rikedom förpliktigar, 90. 74 Göteborgs-Posten, “Ny teater i Göteborg. Det allmänna mötet,” May 4, 1898; GHT, “Frågan om ny teater i Göteborg,” May 4, 1898. 75 Göteborgs Teaterfråga. 76 Christensen, Rikedom förpliktigar, 260; Bertil Nolin, “Lorensbergsteatern och mecenatskulturen,” in Lorensbergsteatern 1916–1934: Dokument, analyser, ed. Bertil Nolin (Gothenburg: Teaterhistoriska museet, 1991). 77 GSH 1912, No 83: Motion af herr Henriques m. fl. om åtgärd för anordnande af ett penninglotteri till förmån för en ny teater i Göteborg. 78 GSH 1917, No 362: Beredningens betänkande med förslag till uppförande av byggnad för en stadsteater. 79 On the innovation of so-called cultural funds in the late nineteenth century, see Christensen, Liberalernas stad, 187–267. 80 GSH 1916, No 310: Donation till staden för bildande av Göteborgs stads teaterfond. 81 Conrad M. Pineus, Svenskt biografiskt lexikon, art. by Göran Nilzén, retrieved February 3, 2023; Christensen, Liberalernas stad, 229. 82 GSH 1915, No 189: Framställning af drätselkammarens andra afdelning om utarrendering Lorensbergsområdet. 83 “Lorensbergsarrendet förlänges,” GHT, June 11, 1915; “Den nya Folkteatern,” GHT, April 29, 1915.

82  Christina Reimann 84 GHT, “Den nya Lorensbergsteatern,” October 21, 1916. 85 Christensen, Rikedom förpliktigar, 262; Ulla-Britta Lagerroth, “Sveriges modernaste teater,” in Ny svensk teaterhistoria, 57. 86 Lagerroth, “Sveriges modernaste teater”; Carl R. A. Fredberg, Det gamla Göteborg: Lokalhistoriska skildringar personalia och kulturdrag, vol. 3, Staden i söder, öster och norr (Lund: Walter Ekstrand Bokförlag, 1977), 350. 87 Christensen, Rikedom förpliktigar, 61–67. 88 “Stadsanslaget till Lorensbergsteatern,” GHT, November 14, 1919. 89 Lagerroth, “Sveriges modernaste teater,” 62. 90 Ibid., 58. 91 Hemlin, “Från Sillgateteatern till Lorensbergsteatern,” 61; Nolin, “Lorensbergsteatern och mecenatskulturen.” 92 As a reference, in 1925, the average workers’ income was 3,000 crowns per year. Sociala Meddelanden 1926, N:R 10 Tab. 7, 798. 93 GSH 1923, No 111: Yttranden av drätselkammarens första avdelning och stadsfullmäktiges beredning för teaterfrågor över motioner dels av herrar Lundgren och Steen om anslag till upprätthållande av verksamheten å Nya teatern. 94 GSH 1922, No 348: Styrelse och revisionsberättelser om Aktiebolaget Göteborgs Teater för räkenskapsåret 1921–1922; “Penninglotteri för Göteborgs konsert- och teaterverksamhet?” GHT, April 28, 1921. 95 GSH 1935, No 318: Kungl. Maj:ts resolutioner ang. penninglotterimedel till Aktiebolaget Göteborgs Lyriska Teater och Aktiebolaget Göteborgs Teater. 96 GSH 1922, No 181: Motion av herr Rybergh om tillsättande av en beredning för utredning av frågor rörande teaterverksamheten i staden och anslag därtill av stadens medel. 97 GSH 1923, No 111: Yttranden av drätselkammarens första avdelning och stadsfullmäktiges beredning för teaterfrågor över motioner dels av herrar Lundgren och Steen om anslag till upprätthållande av verksamheten å Nya teatern. 98 GSH 1925, No 280: Yttranden av drätselkammarens första avdelning över framställning av stadsfullmäktiges beredning för teaterfrågor om anslag till bestridande av berednings utgifter. 99 GSH 1926, No 37: Motion av herr Wigert-Lundström om tillsättande av en beredning för undersökning av möjligheterna av tillkomsten av ett företag för övertagande av driften av den dramatiska och lyriska teaterverksamheten i Göteborg. 100 GSH 1926, No 2: Yttrande av drätselkammarens andra avdelning över motionen av herr Nylén m.fl. om undersökning av möjligheten av förvärv åt staden av Stora Teatern. 101 Hans Bjur and Krister Engström, Lilienbergs stad: Göteborg 1900–1930 (Stockholm: Balkong, 2018), 31. 102 GSH 1929, No 409: Berednings betänkande i ärende rörande teaterverksamheten i Göteborg. 103 GSH 1935, No 148: Yttrande av stadskollegiet över motion av herr Carlbring m. fl. om anslag till aktiebolaget Göteborgs teater för spelåret 1935–1936. 104 GSH 1937, No 187: Yttrande av stadskollegiet över framställningar om anslag till aktiebolagen Göteborgs teater och Göteborgs lyriska teater för spelåret 1937–1938; “Göteborgs stadsteater bör uppföras nu, anse byggnadskommitterade,” GHT, May 7, 1929. 105 Bjur and Engström, Lilienbergs stad, 108–20; Svenska Turistföreningen, En bok om Göteborg (Stockholm: Svenska Turistföreningen, 1931), 121–26. 106 “Göteborg har rustat färdig för kunglig teaterinvigning,” GHT, September 29, 1934. 107 Christensen, Liberalernas stad, 225.

5 Municipal services and modern citizenship in Helsinki in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Marjaana Niemi A significant proportion of urban growth in Finland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries occurred on the outskirts or outside of cities. In Helsinki and many other Finnish cities, decision-makers underestimated the speed of urbanization and provided too few affordable plots for the rapidly growing urban population. As a result, those seeking cheap land had to move outside the town plan area or even further beyond the city’s administrative boundaries, where individual landowners and property developers offered inexpensive plots. Many working-class people who migrated to cities for work seized this opportunity to have an affordable home. Having grown up in the countryside, they often appreciated a slower pace of life and the opportunity for small-scale farming and gardening. Settling on the outskirts also allowed them to escape the strict rules and regulations of the city and live more freely, constructing homes that suited their budgets and preferences. The haphazard formation of these settlements on the outskirts and outside of cities was a response to slow and rigid urban planning. Town dwellers, landowners and property developers took matters into their own hands, creating new kinds of urban space in the areas surrounding cities.1 Living on the rural–urban fringe had its benefits but also its downsides. One major drawback was the exclusion from critical social aspects of modern citizenship. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, cities in ­Finland and other Nordic countries invested in new infrastructure and services to enhance their economic growth and improve the well-being of their citizens. As a result, being a resident of a city increasingly meant being connected to essential utility networks, such as water, gas and electricity, as well as having access to basic welfare services such as primary education and health care.2 However, the availability of services differed significantly among residents, depending on their location – whether they resided in the inner city, outside the town plan areas or beyond the city limits.3 Until recently, research has largely overlooked the crucial role of cities in shaping modern citizenship and the associated processes of inclusion and exclusion. Citizenship has traditionally been seen as a formal status of belonging to a nation-state and having specific rights and obligations within it. This narrow DOI: 10.4324/9781003379232-5

This chapter has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 international license.

84  Marjaana Niemi focus on the nation-state has resulted in the social aspects of citizenship being associated with welfare state development rather than the expansion of municipal infrastructure and welfare policies. The significance of welfare cities prior to (and following) the emergence of welfare states has been largely ignored.4 This chapter will contribute to the discussion about Nordic welfare cities by examining the interconnection between municipal services and modern citizenship in Helsinki in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The analysis will begin by providing an overview of the socio-spatial evolution of Helsinki during the nineteenth century. It then will concentrate on the disparate access to infrastructure and services within the city, specifically scrutinizing the inequality between the central areas and the adjacent working-class neighbourhood of Kallio. In the final part of the chapter, the study will widen its scope to encompass the working-class settlements outside the city that were annexed to Helsinki in the early twentieth century. By looking at the three distinct urban areas and their respective inhabitants – the inner city and the working-class settlements both within and beyond the city borders – the study will investigate who were accepted as ‘full members’ of the urban community with access to essential services and who were not. The study will analyse how policymakers perceived the unequal situation and what measures they took to address it, if any were deemed necessary. In addition to their viewpoints, the analysis will also shed light on the reactions of the inhabitants of the fringe areas and their gradual integration into the urban community. Central to the discussion about irregular working-class settlements is the way in which municipal authorities defined the rural–urban fringe. Fringe areas were valuable assets for industrializing and expanding cities in Finland and elsewhere in Northern Europe. These areas provided a land reserve for future city development and were an ideal location for many important functions that were not ­welcome in the central parts of the city. It was therefore crucial for cities to oversee the use of these areas. As major landowners, Nordic cities usually had significant control over urban development within city limits, but they faced challenges in safeguarding areas beyond these boundaries for their future needs. As a result, municipal authorities usually viewed with suspicion uncontrolled development, particularly in areas immediately outside city limits, as it might affect future land use.5 The official attitudes towards the rural–urban fringe were also closely linked to the evolving perception of the city itself. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the modern city became a symbol of human innovation and technological progress across the Western world. The city was discursively associated with ‘culture’, while the countryside was increasingly viewed as an embodiment of ‘nature’. The rural–urban fringe between these two areas served as a space where rural and urban elements were still ‘allowed’ to blend and where nature could be converted into culture.6 Urban planning policies were an important tool to reinforce the perception of the rural–urban fringe as a transitional zone. The creation of single-purpose spaces was (and is) deeply ingrained in urban planning,

Municipal services and modern citizenship in Helsinki 85 resulting in the fringe being seen as incomplete and in a state of flux due to its blend of different functions. The rural–urban fringe was ‘just something between town and country, with no intrinsic characteristics of its own’. It was not a place but only a passing phase and therefore not worthy of the same level of attention and resources as the real urban or rural places.7 The authorities’ classification of urban core areas as ‘permanent’ and fringe areas as ‘temporary’ was not universally accepted. For example, many workingclass families considered their irregular settlements to be their permanent homes. To examine the discourse surrounding the marginalization of fringe areas, multiple sources have been consulted. While most official sources dealing with the fringe areas were produced by appointed and elected officials and experts from different fields, residents also voiced their concerns through petitions and letters to the municipal authorities. Newspapers played a crucial role in facilitating a lively discussion on the topic and Työmies (The Worker), in particular, the first working-class newspaper in Finland, provided an essential platform for residents to express their views. Additionally, many individuals living in the fringe areas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have documented their experiences in their memoirs. The inner city and the rural–urban fringe in Helsinki in the nineteenth century As a result of the Napoleonic wars, Finland was separated from Sweden and incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1809. As part of the annexation, Finland was granted autonomy as a grand duchy, and Helsinki, a small market town with a few thousand inhabitants, was chosen as the capital city. This decision had a significant impact on the socio-spatial structure of Helsinki. While the city’s development was in many ways similar to those of other Finnish cities, it also had unique features as the capital and as an important western border city of the Russian Empire. The transformation of Helsinki from a modest wooden town to a monumental capital was spearheaded by J. A. Ehrenström, a military engineer who created a city plan (1817) featuring broad streets, spacious squares and scenic boulevards on a geometric grid layout. Architect J. L. Engel then designed impressive administrative edifices, churches, university buildings, army barracks, hospitals and a handful of private residences for the burgeoning capital.8 Only a privileged few in the new capital possessed the means to build or rent homes on par with the impressive public buildings under construction. As a result, the centre of the city was dotted with vacant lots and simple one-story houses that seemed incongruous amidst the monumental surroundings. The nearby ‘suburban’ area, characterized by its wooden homes and ample gardens, attracted many middle-class families who preferred to reside there instead of in the urban core. Meanwhile, the working class had fewer choices available to them. The high land prices and rents in both the city centre and suburban areas put them beyond the reach of a significant portion of the working class, who

86  Marjaana Niemi instead settled outside the town plan area. The inner urban fringe provided them with an inexpensive place to live, located close to their workplaces. The southern coastal area was a preferred location for fishermen to establish their shacks, while impoverished widows generated income by renting out rooms or operating illicit drinking establishments on the rocky hillsides of Katajanokka located in the eastern part of the city. Those employed as carters, or in the sugar or tobacco factories, favoured the western sections of the city.9 The poor initially constructed their huts without authorization. However, in the 1820s, the city’s administrative court began renting out land plots outside the town plan area to residents who could not afford to live in the central parts of the city. The city officials clearly stated that this was a temporary arrangement, and the residents would have to vacate the land when it was required for other purposes.10 The ‘temporary nature’ of the fringe areas was also reflected in their infrastructure. Unlike the city centre and the adjacent suburban area, which had been flattened and had straight streets intersecting at right angles, the fringe settlements followed the natural contours of the rocky terrain and were not integrated into the street network. As one approached the limits of the planned area, cobbled streets turned into muddy paths, and there were no lanterns to light the way. This meant that at night, and even in midwinter during the day, one had to stumble around in the darkness.11 During the 1870s and 1880s, Helsinki and other major towns in Finland experienced a surge in growth due to the rise of industrialization.12 To accommodate this growth, the City of Helsinki approved new town plans that gradually expanded the urban core into the surrounding poorer settlements located to the east, south and west. While residents of these settlements were given the option to purchase their land and stay, most of them could not afford it and had to relocate farther from the city centre. As middle-class households took their place, old wooden houses and huts were replaced with new residential and commercial buildings, up to five stories tall, inspired by European models. This transformation led to a more compact townscape, with tall buildings often standing side by side, creating high and dense walls lining the streets.13 Infrastructure networks and uneven urban citizenship within the city The transformation of the inner city in the late nineteenth century involved significant investments of public and private funds into modern urban infrastructure. Installing water and gas pipes, electric wires, drains and tramway tracks brought numerous material and health benefits to the residents, making their daily lives in the central parts of the city more comfortable.14 Helsinki Water Works started pumping and filtering water from a nearby river in the late 1870s, providing a reliable water supply to households in the city centre. This was a significant improvement, as groundwater was scarce in Helsinki’s rocky terrain, and well water was often of poor quality or even undrinkable. The first municipal

Municipal services and modern citizenship in Helsinki 87 sewers were established shortly after, and new middle-class areas built near the urban core in the 1880s were promptly connected to the municipal water and sewer systems.15 Prior to the turn of the century, Helsinki’s gas and electricity supply was in the hands of private companies. These companies focused on selling their products to customers who could afford them, neglecting the less profitable fringe areas. Moreover, the cost-effective approach of simultaneously extending various networks, such as gas and water pipes, led to a further concentration of both private and public services in the urban core.16 Gas was predominantly utilized for street lighting, shops, offices, schools and hospitals in the inner city. Following the establishment of the first private electricity plant in 1884, electricity quickly gained popularity, and electric wires soon crisscrossed the main streets. Helsingin Sähkövalaistus Osakeyhtiö (Helsinki Electric Light Limited), founded in 1890, was the first company to use high-voltage alternating current, allowing electricity transmission over longer distances. Despite this reform, not all residents had access to electricity, as the distribution area only covered the central areas of the city in the early 1890s.17 These investments widened the divide between the inner city and the surrounding areas, both in reality and in perception. The central areas were wellorganized urban spaces or in the process of becoming so. Buildings were situated close to each other and connected to the same infrastructure networks, creating a seamless urban fabric. Streets, squares and parks were designed to accommodate pedestrians, vehicles, infrastructure systems and street furniture.18 In contrast, areas outside the zoned urban core were often disorganized and lacked structure. Open meadows, fields and forested areas were interspersed with institutions and service facilities that were not welcome in the urban core, such as a slaughterhouse, a mental asylum and a prison. Additionally, there were a handful of upper- and middle-class summer villas and a growing number of factories, workshops and workers’ ‘temporary’ settlements erected on rented land owned by the city, typically without access to infrastructure services.19 Connecting these areas located within the city limits but outside the town plan area to urban infrastructure networks was a slow process. As a result, even though the inhabitants of these areas were officially city residents, they remained in many ways disconnected from the urban community. The boundary between the ‘proper’ urban areas and their outskirts was always ambiguous and constantly shifting in rapidly expanding cities. It was, however, crucial for municipal policymakers to make this distinction and communicate it effectively, particularly in the 1870s and 1880s, when city governments were assuming many new responsibilities. This division enabled them to control municipal spending effectively. Helsinki policymakers usually followed the principle that infrastructure services should only be constructed after proper planning and zoning had taken place.20 This resulted in working-class people having to wait for these services to become available as there were only a limited number of planned working-class areas at the time. As argued by historian

88  Marjaana Niemi Sven-Erik Åström, until the early twentieth century, ‘the “better” districts were planned in advance and the working-class districts retrospectively’.21 This was not unique to Helsinki but was a common practice in many other Finnish and Nordic cities.22 The Helsinki authorities used the ‘temporary’ nature of fringe settlements to justify unequal access to infrastructure services. They argued that the settlements outside the town plan area lacked key urban characteristics and were not meant to last. To further emphasize their temporary nature, the settlements were often omitted from city maps or portrayed as non-urban territory. Street and tourist maps typically depicted fringe areas using shades of grey and green to create the impression of a ‘natural’ landscape with forests and rocky terrain. In maps that focused more on the city’s expansion, these fringe areas were portrayed as vacant (white) land awaiting development.23 A notable example of this type of map was created by city engineer Claes Kjerrström in 1878 (Map 5.1). His map, which

Map 5.1. In 1878, the city engineer Claes Kjerrström created a map of Helsinki that excluded less ‘significant’ areas or presented them as a land reserve for the city.24 The Kallio district in the north was notably omitted from the map, while the Töölö area in the northeast was depicted as a vacant (white) land awaiting development. Map: Helsinki Region Infoshare.

Municipal services and modern citizenship in Helsinki 89 won an award at the Paris World Fair, resembled colonialist maps from Africa and Australia, in which white ‘unknown’ and ‘uninscribed’ lands awaited civilization.25 Urban mapping of this kind excluded certain areas and people from the ‘real’ city while categorizing others as belonging to it. Furthermore, by portraying fringe areas as empty, the maps presented them as a future development opportunity for the city rather than as urban areas in their own right. Extending infrastructure services to the outskirts of the city was a costly undertaking, causing both municipal authorities and utility companies to hesitate. However, there were also significant reasons that justified the expansion of these networks, particularly concerning the reliability of the water supply. The demand for improvement was led by affluent villa owners in the fringe areas and industrialists who had relocated their factories there. These stakeholders negotiated with the city administration to extend the municipal water supply system to the outskirts, often agreeing to contribute to the costs. Moreover, state-run institutions, such as hospitals and prisons, also called for the expansion of the water system, further encouraging the city to pursue this endeavour. In response to increasing demand, the city borrowed funds, for example, in 1886, to expand the water pipeline network. This expansion included the Sörnäinen prison and a brewery in the north, the Hietaniemi mental asylum in the west, and a bonemeal and glue factory in Munkkisaari in the southwest. With the extension of water supply and sewerage to factories and public institutions, it became easier also to provide these services to nearby working-class areas.26 Urban reformers also advocated for the extension of infrastructure networks, recognizing their potential to transform cities and promote modern ideals of organized and healthy urban areas. The provision of clean water, efficient waste disposal and improved lighting were seen as crucial in enforcing new standards of hygiene and behaviour, particularly in working-class areas. While not all expectations were met, civil engineering and infrastructure networks played a vital role in enabling municipal authorities to manage diverse urban areas.27 Furthermore, one significant advantage of this infrastructure-based approach was the ability to achieve important objectives through impersonal control. As Christopher Otter points out in reference to nineteenth-century London, ‘tentacular networks of electric wires and water mains could subtly shape and normalize conduct, without any direct human inference, save for the occasional repairman or meter reader’.28 A part of the city, yet still something separate – the neighbourhood of Kallio The neighbourhood of Kallio, located north of the city centre, illustrates the challenges faced by the municipal authorities in balancing the need to manage the city efficiently while keeping costs low. During the 1870s and 1880s, Kallio became an attractive destination for working-class families due to its proximity to the factories and engineering shops in Sörnäinen. Towards the end of the century, it

90  Marjaana Niemi emerged as the fastest-growing part of the city. The city authorities planned the location and alignment of future streets and divided the land into plots in 1887 to regulate the growth of the area. However, the uneven terrain posed a significant problem, making it difficult and expensive to construct essential infrastructure such as streets, sewer and water pipes. To avoid the heavy costs associated with the construction of these services, the authorities tried to keep Kallio outside of the approved town plan area for as long as possible.29 Due to the absence of proper municipal services, plots in the Kallio area were leased out at a significantly reduced rate. Tenants paid only 25–30% of the prices charged in the town plan area and were not bound by the stringent building regulations enforced in the city’s central district. As a result, the neighbourhood became highly susceptible to fires and epidemics.30 The memoirs of workingclass residents from Kallio and other inner fringe settlements have also highlighted the unplanned nature of these areas, including unnamed streets, vacant plots, poorly constructed houses, as well as unlit and unpaved yards that turned muddy during rain.31 The process of integrating Kallio into the central parts of the city was indeed slow but proved more successful than that of other working-class settlements located further away from the city centre. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, the municipal authorities began to focus their attention on Kallio’s water supply network, with the typhoid epidemic of 1888 being one of the driving forces behind this change.32 The city administration expedited the extension of the water supply networks to Kallio, starting with the installation of public hydrants. After that, property owners could pay to have water pipes installed in their yards or further in individual homes. By 1900, around 85% of the households in Kallio had access to water hydrants in their yards, and 10% had water pipes installed in their homes. At the same time in the central parts of the city, 25% of the workingclass people already had running water in their homes, and the new apartment buildings for the middle class were equipped with running water as a standard feature.33 This comparison of Kallio with the central parts of the city shows that access to the municipal water supply was affected by both the class of the inhabitants and the location of their homes. The extension of the municipal water system to Kallio encountered resistance from some residents and property owners for two main reasons. First, many were concerned about the visibly murky appearance of the piped water and preferred the taste of (contaminated) well water for making their coffee.34 The second reason was that people were accustomed to using free water from wells and perceived piped water as a costly alternative. However, the municipal policymakers were intent upon ensuring the financial sustainability of the water company and limited free water to a few selected hydrants in the city, with wider access only during epidemics. To promote the adoption of piped water, the authorities filled in and closed wells in areas where piped water was available. As a result, not only the central areas of the city but also Kallio and Sörnäinen became exclusive

Municipal services and modern citizenship in Helsinki 91 users of piped water by the turn of the century. The extension of municipal sewers to Kallio and the improvement of street lighting also enhanced the area’s overall appearance and organization, integrating it into the city ‘proper’.35 In 1900, the town plan for Kallio was finally approved. These developments were also reflected in city maps, where Kallio now appeared as a planned and organized urban space.36 During the late nineteenth century, the installation of water and sewage systems had a significant positive impact on urban life, leading to improved mortality rates and other related benefits.37 For the Kallio area, however, the implementation of such infrastructure networks also posed major challenges. Despite becoming more connected to the central parts of the city, Kallio and especially the adjacent industrial area of Sörnäinen were still seen as suitable places for facilities and plants that caused environmental damage and loss of amenities to their neighbourhood. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Sörnäinen saw the establishment of many factories and engineering shops but also municipal service facilities. In 1909, Helsinki’s first large-scale municipal electricity power plant began operating in Sörnäinen, and the city’s gasworks was also relocated to the area in 1911 to reduce smoke and unpleasant odours in the central city. It was argued that the prevailing winds would eliminate any possible nuisances.38 These municipally owned and managed facilities were critical for the functioning of a modern city and provided benefits for the entire city population. However, the environmental burden of these activities was borne by the nearest neighbourhoods, Sörnäinen and Kallio.39 The debate regarding the location of the new municipal slaughterhouse in the early twentieth century also revealed that Kallio and Sörnäinen were still perceived as being on the outskirts of the city. Typically, slaughterhouses were situated in peripheral locations because they were the sites where ‘nature’ was transformed into ‘culture’, or more precisely, where animals were converted into hygienic and socially acceptable food for urban consumers.40 Sörnäinen was deemed a suitable location for the slaughterhouse due to its location on the outskirts and its connection to the main railway line through a terminal branch line, which facilitated the seamless transportation of animals to the slaughterhouse. The committee considering the matter recommended Sörnäinen, but due to the war and other reasons, the construction of the slaughterhouse was delayed until the 1930s.41 In the early twentieth century, Kallio residents began voicing concerns about the uneven distribution of public amenities in the city. While their primary concern had traditionally been the high cost of services, complaints about unequal access, for example, to public parks and playgrounds began to gain momentum.42 A 1913 article in the newspaper Työmies highlighted the stark contrast between the middle-class areas, which had better-maintained amenities, and the workingclass areas, which were lacking in green spaces.43 The memoirs of people living in fringe areas also emphasized the absence of well-maintained parks and playgrounds, with ‘temporary’ green and open places being used instead. Children

92  Marjaana Niemi and young people usually played and socialized on vacant lots, in fields, among rocks, on beaches and in forests.44 Despite being better connected to the central parts of the city, Kallio still retained some of its ‘temporary’ features, remaining in the early twentieth century somewhere between the dichotomy of ‘culture’ and ‘nature’. Despite integrating in many ways into the wider urban community, Kallio residents felt marginalized and used the disparities in infrastructure and other services to demand further inclusion in the community. Outside the city limits, excluded from the urban community – Hermanni and Fredriksberg (Pasila) During the 1880s and 1890s, irregular suburban settlements also appeared outside of Helsinki’s administrative borders. These new communities were primarily established along main roads and railway lines and attracted a predominantly low-income urban population. While some upper- and middle-class families were also interested in living in the rural atmosphere of the outskirts, they were in the minority. The Helsinki authorities noted in 1912 that around 90% of suburban residents outside of the city were working-class people, with even higher percentages in other Finnish cities.45 In contrast to Britain, where the term ‘suburb’ acquired a positive connotation when middle-class families started migrating to the outskirts of cities in the nineteenth century, the negative association of suburbs continued to persist in Finland.46 The city authorities in Helsinki were specifically worried about the unplanned settlements that sprang up just outside the city borders. The primary reason for their concern was the negative impact such settlements were believed to have on the health and public order of the city. These communities had limited access to clean water and totally lacked basic sanitation and paved roads. The residents often engaged in animal husbandry, which ran counter to the Helsinki authorities’ efforts to restrict livestock keeping in densely built areas. The absence of effective law enforcement in these settlements was believed to promote a culture of excessive drinking and violence.47 Another reason why the irregular communities were considered a problem was the irreversible nature of many changes. The ‘temporary’ structures and practices in these communities often became permanent over time, making it difficult for the authorities to plan future development effectively. The authorities recognized the negative impact of these informal settlements on the city’s long-term planning and were determined to discourage their growth from an early stage.48 In the Helsinki area, the first settlements of this kind – Hermanni and Toukola – emerged on the lands of Kumtähti manor outside the northeastern boundary of the city in the 1880s. The landowner offered to sell the area to the city, but the municipal decision-makers considered the price too high. By the early 1890s, when another chance to purchase the land presented itself, the settlements had expanded, and their population had reached around 2,000 people. The unsanitary conditions in the settlements were a significant public health hazard, with

Municipal services and modern citizenship in Helsinki 93 residents relying on wells for their water supply. Due to the overcrowded living arrangements, especially in the Hermanni settlement, most wells were contaminated. Moreover, there was no proper sewage system in place, leading to unhygienic waste disposal.49 In 1893, the policymakers of Helsinki finally decided to purchase the land in order to regulate the development of the settlements. The original plan was to improve the infrastructure and other services in the area by installing sewer and water pipes, upgrading roads and investing in primary education and policing. However, the high cost of the land acquisition led to the downsizing or abandonment of many planned improvements. The decision-makers concluded that the city had already invested enough resources in the project and deemed building a sewer unnecessary. They also believed that savings were possible in the reforms planned in education, policing and road construction. Furthermore, the idea of annexing the area to the city was abandoned. The city had already achieved its most crucial goal by securing the ownership of the land and halting further irregular development. The decision to annex was deferred as it would have entailed several obligations and responsibilities.50 In the years that followed, the settlements underwent minimal infrastructure upgrades, which left property owners and residents dissatisfied. The first measure was taken by the municipal health authorities, who closed most of the wells in the area due to the water being hazardous to health. This, in turn, led to a severe water shortage, which the property owners and residents tried to solve with the few means at their disposal. The property owners appealed to the city authorities requesting the extension of the water main to the area, while many residents still had to use contaminated water from closed wells. The mounting pressure forced the city to extend the water main and install two public hydrants in the area in 1895. However, this measure did not effectively solve the issue, as many residents could not afford to buy water, and the purchase process was excessively complicated.51 The city authorities were very reluctant to provide free water to areas outside the city limits. The rationale behind this was that it was unfair to offer free water services to non-residents when the provision of free water within the city was very restricted. After much persistence from the residents of Hermanni, taps were eventually installed in the public hydrants to provide free water. However, the process of accessing free water remained deliberately complicated to discourage use, and those who used it were viewed as having no other option. The compromise was a welcome relief to municipal officials, who were tired of dealing with Hermanni’s ‘quarrelsome residents’, and the reform improved the sanitary situation in the area. Data from 1900 revealed that only 6% of households in Hermanni sourced water from wells, while 83% used public hydrants, either free of charge or by paying. However, compared with the Kallio area, Hermanni was lagging far behind in terms of water accessibility. In Kallio, only 5% of households used public hydrants, while approximately 95% had access to water from hydrants in their own yards or from water taps in their homes.52

94  Marjaana Niemi Despite making progress in the water issue, the residents of Hermanni faced significant challenges in their attempts to improve their living conditions. The lack of a sewer system was a major issue that the city authorities failed to address, citing the fact that small Finnish towns typically managed well without them. Additionally, the residents of Hermanni requested an extension of the horse tramline from Sörnäinen to their settlement, but their request was not granted. The lack of primary education facilities was another challenge, attributed by the city authorities to the fact that the settlement was not officially part of Helsinki.53 Towards the end of the 1890s, a group of property owners from the Hermanni and Toukola districts abandoned their expectations of the city and turned to the provincial governor with a petition. They demanded a viable solution to the problems at hand if the official annexation to Helsinki was not possible. The issues included the absence of a district physician, inadequate poor law arrangements, the absence of a school building and inadequate infrastructure services, such as running water and street lighting. Initially, the Helsinki city authorities took a defensive stance, citing complicated ground conditions and limited space between buildings as reasons for their inability to provide adequate infrastructure. They also argued that the demands of the property owners and residents were unrealistic and that Hermanni and Toukola were only temporary arrangements until the residents could move to better-planned neighbourhoods in the town plan area.54 The city authorities’ stance shifted in 1902 when they admitted their failure to provide sufficient housing for the working-class population within the city. They had relied on Kallio to accommodate the working-class residents, but the high rents made it impossible for many people to afford. Consequently, the city authorities recognized that the Hermanni and Toukola settlements could no longer be dismissed as a ‘temporary’ solution soon to disappear. Hermanni and Toukola were annexed to Helsinki in 1906 yet remained outside the town plan. The city authorities were aware that if the town plan was approved, the existing inhabitants would be priced out of the area. Despite being located within the city, the residents had to wait for an extended period to receive many municipal services self-evident for people living in the central parts of the city and even in Kallio. In 1907, they requested a tramline, but it was not extended to Hermanni until 1914 and to Toukola until 1926. The expansion of other municipal services, including water pipelines, electric lighting and gas distribution, was not significantly advanced until the 1920s and 1930s.55 When the growth of the settlements of Hermanni and Toukola on the northeast city border had been halted in the 1890s, a new predicament arose on the northern border in Fredriksberg (Pasila).56 Fredriksberg was located just outside the city limits, approximately 3 km north of the city centre and within walking distance of the industrial workplaces in Sörnäinen. The development of Fredriksberg settlement began in the 1890s, and in 1901, the city of Helsinki took action to prevent its expansion. However, it took four years for the city to win the legal battle with the landowner, by which time the suburb had already grown to 1,500

Municipal services and modern citizenship in Helsinki 95 residents. The neighbourhood consisted of wooden houses built on rugged pinecovered hills, ranging in size from single-family homes to low-rise tenements, each with its own distinct character and style.57 Fredriksberg was perceived by the Helsinki city officials as a sort of ‘Klondike’, notorious for its near-lawless frontier life, inadequate planning, poor sanitation, excessive drinking and unruly behaviour. As in Hermanni and Toukola, the residents of Fredriksberg relied on contaminated wells for drinking water, and the absence of sewerage and paved streets exacerbated the poor living conditions. Backyard farming of pigs and chickens was a common practice. The main daily newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, referred to the area as Pigtown, highlighting its un-urban nature.58 Although the people living in Fredriksberg felt that the negative reputation of their settlement was unfairly perpetuated by outsiders, they, too, lamented the poor quality or the absence of basic amenities such as schools, health care and police services.59 In terms of administration, Fredriksberg was under the jurisdiction of the Helsinki rural municipality, which did not offer the typical urban facilities and services to the settlement and its inhabitants. In 1906, a group of property owners and residents of Fredriksberg collectively requested the incorporation of the settlement into Helsinki by submitting a petition to the Helsinki city authorities. Out of the 492 signatories, the majority commuted to Helsinki for work but resided in the rural municipality and paid taxes to it. The petitioners voiced their discontent with the current arrangement, stating that they did not really belong to either the rural municipality or the city and were deprived of the fundamental advantages usually provided by society, such as primary education, health care and street lighting. They believed that they contributed to the city of Helsinki and deserved to be part of the urban community, entitled to modern amenities.60 While a significant portion of the community was in favour of the merger, some expressed concerns regarding potential threats to the identity and community spirit of Fredriksberg posed by the city and its services, particularly the police. These residents feared that the city administration’s focus on efficient governance could undermine the unique character of their neighbourhood and transform it into a normative environment. Moreover, it was noted that despite the annexation of Hermanni and Toukola to the city, the residents of these settlements had not experienced a significant improvement in the quality and quantity of services they received.61 Fredriksberg was not the only problem suburb near Helsinki in the early twentieth century, but it was too close to be ignored. The City Council made the decision to acquire the area in 1908, and by 1912, it was officially annexed to the city. The rural municipality did not oppose the move, considering it a burden to manage the troubled settlement. Following the annexation, the city administration initiated basic infrastructure improvements, such as piped water, sewerage systems and street upgrades. The intention, however, was to do the very minimum.62 The city’s policymakers viewed Fredriksberg as a settlement with no future, anticipating that the city would expand, and new plans would be

96  Marjaana Niemi

Figure 5.1 In 1912, following Fredriksberg’s annexation to the city, sewer systems were established in the area. A haphazard settlement layout with narrow streets posed a challenge to the installation of the infrastructure networks. Photo: Signe Brander, 1912, Helsinki City Museum.

developed for the area. The old wooden houses would be demolished, and the old Fredriksberg would soon become a distant memory. The architect Eliel Saarinen complied with the wishes of the Helsinki authorities. In 1918, Saarinen proposed relocating Helsinki’s main railway station to Fredriksberg, which would have served as the city’s primary transportation hub.63 Though not officially approved at the time, the idea of Fredriksberg/Pasila as Helsinki Nord gained ground.64 However, the city’s growth projections proved to be overly optimistic, and plans to construct a new Fredriksberg were indefinitely postponed for nearly six decades. In the interim, the ‘temporary’ Fredriksberg carried on (almost) as before: children grew up and adults grew old, ground leases were renewed and the original grey houses were painted in brighter colours. Eventually, in the 1970s, the settlement was dismantled to make way for new housing developments. Conclusion During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the development of municipal infrastructure and services in Helsinki and other Nordic ‘welfare

Municipal services and modern citizenship in Helsinki 97 cities’ was deeply intertwined with broader urban and societal changes. During this period, there was a notable shift in the perception of what services were considered crucial for the daily lives and routines of modern urban citizens and therefore expected to be provided by the city administration. The provision of municipal services was also heavily influenced by changing notions of who was an urban citizen, a full-fledged member of the urban community entitled to essential services, and who could only expect partial access. Additionally, the provision of these services, and particularly the knowledge about unequal access, was increasingly used as a tool for political assertion, advocating for inclusion and challenging the existing power structure. During the 1870s and 1880s, the Helsinki city administration collaborated with private companies to provide advanced amenities such as piped water, sewers, electricity and gas. These facilities were considered imperative for the central parts of the city, where the middle-class populace resided and worked. The implementation of these services, coupled with other changes, brought about a remarkable metamorphosis of the urban landscape, setting new standards for sanitation and order in the urban core. The services also played a significant role in unifying and demarcating the central part of the city while creating a clear divide between it and the working-class settlements located on the outskirts. These peripheral areas and their inhabitants were viewed as ‘temporary’ settlements and therefore not entitled to the expensive municipal services. In the 1890s, Kallio, a working-class neighbourhood near the city centre, underwent a planned integration into the central areas. The process involved the provision of essential municipal services such as water pipes, sewage systems and tramlines to connect the area with the urban core. Despite this, Kallio continued to face some challenges that made it appear socially peripheral. For instance, service facilities that caused environmental nuisances were not uncommon in the area. The settlements of Toukola, Hermanni and Fredriksberg, which were located outside the city limits in the late nineteenth century, were annexed to the city in the early twentieth century. Although the residents of these areas were active in demanding to be recognized as members of the urban community, these areas remained socially on the outskirts of the city. The settlements were seen as temporary arrangements well into the second half of the twentieth century and, therefore, were not entitled to the same level of services as the places in the town plan area. Notes 1 Yrjö Harvia, “Kaupunkikuntien tonttipolitiikasta,” in Suomen ensimmäinen yleinen asuntokongressi: Pöytäkirja (Helsinki: Yhdistys yleishyödyllisen rakennustoiminnan edistämiseksi, 1918), 48–49; Yrjö Harvia, Helsingin esikaupunkiliitos: Päämietintö (Helsinki: City of Helsinki, 1936), 57–58; Tauno Perälä, “Kaupunkien aluepolitiikka ja esikaupunkiliitokset 1875–1918,” in Suomen kaupunkilaitoksen historia 2: 1870-luvulta autonomian ajan loppuun (Helsinki: Suomen kaupunkiliitto, 1983), 32–40; Marjaana Niemi, “A Place in Its Own Right: The Rural-Urban Fringe

98  Marjaana Niemi of Helsinki From the Early Nineteenth Century to the Present,” in Urbanizing Nature: Actors and Agency (Dis)Connecting Cities and Nature Since 1500, ed. Tim Soens, Dieter Schott, Michael Toyka-Seid, and Bert De Munck (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2019), 74–76. 2 Simon Gunn, Richard Butler, Greet De Block, Mikkel Høghøj, and Mikkel Thelle, “Cities, Infrastructure and the Making of Modern Citizenship: The View from NorthWest Europe Since c. 1870,” Urban History (2022): 1–19. 3 Niemi, “A Place in Its Own Right”; Marjaana Niemi, “A Town Planned and Lived in: Urban Space in Vyborg from the Mid-19th Century to the 1930s,” in Vyborg: Historic Town Atlas, ed. Kimmo Katajala, Marjatta Hietala, Marjaana Niemi et al. (Helsinki: AtlasArt, 2020), 118–20. 4 Gunn et al., “Cities, Infrastructure,” 1–19; Tom Hulme, “Putting the City Back into Citizenship: Civics Education and Local Government in Britain, 1918–1945,” Twentieth Century British History 26, no. 1 (March 2015): 26–51. 5 Mikael Sundman, “Urban Planning in Finland after 1850” and Thomas Hall, “Concluding Remarks: Is There a Nordic Planning Tradition,” in Planning and Urban Growth in Nordic Countries, ed. Thomas Hall (London: E & FN Spon, 1991), 87–89, 254–56; Niemi, “A Place in Its Own Right”; Ned M. Crankshaw, “Plowing or Mowing? Rural Sprawl in Nelson County, Kentucky,” Landscape Journal 28, no. 2 (January 2009): 219. 6 Simon Gunn and Alastair Owens, “Nature, Technology and the Modern City: An Introduction,” Cultural Geographies 13, no. 4 (2006): 491–96; Niemi, “A Place in Its Own Right.” 7 Mattias Qviström, “Landscapes Out of Order: Studying the Inner Urban Fringe Beyond the Rural-urban Divide,” Geografiska Annaler 89 B, no. 3 (2007): 269–82; Nick Gallent, Johan Andersson, and Marco Bianconi, Planning on the Edge: The Context for Planning at the Rural-Urban Fringe (London: Routledge, 2006), 76–78. 8 Matti Klinge, Pääkaupunki: Helsinki ja Suomen valtio, 1808–1863 (Helsinki: Otava, 2012); Harry Schulman, “Settlement Growth, Structure and Land Use,” in Helsinki: Historic Town Atlas, ed. Marjatta Hietala, Martti Helminen, and Merja Lahtinen (Helsinki: City of Helsinki, 2009), 49–53. 9 Zachris Topelius, “För femtio år sedan,” Finland, July 4, 1885; Heikki Waris, “Helsinkiläisyhteiskunta,” in Helsingin kaupungin historia III:2 (Helsinki: City of Helsinki, 1950), 174–80; Sven-Erik Åström, Samhällsplanering och regionsbildning i kejsartidens Helsingfors: Studier i stadens inre differentiering, 1810–1910 (Helsinki: City of Helsinki, 1957), 68–76, 121–22. 10 KHKK (Kertomus Helsingin kaupungin kunnallishallinnosta/Annual Report of the Helsinki City Administration) 1876, 105–8; Waris, “Helsinkiläisyhteiskunta,” 174. 11 Väinö Tanner, Näin Helsingin kasvavan (Helsinki: Tammi, 1966), 159; Panu Savo­ lainen, Teksteistä rakennettu kaupunki: Julkinen ja yksityinen tila turkulaisessa kielenkäytössä ja arkielämässä (Turku: Sigillum, 2017), 270–73; Otto I. Meurman, “Piirteitä Helsingin asemakaavan historiasta,” in Helsingin asemakaavahistoriallinen kartasto/Helsingfors stadsplanehistoriska atlas, ed. Olof Stenius (Helsinki: Stiftelsen Pro Helsingfors, 1969). 12 Peter Clark, European Cities and Towns 400–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 227, 231–32. 13 KHKK 1876, 105–8; 1884, 2–3; Meurman, “Piirteitä Helsingin asemakaavan historiasta”; Niemi, “A Place in Its Own Right.” 14 For discussion on how the building of infrastructure networks affected societies, see Lisa Björkman and Andrew Harris, “Engineering Cities: Mediating Materialities, Infrastructural Imaginaries and Shifting Regimes of Urban Expertise,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 42, no. 2 (March 2018): 244–62.

Municipal services and modern citizenship in Helsinki 99 15 KHKK 1878, 349–54; Timo Herranen, Vettä ja elämää: Helsingin vesihuollon historia 1876–2001 (Helsinki: Helsingin vesi, 2001), 24–29, 42–46; Paula Schönach, “Expanding Sanitary Infrastructure and the Shaping of River History: River Vantaa (Finland), 1876–1982,” Environment and History 21 (2015); Onni Wiherheimo and Gabriel Rein, “Kunnalliselämä,” in Helsingin kaupungin historia III:2, 322–24; Sven-Erik Åström, “Kaupunkiyhteiskunta murrosvaiheessa,” Helsingin kaupungin historia IV:2 (Helsinki: City of Helsinki, 1956), 197–202. 16 KHKK 1878, 354; 1884, 18; 1887, 216–17. 17 Teemu Ikonen, “En tidsenlig och praktisk elektrisk belysning: Helsingin Sähkövalaistus Osakeyhtiön toimilupakäsittely 1889–1990” (Unpublished MA dissertation, University of Helsinki, 2017); Jaakko Pöyhönen, “Voimaa koneisiin, valoa kaduille ja asuntoihin,” in Tietoa, taitoa, asiantuntemusta: Helsinki eurooppalaisessa kehityksessä 1875–1917. Osa 3. Henkistä kasvua, teknistä taitoa, ed. Kirsi Ahonen, Marjaana Niemi, and Jaakko Pöyhönen (Helsinki: Finnish Historical Society, 1992); Iisakki Laati, “Kunnalliselämä,” in Helsingin kaupungin historia IV:2, 378–85. 18 KHKK 1876–1878, 131–36, 359–60; 1884, 21; Hans Buiter, “Constructing Dutch Streets: A Melting Pot of European Technologies,” in Urban Machinery: Inside Modern European Cities, ed. Mikael Hård and Thomas J. Misa (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), 142. 19 Heikki Waris, Työläisyhteiskunnan syntyminen Helsingin Pitkänsillan pohjoispuolelle I (Helsinki: Finnish Historical Society, 1932); Niemi, “A Place in Its Own Right.” 20 KHKK 1875–1878, 8–21, 131–36, 165–78, 360–68; 1884, 2–3. Marjaana Niemi, Piia Einonen, Tapio Salminen, and Tanja Vahtikari, “Identiteetit ja yhteisöllisyys kaupunkitilassa keskiajalta 1900-luvulle,” in Suomalaisen yhteiskunnan historia 1400– 2000. Osa 2: Yhteisöt ja identiteetit, ed. Pirjo Markkola, Marjaana Niemi, and Pertti Haapala (Tampere: Vastapaino, 2021), 183–84. 21 Åström, Samhällsplanering och regionsbildning, 262. 22 Thomas Hall, Planning Europe’s Capital Cities: An Aspects of Nineteenth-Century Urban Development (London: Taylor & Francis, 1997), 98. 23 See, for example, Plan af Helsingfors jemte ofgivning, utarbetad in 1876 af C.H. Nummelin (Helsingfors: Litografiska Tryckeribolaget, 1876) and Plan af Helsingfors 1890 (Helsingfors: F. Liewendal Lith.Tryckeri, 1890). 24 Detalj-plan af Helsingfors stad upprättad i öfverensstämmelse med stadens planering och byggnadsart vid ingången af år 1878 (Helsingfors, Litografiska Tryckeribolaget i Helsingfors, 1878). Helsinki Region Infoshare. 25 Johanna Skurnik, “Claims for Space: Unpacking Finnish Geohistorical Imaginations of the United States,” in Finnish Settler Colonialism in North-America: Rethinking Finnish Experiences in Transnational Spaces, ed. Rani-Henrik Andersson and Janne Lahti (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2022), 21–22. 26 KHKK 1885, 72–74; 1886, 137–39; HKVPA (Helsingin kaupunkinvaltuuston painetut asiakirjat/ Published Documents of the Helsinki City Council) 1886:6. See also Åström, “Kaupunkiyhteiskunta,” 200; Herranen, Vettä ja elämää, 44–45. 27 Björkman and Harris, “Engineering Cities”; Michael Rawson, “The Nature of Water: Reform and the Antebellum Crusade for Municipal Water in Boston,” Environmental History 9 (July 2004): 411–35. 28 Christopher Otter, “Cleansing and Clarifying: Technology and Perception in ­Nineteenth-Century London,” Journal of British Studies 43, no. 1 (2004): 63. 29 KHKK 1891, 2–4; Birger Brunila and Magnus af Schultén, “Asemakaava ja rakennustaide,” Helsingin kaupungin historia IV:1 (Helsinki: City of Helsinki, 1955), 22–25. 30 Waris, Työläisyhteiskunnan syntyminen, 190–94.

100  Marjaana Niemi 31 Martta Salmela-Järvinen, Kun se parasta on ollut: Lapsuuden muistelmat (Porvoo: WSOY, 1965), 49, 112–13, 124, 152–53; Martta Salmela-Järvinen, Alas lyötiin vanha maailma: Muistikuvia ja näkymiä vuosilta 1906–1918 (Porvoo: WSOY, 1966), 70; Tanner, Näin Helsingin kasvavan, 148–49. 32 KHKK 1888, 21–24; 1890, 25; 1891, 22–25, 100; 1892, 118. 33 Åström, “Kaupunkiyhteiskunta murrosvaiheessa,” 198–200; Herranen, Vettä ja elämää, 46; Timo Herranen, “Helsingin kasvukipuja vuosisadan vaihteessa: Hermanni ja Toukolan esikaupungit,” in Arki ja murros: Tutkielmia keisariajan lopun Suomesta, ed. Matti Peltonen (Helsinki: Finnish Historical Society, 1990), 111. 34 Tanner, Näin Helsingin kasvavan, 165; Herranen, Vettä ja elämää, 47; Åström, “Kaupunkiyhteiskunta murrosvaiheessa,” 197–204. 35 For street lighting, see KHKK 1891, 83. Åström, “Kaupunkiyhteiskunta murrosvaiheessa,” 197–198, 204–6. 36 See, for example, Plan of Helsingfors 1890 (Helsingfors: F. Liewendal’s Lith. Tryckeri, 1890); Plan of Helsingfors 1900 (Helsingfors: F. Liewendal’s Lith. Tryckeri, 1900). 37 L. W. Fagerlund, Helsingfors stads vattenledning och dess vatten – Hygienisk studie (Helsingfors, 1897). 38 HKVPA 1907:24, 4; Uusi Suometar, August 11, 1889. See also Paula Schönach, “Historical Paths of Environmental Injustice: A Century of Placing Industrial Facilities in Helsinki, Finland,” Local Environment 21, no. 4 (2016): 397–413; Timo Herranen, Kaasulaitostoimintaa Helsingissä 1860–1985 (Helsinki: Helsingin kaupungin energialaitos, 1985). 39 Schönach, “Historical Paths of Environmental Injustice,” 397–413. 40 KHKK 1907, 67–68; M. Thelle, “The Meat City: Urban Space and Provision in Industrial Copenhagen, 1880–1914,” Urban History 45, no. 2 (2018): 233–52; Marjaana Niemi, “Ensuring Urban Food Security: Municipal Policies for Food and Health in European Cities,” in Cambridge Urban History of Europe. Vol.3: Modern Europe from c. 1850, ed. Dorothee Brantz and Gábor Sonkoly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2025). 41 HKVPA 1908:14, 15; 1908:28; 1922:20. 42 For a similar momentum in the post-1918 City Council, see Kati Katajisto’s chapter in this volume. 43 Työmies, July 19, 1913. See also Peter Clark and Marjatta Hietala, “Helsinki and Green Space 1850–2000: An Introduction,” in The European City and Green Space: London, Stockholm, Helsinki and St. Petersburg, 1850–2000, ed. Peter Clark (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 117. 44 Salmela-Järvinen, Kun se parasta on ollut; Salmela-Järvinen, Alas lyötiin vanha maailma; Tanner, Näin Helsingin kasvavan. 45 HKVPA 1912:76, 3–4; Harvia, Helsingin esikaupunkiliitos, 80–81; Niemi, “A Town Planned and Lived in.” 46 R. McManus and P. J. Ethington, “Suburbs in Transition: New Approaches to Suburban History,” Urban History 34, no. 2 (2007): 320. 47 Tidskrift för Hälsovård 1892, 109–10; KHKK 1905, 48; HKVPA 1912:52. 48 KHKK 1905, 9; HKVPA 1912:52. For discussion, see Niemi, “A Place in Its Own Right.” 49 HKVPA 1892/15; 1892/18; Herranen, “Helsingin kasvukipuja,” 107–15. 50 Harvia, Helsingin esikaupunkiliitos, 18–20; HKVPA 1892:13, 2; 1895:2. Herranen, “Helsingin kasvukipuja.” 51 HKVPA 1894:28, 12–13; 1892:2; Åström, “Kaupunkiyhteiskunta murrosvaiheessa,” 199.

Municipal services and modern citizenship in Helsinki 101 52 HKVPA 1900:14; Herranen, “Helsingin kasvukipuja.” Åström, “Kaupunkiyhteiskunta murrosvaiheessa,” 199. 53 Herranen, “Helsingin kasvukipuja”; Timo Herranen, Hevosomnibusseista metroon: Vuosisata Helsingin joukkoliikennettä (Helsinki: Helsingin kaupunki, 1988), 53–54. 54 HKVPA 1900/14, 1–13. 55 HKVPA 1897:11; 1902:12; Herranen, Hevosomnibusseista metroon, 53–54; Herranen, “Helsingin kasvukipuja.” 56 The Finnish name Pasila was already used unofficially in the early twentieth century and officially from 1925. 57 Työmies, May 15, 1901; Harvia, Helsingin esikaupunkiliitos, 53. 58 Helsingin Sanomat, August 4, 1905; Hanna Kervinen, “Puu-Pasila: Kylä kaupungin laidalla,” in Pasila: Helsingin uusi keskus, ed. Harry Schulman and Mikael Sundman (Helsinki: Helsingin kaupungin tietokeskus, 1998), 75–76. 59 Työmies, May 15, 1901; July 18, 1902; July 21, 1902; July 20, 1907. 60 KHKK 1906, 25; HKVPA 1908:19. 61 See, for example, Työmies, May 15, 1901. 62 KHKK 1913, 48–49, 71; Harvia, Helsingin esikaupunkiliitos, 21–22; Kervinen, “PuuPasila,” 79. 63 Eliel Saarinen, Einar Sjöström, and Bertel Jung, “Suur-Helsingin” asemakaavan ehdotus (Helsinki: Lilius & Hetzberg, 1918). 64 M. K. Mäkinen, “Helsinki Nord,” in Herää Helsinki! Kaupunkisuunnittelu kaaoksessa, ed. Rolf Martinsen (Helsinki: Helsingin kaupunkisuunnitteluseura, 2004), 9–14.

6 A tale of two tramways Municipal organization and private enterprise in Stockholm and Kristiania, c. 1900 Mats Hallenberg By the turn of the twentieth century, public tramways were the true heralds of modernity. Major cities all across the globe invested capital, engineering skills and political credibility in rearranging city maps to accommodate expanding systems of urban transport. The Nordic capital cities were no exception. Copenhagen was the first one out, introducing horse-drawn trams on Vesterbro in 1863. Kristiania (Oslo as of 1925) followed suit in 1875 and Stockholm in 1877. Helsinki was the latecomer, opening its first tramway lines in 1891. From a European perspective, the four Nordic capitals were hardly exceptional. They followed the path that other European cities had trod, and political leaders looked eagerly towards German and English cities for inspiration.1 Tramway lines were first constructed and managed by private companies operating by municipal concession. These private companies were sanctioned to operate in city streets and public spaces while adhering to general requirements for safety and accessibility. Services started with horse-powered trams operating in city centres, providing safe and convenient transport for the urban bourgeoisie. However, the introduction of electric power boosted capital investment and facilitated the transformation of these services from an elite pastime into a means of mass transport. Electricity empowered tramway services to expand out from the city centres, connecting the old sites of the urban elite with the rapidly growing outskirts. Electric power facilitated longer trains covering greater distances at a higher speed, thus offering the privilege of modern transport to a larger share of the urban population. This expansion turned the tramways into an integral part of the welfare city and a nexus for political conflict within city councils.2 In this chapter, I will argue that the tramway systems of the early twentieth century must be analysed as a welfare service, promoting social inclusion by offering cheap and effective transport for a growing number of urban citizens. Electric tramways widened the spatial horizon of municipal planning by opening up plans for developing property, constructing social housing and integrating working suburbs, garden cities and urban centres. The tramway cars themselves provided a new form of public space to be appropriated by urban citizens. Electrified urban transport provides an example of how modern infrastructure could DOI: 10.4324/9781003379232-6

This chapter has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 international license.

A tale of two tramways 103

Figure 6.1 A victim of modernity. The last horse-drawn tramway car in Stockholm on 10 February 1905, in front of the Kungsholmen elementary school. Stockholm City Archives, photographer unknown.

shape and transform the materiality and politics of city life. At the same time, the tramways were also a source of profit, and the problem of who should reap the benefits – private investors or the municipal treasury – became a contested issue.3 Simon Gunn et al. have stressed the fundamental impact of infrastructure projects for articulating notions of urban citizenship. Technological systems provided access to urban society and worked as mediators of citizen rights. Infrastructural citizenship was negotiated on many levels, as demonstrated by Thelle’s and Høghøj’s chapters in this book. My understanding of tramways as a welfare service means focusing on political discussions in the city councils. The expansion of tramway systems was ultimately in the hands of local politicians, who decided on the character and scope of the services and which citizens should be granted the opportunities of modern transport. The physical expansion of tramway systems made them instrumental in articulating the social question raised by rapid urbanization: the connectedness between city centres and the urban periphery and equal access to urban spaces for workers, women and children. By 1900, the tramways were increasingly recognized as an integral part of modern, urban citizenship in major cities all over the world.4 The social dimension of the tramways triggered political conflict over the best way to organize services. Proponents of free enterprise insisted that the tramway

104  Mats Hallenberg system should be operated by private companies in order to ensure effective management and low costs for the taxpayers. The terms stated in the company concession would guarantee the interest of the public. Advocates of municipal management, on the other hand, argued that city councils must take full control over service operations. This would guarantee a successive extension of services to cover the expanding area of urban settlement. These politicians gave priority to regular services for factory workers and low fares to benefit the less-affluent passengers. There were, from the beginning, sharply conflicting views of how the welfare city should be organized.5 The gradual extension of suffrage promoted political factionalism. The status of the tramway system became a key issue in many local elections. Politicians campaigned for council seats by taking a fierce stand for or against municipal operations. Starting in the late nineteenth century, social democrats in Europe advocated for municipal socialism, whereby local reforms were introduced as a means of gaining control over the state. The programme stated that vital services such as gas, electricity and public transport must be taken over by municipal authorities. Such demands for municipal control won support from many liberals, while conservative politicians treated the concept of municipal socialism as an invective to be hurled against their political opponents.6 While the political activism of socialists and liberals had a considerable impact on the expansion of urban services in European cities, there were also other factors at work. Robert Millward argues that the process of municipalization was triggered primarily by economic factors. Technological advances in infrastructure opened up economic opportunity, and politicians on city councils were eager to reap the benefits. There was also the matter of preserving social order, which prompted even conservative councillors to accept the municipal expansion. Last but not least, the expansion of urban public services was a transnational phenomenon. Politicians around the world looked across borders for examples and inspiration, and their efforts to keep up the pace of modernization were supported by a swelling cadre of professional experts: architects, engineers and urban planners.7 This chapter concentrates on two critical junctures when the issue of municipalization of the tramway system was raised in the city councils of Stockholm and Kristiania, respectively.8 In Stockholm, the decisive debate took place in November 1902, followed by further discussions in February 1903. In Kristiania, the matter of municipal control came to a head in April 1905. In both cases, the political debates were fuelled by public opinion; references to public meetings and newspaper articles were common. Prior to the debates, there had been local elections in both cities and several of the leading council members had openly campaigned for reforming the tramway system. The cases are thus analysed as prime examples of political conflict. The debates are extensively covered in the published minutes from both city councils and present a source material ideal for comparison.9 The aim of this chapter is to investigate the political arguments wielded for or against municipalization in order to explain the expansion of urban public

A tale of two tramways 105 services in general, and tramway services in particular, after the turn of the twentieth century. The tramway debates were windows of opportunity when different visions of the welfare city were forwarded, discussed and ultimately rejected. I will pay particular attention to statements addressing the welfare dimension of public transport in relation to economic profit motifs. The analysis will result in a general characterization of the political discourse on public services and social inclusion in each city council. I start with a short overview of municipal politics in Stockholm and Kristiania, before analysing the two decisive debates and presenting my conclusions. City councils in Nordic capitals: from elite cohesion to political contestation The municipal reform of 1862 laid down the formula for local self-government in Stockholm and in other Swedish cities. For the capital of Sweden, this meant the creation of a more effective administration, as the city council took over a host of responsibilities that had previously been dispersed across several municipal boards and parish assemblies. From now on, the city council would have the final say in all matters pertaining to the urban community. Right from the beginning, the Stockholm city council took the lead by investing money and means in communal infrastructural projects to improve sanitation, sewage and water supply. In the following decades, municipal taxation gradually extended to cover increasing expenditures. The city council actively engaged in a series of projects to improve conditions for trade and manufacturing while also allocating resources to address social matters.10 The members of the council were appointed in local elections and were meant to represent all citizens in the Swedish capital. However, suffrage was restricted to the property-owning classes and the councillors generally came from a small elite of businessmen, bureaucrats and educated professionals. Indeed, current research has demonstrated that the Swedish local government was extremely unequal when compared with most other countries in Western Europe. The elected councillors represented themselves as trusted servants of the public rather than as members of a particular political group, although some of them might have displayed liberal or even social democratic leanings. This situation remained essentially the same until the suffrage reform of 1909, which extended the right to vote for most male citizens. The Stockholm Council of 1900 may thus be characterized as an elite assembly, although under increasing pressure from public opinion and politically organized groups.11 In Kristiania, by contrast, the municipal reform of 1837 had introduced voting rights for many citizens, and suffrage was extended to a larger majority of the male population in the 1890s. The city council (No. bystyret) was divided into two chambers: the first chamber, formandskapet, appointed representatives to municipal boards and prepared the basis for decision-making. The formal decisions were then debated and decided by the extended city council,

106  Mats Hallenberg repraesentantskapet. By the turn of the century, this extended city council had become the centre of local politics and the arena where political conflicts were played out and eventually settled.12 The liberal Venstre party gained the majority in the Kristiania city council in the elections of 1894 and embarked on an ambitious programme of municipal reform. This included establishing municipal enterprises for gas, electricity and sanitation, as well as plans for placing the tramway system under council control. In 1901, suffrage was extended to female voters and the first female members were introduced to the city council after the elections. By 1905, the social democrats had overtaken Venstre as the largest party group in the council, although the conservative Høyre party won the majority in the following elections.13 The city council in Kristiania thus emerged as a modern, representative assembly at the turn of the century, compared with the more elitist Stockholm city council where party politics had a less prominent role. The tramway debate in Stockholm: public services for specific urban groups The development of the Stockholm tramway system was heavily influenced by the topography of the Swedish capital. By the turn of the century, there were two private companies operating tramway services in the city: the so-called Northern company (Stockholms Nya Spårvägs AB) handling transports in the more affluent northern parts and the Southern company (Stockholms Södra Spårvägars AB) operating the services around the hilly slopes of Södermalm. The Southern company soon ran into economic difficulties and the city council reluctantly agreed to inject fresh capital to support their operations. The introduction of electric power prompted further demands for municipal investment and detailed plans for the future development of the tramway system. The Southern company managed to complete electrification in 1900–1901, supported by both private and municipal capital, but the issue of modernizing the Northern company lines caused heated debates in the press as well as on the city council.14 Demands for a municipal takeover of the Northern company were raised by councillor and architect G.E. Westermark in February 1900. Westermark insisted that the city council must take immediate action to ensure future operations. He refuted the company’s claim that their concession agreement, which terminated in December 1916, should be prolonged in order to attract private investment. Instead, Westermark made a formal proposition to the city council to cancel the contract with immediate effect so that the city could plan and implement the transformation to a new power system.15 Westermark’s proposition was investigated by four administrative boards, who came to radically different conclusions. The building board advocated for a compromise: the city should postpone the desired municipalization until the concession expired, and settle for a deal with the company to make the necessary

A tale of two tramways 107

Figure 6.2 Troubled topography. Trams at the Slussen lock, early twentieth century. The fairway between lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea posed a major obstacle for tramway communications between the north and the south of Stockholm well into the 1920s. Note the steam ship to the right and the open lock bridge in the background (left). Stockholm transport museum, photographer unknown.

preparations for installing electric power. The finance chamber office was more accommodating to the private enterprise, suggesting a prolonged concession until 1926. A. V. Feychting from the second office of the finance board advocated for the city to secure direct control over the tramway system, in accordance with Westermark’s proposal. The first office of the chamber board supported the compromise approach: municipal control was inevitable in the long run, but for now, the private company must be encouraged to undertake the desired provisions. The bureaucrats thus agreed that a municipal takeover was the desired outcome, but they had different notions concerning the timing of the process.16 The debate in the Stockholm city council followed similar lines of argument. The first speaker, Gustav Harald Lundbergh, an insurance expert and manufacturer, started by raising the social question: Lundbergh insisted that the tramway system must be treated as a means for improving housing conditions in the Swedish capital. Modern means of transport were necessary in order to develop new, healthy residences in suburban areas for the benefit of workers and the less affluent. The future extension of the tramway system was thus considered an integral part of welfare policy. In Lundbergh’s opinion, municipal administration of the tramways was necessary to ensure equity and fair opportunity for all citizens.17

108  Mats Hallenberg The proponents of municipalization argued that municipal control of the tramway system was fundamental for the city’s future development. They referred to Kristiania and Gothenburg as positive examples of municipal enterprise and argued that political management of the tramways was necessary to establish better connections between different parts of the city, in order to secure the welfare of all citizens.18 The tramways should be considered a natural monopoly, which means that the city must take over all operations. This standpoint was summed up by count Pontus von Rosen: To connect all parts of an extended city like Stockholm to each other, and provide the residents with improved transports, is a matter of such importance, that in my opinion the city must have the case in its own hands.19 Quite a few councillors addressed further social concerns, arguing that only municipal control could guarantee the low fares and early morning services that would enable workers to use the tramways on a daily basis. The issue of municipalization addressed the overreaching question: who should have access to the city’s public spaces and services, and who should be responsible for providing it for the masses? The notion of tired workingmen on their way home, sharing seats with respectable burghers, fuelled heated discussions over the segregation of passengers and, ultimately, the status of the tram as a public space.20 Councillor and building contractor Robert Alderin took the matter of equal access to the city one step further, arguing that subsidized prizes for the less affluent would improve the situation for many groups in the city: These cheaper tickets may be used by more or less properly dressed persons of both sexes, as well as schoolchildren and workingmen’s wives, who will be able to use the cheaper tours for travelling to the city’s market places and buy their stores.21 While the proponents of municipal control argued for rational planning and social inclusion, their opponents focused on economic considerations. The conservative position was that private enterprise was more effective than municipal management. Councillor Johan Östberg, a future member of the right-wing party, stated that private management was ‘by nature’ the best way to conduct business operations. A  private company could provide effective services at a lower cost so that the taxpayers would be spared increased tax bills. Importantly, the company would stand for a restrictive management of the working force, keeping wages low and the work ethic high.22 Bank manager Knut Wallenberg, who argued for a prolonged concession, thoroughly distrusted the competence of the city administration: I do not consider the municipality suitable for managing business operations [. . .] If we proceed in this manner, then nothing would be left for the industry.

A tale of two tramways 109 The effect would be that the commune will eventually consist of bureaucrats and pensioners, and private enterprise would be driven away.23 The councillors who argued for municipalization did not share the conservatives’ concern for the wage demands of the tramway personnel. Headmaster Sixten von Friesen admitted that some of the lower officials might expect a pay raise when the municipality took over operations, but that the net economic effect of this would be negligible. Others argued that a municipal tramway system would offer a steady flow of income to the city treasury in the near future. Company director Nils Herlitz, a moderate conservative, presented calculations demonstrating a yearly profit of three-quarters of a million Swedish kronor should the city take over the Northern tramway company.24 Herlitz’s statement was refuted by councillor Sellberg, who anticipated that the extension of tramway lines would cost the municipality dearly. In Sellberg’s book, equal access to public transport was anything but good business: If the city takes control over business, there will be claims for new lines both here and there, and these lines will obviously be unprofitable.25 There were also council members who argued for a cautionary approach, with reference to the current economic situation: why not let the private company take the economic risk for the electrification of the northern tramways, postponing the municipal takeover until a later date? The municipality would then be able to benefit from the hard-won experience of the private operator.26 The principle of economic prudence was supported by chairman Carl Erik Ekegren, who insisted that a municipal takeover – although strongly favoured by public opinion – was financially impossible. Ekegren wanted to proceed with negotiations with the company over a new concession, and this strategy eventually won support from the majority vote.27 The Stockholm city council around 1900 was by no means a democratic assembly. The councillors represented themselves rather than political parties. They consisted of businessmen, bureaucrats, academics and professionals of various kinds. In spite of this, they managed to raise issues of social inclusion and equal access in a manner that heralded the partisan conflicts of the following decades. A contributing factor might be the rising importance of public opinion. Those who advocated for municipal control of the tramways frequently referred to demands expressed in newspapers or in public meetings. The liberal teacher Emil Hammarlund boldly stated that the tramway system was for the general public and that public opinion would not accept further concessions to the private company.28 Their adversaries instead cited public opinion as a negative force that threatened to block rational decisions. Knut Wallenberg, while arguing that a prolonged concession would be beneficial for the municipality as well as the tramway company, conceded that the public would never accept this solution.29 There was

110  Mats Hallenberg also pressure from various local associations who demanded that their district must be connected to the tramway system as soon as possible. The communal association of Adolf Fredrik’s parish petitioned the municipality for more frequent services, cheaper morning fares and extra seats in the trams. The petition also stated that the city must take full responsibility for the tramway system as soon as possible.30 There was a clear element of negotiation in the Stockholm tramway debate, where various local interest groups tried to pressure the politicians for better communications and ultimately for full recognition of their urban citizenship. A few of the Stockholm councillors were indeed social democrats and had openly campaigned for public administration of the tramways. However, they did not yet form an organized party group. This was a marked difference from their peers in the Kristiania council around the same time. The Stockholm councillors did refer to international role models when stating their points, but the lessons learned from tramway operations in other European cities did not take precedence in the discussions. Chairman Ekegren recognized that electrification of the whole tramway system was absolutely necessary for relieving citizens of the notion ‘that the city of Stockholm [. . .] will lag behind communities of far less importance’. In fact, the prime example wielded by proponents as well as critics of municipal enterprise came from Gothenburg, where the city had run a municipal tramway operation since 1899.31 The Stockholm debate in 1902–1903 ended in a temporary compromise. The private company was allowed to implement electric power and continue operating the tramway lines, but the city council refused to extend the concession period. Bank manager Knut Wallenberg was deeply disappointed by the result, accusing his opponents of ‘etatism and communism’ and claiming that he had been consistently slandered in his role as a public servant.32 The decisive conflict over municipalization was postponed until the summer of 1915. By this time, democratic reforms had been implemented and the conflict over municipal control versus private enterprise was modelled along the existing party lines. Social democrats and, to a large degree, liberals argued that the city must finally take over the tramway system. The conservative right, who controlled the majority, appeared divided on the issue. In the end, the city council agreed to form a new company, AB Sockholms Spårvägar, where the city would hold 50% of the shares. The new tramway company was transformed into a fully municipal operation in 1920 when the Stockholm city council decided to buy up the shares still controlled by private holders.33 The debates held by the Stockholm city council over the organization of tramway services thus gave rise to articulated notions of social inclusion, equal access, modernity and rational planning. However, these were countered by conservative ideas about financial prudence and the superior effectiveness of private enterprise. The Stockholm city council was clearly divided on how to realize the vision of the welfare city. In spite of this juxtaposition, councillors’ opinions

A tale of two tramways 111

Map 6.1 Private enterprise prevailing: a map of Stockholm illustrating the tramway lines of the Northern company after electrification in 1904. All company operations were eventually taken over by the newly formed public company Stockholms Spårvägar in 1917. Photo: Stockholm Transport Museum.

112  Mats Hallenberg eventually converged to agree that the municipality must have full control over the tramway system. However, financial precautions and contractual obligations meant that this objective took almost 20 years to realize. As we shall see, the process of municipalization in Kristiania was an even more prolonged affair. The tramway debate in Kristiania: in the name of the greater publicum Tramways were introduced in Kristiania in 1875 when Kristiania Sporveisselskab (KSS) began operating three lines with horse-drawn trams. A municipal concession was originally granted for 30 years, to expire in 1905. The decades preceding the turn of the century were years of exceptional population growth: in 30 years, the population of the Norwegian capital more than tripled, from c. 75,000 residents in 1870 to 250,000 in 1900. This dramatic development prompted further investments in mass transport. In 1890, the city council granted a new company, Kristiania Elektriske Sporvei (KES) a concession for constructing and operating an electric tramway in 1892 (the first in Scandinavia). The KES started operations on two new lines covering the western part of the city in 1894, and the municipal concession was granted for 30 years (until 1924).34 The last years of the nineteenth century witnessed further expansions of the tramway network. After a failed bid to take over the KSS, the Kristiania city council decided to start a municipal tramway operation connecting the northern working-class suburbs Sagene and Rodeløkken with the city centre. This positive approach to municipal operations was a direct result of a changing political landscape, where the liberal Venstre party assumed a leading role in local politics following the elections in 1894. However, the municipal tramway soon ran into difficulties and the company records registered huge deficits during its first years of operation. Meanwhile, the KSS and the KES were both granted concessions for opening new tramway lines. The KSS started electrifying their lines and also took over the operation of the municipal tramways in 1901. Kristiania now had an extended tramway system with private operators that connected the central parts of the city with the suburbs to the west, north and east. The two private companies’ position vis-à-vis the municipality thus appeared stronger in the beginning of the 1900s than it had been some years before.35 In 1905, the original concession of the KSS company was set to expire, and the company duly applied for a prolongation of the contract. The local elections had produced a conservative majority in the city council (organized by the Høyre party) with a more sympathetic view of private enterprise. The municipal tramway committee decided to support the claim for an extended concession to the private company, but its members were divided on the issue. The matter was first discussed by the magistrate and then in ‘the first council chamber’ (No.

A tale of two tramways 113 formandskabet) before a proposal was finally presented to the full city council.36 The document included 12 points, of which the most important were the following: • The private KSS company would be granted a new concession, lasting until May 1924 (the same end date as the concession of the rival KES company). • The company would purchase the municipal tramway lines and put them under joint administration with the KSS tramway system, for a fee of 1,650,000 NOK. • The KSS would take over the permanent staff of the municipal tramways, as well as their pension insurance. • During the concession period, Kristiania municipality would receive a yearly compensation from the company amounting to 8% of the gross passenger revenue. The original committee proposal from October 1904, signed by Mayor E Christie and director Johan Steen, acknowledged that the original ambition of the city council had been to gain full control over the tramway system. However, the poor economic results of the municipal tramways had prompted a reassessment of this policy. The majority now considered private management to be more effective than municipal operation, which might be restricted by political considerations. The proposed contract would guarantee the municipality a net share of company revenue at no risk. Thus, a prolonged concession to the private company was deemed the best solution, for municipal finances as well as for the greater public.37 The proposal of the tramway committee signalled a change of policy: the best way to guarantee the future expansion of the welfare city would be to promote the private operation of the tramway system. The city and the company would then have a joint interest in providing better services while still keeping dividends high. However, this position was challenged by the third member of the committee, the engineer and head teacher Gustav Sinding. Sinding insisted that the city council must exercise its right to take control over the KSS and ultimately the whole tramway system. He refuted the claim that the proposed contract would offer the municipality a reasonable share of company profits. Sinding specifically targeted the pension funds provided by the KSS, which he found insufficient. The future welfare of tramway officials and workers thus became a matter for the local politicians to consider.38 The committee proposal – supported by a majority of the formandskab – was presented to the full city council on 13 April 1905. The ensuing debate would last for more than ten hours and provide ample opportunity for members from all political factions to make their point. In the following section, the main lines of argument will be explored. Chairman Johan Skougaard cited official letters from both the liberal Venstre and the Social Democratic Party, claiming that the city council must refuse to grant the KSS a new concession and instead promote

114  Mats Hallenberg the municipal operation of the whole tramway system. The social democrats declared this the best solution ‘for the benefit of the municipality and for the citizens as well’. However, the chairman himself, a member of the conservative party, supported the majority proposal. Skougaard argued that the current state of affairs called for economic prudence and that a prolonged concession would guarantee the municipality full advantage of tramway dividends.39 This standpoint was immediately challenged by Christian Holtermann Knudsen, a socialist activist and editor of the leading newspaper Socialdemokraten. Knudsen argued that the tramway concession legitimized a de facto monopoly, where the private company would reap all benefits at the expense of the welfare of the citizens. The social democratic spokesman insisted that the contract agreement would be detrimental to the municipality, which would miss out on future revenue by allowing the private company to continue operations. Knudsen stated that all economic considerations must be future-oriented and that financial expertise supported the fact that a municipal operation would prove more profitable in the long run. Knudsen’s main argument was of an economic nature, but he also addressed concerns for the public organization of urban space and for the workers’ pension funds. In the social democratic vision of the welfare city, the welfare of the tramway employees took precedence over profit margins.40 The conservative majority of the city council expressed an altogether more negative point of view regarding municipal enterprise. Indeed, they argued that the financial failure of the municipal tramway demonstrated a general deficiency in municipal management. Bank manager Jens Andersen Aars expressed this in a most eloquent way when he argued that the contract with the private company would be of greatest advantage to the municipality: In my opinion, the municipality qua principal of the tramways will be in an unfortunate and precarious position: unfortunate, because the municipal administration definitely is a cumbersome administration [. . .]; precarious, while there will be a general pressure from the publicum, for example concerning the ticket fares.41 Andersen Aars clearly feared that a municipal tramway administration would soon fall prey to external interest groups, such as travellers demanding lower prices or employees rallying for better pay. His arguments were followed up by the merchant politician Johan Steen, who was even more critical of public management. Steen denounced the economic results of all the large municipal operations: the gas works, the electricity company and the sanitation company. In his book, they all but illustrated the shortcomings of public management: I argue that the best and largest initiative is not to be found by a man on a fixed salary, with a rising fee and a fully secure pension. A society with too many public employees will inevitably eat itself.42

A tale of two tramways 115 The Kristiania Høyre firmly denounced the welfare dimension of the tramways, arguing against subsidized tickets and social security programmes for transport employees. The argumentation was similar to their conservative peers on the Stockholm city council but was maintained with much more consequence. Johan Steen’s conclusion was frankly ‘competition helps’: private management was superior to public operations and the city council must therefore vote in favour of the proposed concession. This pro-private management line was also supported by the prominent liberal Johan Throne Holst.43 While economic considerations dominated the debate, the opposition related this problem to the social welfare of tramway employees. Liberals and social democrats warned that the rigorous policy of the private company would force the city to bear the brunt of the cost of poverty relief to support the dismissed tramway workers. From this perspective, the pursuit of private profit would, in the end, disrupt municipal finances.44 The minority, fronted by the social democrats, made their case for the efficiency of public administration. Olov Kringen, an active internationalist and newspaper editor, refuted the idea that the contract with the private company would ensure fair competition. From his perspective, the tramways constituted a natural monopoly and any concession to the KSS would mean a loss for the municipal treasury. Kringen contested the idea that a municipal operation would be too lenient towards the tramway personnel and the greater public: We from the minority stress that it must be considered an advantage to be sympathetic to the publicum [. . .]; For who is the publicum? That is the Kristiania municipality. And the tramways must indeed be there for the publicum, for the sake of Kristiania commune and not the other way round.45 Kringen thus made himself a spokesman for the whole urban community while arguing for a municipal takeover. However, this programme for social inclusion was expressed in general terms, targeting all inhabitants of the Norwegian capital rather than specific social groups. Similar views on urban citizenship were expressed by the leading social democrat Carl Jeppesen and by the goldsmith Anton Frisch. Jeppesen argued that while the tramway constitutes a monopoly, a private company could never provide the citizens with superior public goods the way a municipal operation could. The reason for this was simple, according to Jeppesen. The private company was bent on making a profit, and less concern for the public must therefore result in inferior services.46 The arguments of the social democratic members seem to conform with the ideology of municipal socialism: the tramway system was both a vital public service and a monopoly and was therefore to be placed under municipal control. However, this dedicated faith in public administration was mainly expressed in economic terms. While the expected profit from buying off the KSS company was specified in detail, the social benefits were not. Indeed, references to the social question were instead made – in passing – by conservative members of the

116

Mats Hallenberg

Map 6.2 A city with three tramway companies: map of the Kristiania tramway lines from 1901. The KES operated services in the more affluent western parts of the Norwegian capital, while the municipally owned KKS offered modern communications to the suburbs in the northeast. The KSS, whose tramway lines covered the southwest as well as the east, took over all facilities from the municipal company in 1905. Oslo Museum map collection. Photographer: Lars Roede.

council. Mayor Christie declared himself confident that the ‘so-called social concern’ would be fully addressed by the terms stipulated in the company concession. The medical professor Axel Holst cautioned the council members that a municipal operation that promised higher salaries for tramway personnel would hardly benefit the greater public. Such policies would result in higher ticket fares for the travelling public, as demonstrated by the track record of German tramways.47 Historian Knut Kjeldstadli has stressed the political polarization of the Kristiania city council at the beginning of the new century. While the 1890s had been dominated by the liberal Venstre party, the following decades were characterized by sharp conflict between conservatives and social democrats.48 This was all too evident in the tramway debate, where the liberals generally sided with the socialist faction. Gustav Sinding supported the claim for a municipal takeover of the KSS company but strove to offer an alternative position. As a long-term member

A tale of two tramways 117 of the tramway committee, Sinding argued for a short-term agreement, allowing the KSS to continue operations until 1909. The concession of the KES electric tramway was set to expire in that same year, and this would place the Kristiania council in a stronger position vis-à-vis both private companies. The prospect for a joint municipal operation of the tramway system within four years would then appear much brighter.49 Sinding’s counter-proposal was quickly accepted by the social democrats but firmly rejected by the conservative majority. The divide between supporters and opponents of municipal tramways had temporal as well as geographic dimensions. The conservative members of the Kristiania council insisted that the current state of the tramways must be assessed by examining company accounts from the preceding years.50 Socialists argued the opposite: they expected the tramways to prosper in the near future due to the expansion of the capital city. This future-oriented approach, reminiscent of the pro-public administration discourse in Stockholm, was articulated by Helmer Husebye, who boldly stated that ‘most people’ would prefer a municipal tramway system. Therefore, the council members must recognize the rich opportunities for future development: When we look further ahead, we should believe in Kristiania’s future and that the revenue from the tramways will be multiplied. The operating costs will remain roughly the same, or even decrease when the tramway companies are merged. [. . .] The more people who travel by the tramway, the more money the municipality will receive.51 Kristiania’s city councillors were all eager to take inspiration from international role models, but they had conflicting ideas about where to look. The proposal for a prolonged concession included an overview of tramways in Germany, the supposed homeland of municipal socialism.52 Conservative member Johan Steen confidently declared that the documentation of German tramways proved that there was ‘larger profit and lesser expense’ with a private operator.53 He was supported by Edmund Harbitz, a lawyer and the co-editor of Morgenbladet, who refuted claims from the minority that there was a clear trend favouring municipal tramways. On the contrary, according to Harbitz, evidence from Germany suggested that tramway operations were mostly run by private companies. Harbitz argued that this was only natural: it was a well-known fact that a municipal operation could never be as profitable as a private enterprise.54 The social democratic opposition turned instead to England for evidence of the efficiency of municipal operations. The architect Hans Jacob Sparre accused the majority of being so scared of the socialist programme that they failed to recognize the evidence of practical politics. Sparre cited the British Municipal Year Book from 1904 to verify his claim that progress resulted in larger organizations under public control all over the world.55 Social democrat Olov Kringen vividly related the proceedings of the so-called municipal parliament in London, where

118  Mats Hallenberg chairmen and bureaucrats from 294 cities had gathered to express their resolve to promote municipal administration.56 The politicians in Kristiania were bent on following the best examples of other cities, but they could not seem to agree on where to look first. References to public opinion are not common in the Kristiania debate, but when they do appear, they seem to have mostly negative connotations. Director Johan Steen complained that ‘whenever you try to promote change, you will learn from the press that you’re acting in your own interest’. Fellow conservative Harbitz accused the opposition parties of ‘rallying meetings around the city, provoking agitation, pretending to be some kind of supreme municipal authority’.57 These remarks seem to echo the bitter resentment Knut Wallenberg expressed towards the social democratic press in Stockholm. Rather than negotiating citizenship through public opinion, the conservatives in both cities clung to the ideal of political autonomy. From their perspective, the elected representatives had received their mandate from the people and needed to stand firm against all forms of undue influence. After a lengthy discussion, the conservative majority finally had their way: with 47 votes against 37, the Kristiania city council approved the new concession of the KSS company. The private company would take over the municipal tramway and continue its operation. The opposition tried to appeal to the national authorities to intervene and nullify the council’s decision. The attempt was ultimately unsuccessful. The liberal state was not willing to intervene in the internal conflicts of the emerging welfare cities. The decision of Kristiania’s city council was ratified, and the tramway system in the Norwegian capital would be run by two competing business companies until a public company, Kristiania Sporveier, was finally formed in 1924.58 The political discourse of the Kristiania city council had changed character since the heyday of the liberal Venstre in the 1890s. Economic arguments now carried the most weight, and the organization of transport services was primarily discussed from a financial perspective. This seems to bolster Robert Millward’s argument that municipal socialism had more to do with economic expectations than political ideology. Does this mean that Kristiania was becoming less of a welfare city and more of a hotbed for the advancement of private capital? I think not. The expansion of urban services had permeated the political landscape and the city council would continue to debate issues of social inclusion and urban integration in the following years.59 However, the poor experience from previous municipal operations had strengthened the conservative welfare regime: one where business concerns and financial prudence came first, while still acknowledging the need for extended transport services. The tramway system had the potential to break down old barriers and promote urban inter-connectedness, offering mobility and urban citizenship to new groups. However, in Kristiania, as in Stockholm, municipal planning for the future had to be moderated and condoned by private interest.

A tale of two tramways 119 Conclusion: two tramways – two discourses on public service? This analysis of the debates in Stockholm and Christiania regarding the municipal administration of tramways demonstrates interesting similarities as well as notable discrepancies between them. The future development of transport services had fundamental relevance in both city councils, and the discussions soon turned into a hotbed of political conflict. In Stockholm in 1902, this political antagonism was not expressed according to party politics, but rather from personal standpoints. The pro-municipal politicians, many of whom would later form the backbone of the liberal and social democratic factions, primarily distinguished themselves by highlighting the social dimension of the tramway system. Better housing, affordable transport and the inter-connectedness of the city – they all formed part of the argument for a municipal takeover. Their conservative opponents referred instead to economic prudence and business sensibility as the main reasons to support private operations. However, quite a few of the conservatives did recognize the social implications of such a position and stressed the need to negotiate lower prices and better services with the company directors. While there was a clear element of negotiating urban citizenship in the Stockholm debate, this was less evident in the case of Kristiania. In the Norwegian capital, local suffrage was already a political fact in 1905, and the council debate was neatly structured along the party lines of liberals, social democrats and the conservative majority. The polarization of the two factions (with the liberals mostly supporting the socialists) was expressed in economic rather than social terms. The conservative members referred to the dismal financial state of the municipal tramway lines in Kristiania and argued that a contract with the private company would benefit the municipality much more than costly investments to impose a municipal takeover. The social democratic minority insisted that public management of the tramways was the financially superior alternative for the future, but this turned out to be a lost cause. Interestingly, the financial and organizational virtues of private management took strong precedence in the Kristiania debate. The Norwegian conservatives openly attacked the municipal city administration for inefficiency and inertia, thereby hampering political reform. The conservatives in Stockholm, who also made up the majority in the council, did praise the superior business sensibility of private management, but they did not venture to criticize their peers leading the municipal bureaucracy. While the Stockholm debate resulted in a prolonged standstill, the conservatives in Kristiania won a decisive victory in 1905. The conservative welfare regime in Kristiania did recognize the need for better transport services for all citizens, but this objective had to be subject to business logic. In Stockholm, the social question was articulated with reference to specific groups: factory workers, the less affluent, suburban dwellers and even women and children. The politicians in Kristiania instead invoked the notion of the general publicum or ‘the public interest’. This might be explained by the

120  Mats Hallenberg organization of the council, where the competing political parties were eager to demonstrate their concern for all citizens regardless of status. The matter of social inclusion in the Norwegian capital was instead expressed in detailed arguments about the status of tramway employees. While the social democrats argued that the company staff must have the same rights as municipal servants, the conservatives insisted that the private company would provide better services by keeping wages and pensions to a minimum. Meanwhile, the ideological programme of municipal socialism was translated into economic terms. The social democratic faction in the Kristiania city council presented economic reports to demonstrate that municipal operation would generate a substantial amount of revenue for the municipal treasury. From their point of view, a concession to the private company would result in future deficits for the municipality. Municipal management would secure the status of the tramway system both as a financial resource and as a model employer, in accordance with the contemporary ideal of municipalization.60 The temporal dimension of the conflict was evident in both assemblies, but it was expressed in different ways. In Stockholm, politicians from both camps were generally willing to promote the construction of a modern transport system that would serve the citizens of tomorrow. They framed their objectives in a similar way, even though they differed regarding the preferred means. Their peers in Kristiania, on the other hand, seem to have harboured diverging notions of the scope of political decision-making. The pro-municipal faction was adamant that Kristiania would prosper and expand in the future. Therefore, the tramway decision must be based on the expected flourishing of municipal affairs. Their conservative opponents refuted this line of thinking, maintaining that the hard facts of company accounts must take precedence over optimistic forecasts for the future. The impact of international role models was omnipresent in the Kristiania debate, more so than in Stockholm. Somewhat surprisingly, the conservatives in Kristiania referred to Germany – the supposed homeland of municipal socialism – whilst trying to demonstrate the dismal performance of public administration. They presented facts and figures to claim that most German tramways were still in private control and that private companies displayed superior economic performance compared with municipal operations. Socialists and liberals instead turned to England to gain support for the qualitative as well as quantitative advantages of municipal tramways. Thus, the political polarization of the Kristiania council had geographical as well as temporal connotations. While the Stockholm debate explicitly framed the tramway system as an urban welfare service – a fundamental instrument for rational planning, social inclusion and material prosperity – this dimension was less conspicuous in the Kristiana discussions. A premature conclusion might be that the social question held greater importance in Stockholm, but that was hardly the case. Kristiania was a pioneer in addressing the social dimensions of modern urban transport,

A tale of two tramways 121 having established municipal tramway lines already in the 1890s. Compared with the radical Venstre politics of that period, the 1905 city council appeared to be trapped in a deadlock between the right-wing majority and the socialist bloc. The institutionalized bargaining that prevailed did not leave much room for marginalized groups on the urban periphery. It seems that the welfare dimension of public transport gained stronger momentum in the Stockholm council, where party politics did not yet dominate political discourse. The Stockholm debate bore clear marks of negotiating urban citizenship through the voice of public opinion, a perspective much less conspicuous in Kristiania. I would argue that the split between conservatives and liberals/socialists in Kristiania might be understood as a difference in degree rather than a difference of kind. For the social democrats in particular, the tramway system was a prime mover for social and economic progress: a trailblazer for urban, infrastructural citizenship. Their right-wing opponents partly recognized this line of reasoning, although they preferred to consider the expansion of the tramways as a desired by-product of sound business management rather than of municipal planning. Taken together, the tramway debates of these two Nordic capitals demonstrate that while the vision of the welfare city was generally embraced by politicians from different backgrounds, there was no teleological path leading up to the desired goal. Rather, there were competing visions of the welfare city, just as there were different notions of the welfare state. Perhaps we need to recognize the diverging urban welfare regimes in order to better understand the elusive historical trajectory of the welfare city. Notes 1 100 år. Sporveje i København 1863–1963 (København: Københavns sporveje, 1963). Kåre Fasting, Sporveier i Oslo gjennom 100 år. 1875–1975 (Oslo: A/S Oslo Sporveier, 1975). Sten Holmberg, Spårvägen i Stockholm. En minnesbok (Stockholm: Stockholms spårvägar, 1960). Timo Herranen, Från Hästomnibussar till metro: Hundra år av kollektivtrafik i Helsingfors (Helsingfors: Helsingfors stads trafikverk, 1980). 2 John P. McKay, Tramways and Trolleys: The Rise of Urban Mass Transport in Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976). Marjatta Hietala, Services and Urbanization at the Turn of the Century (Helsinki: SHS, 1987), 248–58. 3 Carlos López Galviz, Cities, Railways, Modernities: London, Paris, and the Nineteenth Century (London: Routledge, 2019), 187–89. Barbara Schmucki, “The Machine in the City: Public Appropriation of the Tramway in Britain and Germany, 1870–1915,” Journal of Urban History (2012): 1060–93. Mikkel Thelle, København 1900: Rådhuspladsen som laboratorium for den moderne bys offentlige rum 1880–1914 (Copenhagen: Københavns Universitet, 2013), 128–35. Simon Gunn, “Heterodoxies: New Approaches to Power and Agency in the Modern City,” in New Approaches to Governance and Rule in Urban Europe Since 1500, ed. Simon Gunn and Tom Hulme (New York: Routledge, 2020), 259–63. 4 Simon Gunn et al., “Cities Infrastructure and the Making of Modern Citizenship: The View from North-west Europe since c. 1870,” Urban History (2022): 1–19. Hietala

122  Mats Hallenberg states that tramway systems experienced the greatest growth of all infrastructural services 1890–1910; Services and Urbanization, 187. 5 Thelle, København 1900, 107–10. Mats Hallenberg, Kampen om det allmänna bästa. Konflikter om privat och offentlig drift i Stockholms stad under 400 år (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2018), 133–36. 6 Hietala, Services and Urbanization, 155–78. Søren Kolstrup, Velfærdsstatens rødder: Fra kommunesocialisme til folkepension (Copenhagen: SFAH, 1996), 55–67. Patrizia Dogliani, “European Municipalism in the first Half of the Twentieth Century: The Socialist Network,” Contemporary European History 11, no. 4 (2002). Miguel Salanova, “Providing the Modern City: Urban Patterns of Socialist municipal Action in Madrid (1905–1936),” Journal of Urban History (2022): 1–28. 7 Robert Millward, Private and Public Enterprise in Europe: Energy, Telecommunications and Transport, 1830–1990 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008 [2005]). Hossein Sheiban, Den ekonomiska staden: stadsplanering i Stockholm under senare hälften av 1800-talet (Lund: Arkiv, 2002), 163–211. Mats Deland, The Social City: Middle-way Approaches to Housing and Sub-urban Governmentality in Southern Stockholm, 1900–1945 (Stockholm: Stockholm University, 2001). Hietala, Services and Urbanization, 351–95. 8 For the concept critical junctures, see Giovanni Cipoccia and R. David Kelemen, “The Study of Critical Junctures: Theory, Narrative, and Counterfactuals in Historical Institutionalism,” World Politics 59, no. 3 (2007): 341–69. 9 Minutes and documents from the city council in Stockholm are published in Stockholms stadsfullmäktiges handlingar (SSFH), 1902–1903. The Kristiania sources are printed in Aktstykker vedkommende Kristiania Kommune, vol. 1–3, 1905. 10 Ylva Waldemarson and Kjell Östberg, Kjell, “Att styra en stad,” in Thomas Hall and Lars Nilsson (red.), Staden på vattnet. Del 2, 1850–2002 (Stockholm: Stockholmia, 2002), 107–28. Sheiban, Den ekonomiska staden, 88–119 & 173–183. Lars Nilsson and Håkan Forsell, 150 år av självstyrelse: kommuner och landsting i förändring (Stockholm: Sveriges kommuner och landsting, 2013), 95–143. 11 Waldemarson and Östberg, “Att styra en stad,” 113–18. 12 Sivert Langholm and Jan Eivind Myhre (red.), Oslo bys historie Bd 3 Hovedstaden Christiania: fra 1814 til 1900 (Oslo: Cappelen, 1990), 462–78. Oslo byhistorie: htpps://oslobyleksikon.no/side/Bystyre. 13 Knut Kjeldstadli, Oslo bys historie Bd 4 Den delte byen: fra 1900 til 1948 (Oslo: Cappelen, 1990), 50–53. Knud Kjeldstadli and Jan Eivend Myhre, Oslo – spenningenes by: Oslohistorie (Oslo: Pax, 1995), 110–20 & 193–99. 14 Hallenberg, Kampen om det allmänna bästa, 133–36. 15 Westermark’s proposition from 1 February 1900, printed in SSF, Beredningsutskottets utlåtanden och memorial (BU) 1902: 31. 16 Hallenberg, Kampen om det allmänna bästa, 142–44. 17 SSFH minutes, November 26, 1902, Y470–71. 18 Westermark’s proposition, SSF BU 1902:31; SSFH minutes, November 26, 1902, Y524 (de Champs) & Y526 (Herlitz). 19 SSFH minutes, November 26, 1902, Y486. 20 Hallenberg, Kampen om det allmänna bästa, 144–56. 21 “Dessa billighetsbiljetter torde komma att användas af mer eller mindre snyggt klädda personer af båda könen, af skolbarn och af arbetarehustrur [. . .] som kunde utnyttja de billiga turerna för att resa in till stadens torg och köpa varor”. SSFH minutes, March 16, 1903, Y168. 22 SSFH minutes, November 26, 1902, Y492–4; see also Charles de Champs statement, Y510–2.

A tale of two tramways 123 23 “och skulle vi fortsätta på samma sätt, skulle snart intet fält lemnas qvar för industrien. Kommunen skulle då komma att bestå af tjenstemän och pensionärer, och den enskilda industrien skulle drifvas på flykten.” SSFH minutes, November 26, 1902, Y483. 24 SSFH minutes, November 26, 1902, Y498–500. 25 SSFH minutes, November 26, 1902, Y503. 26 SSFH minutes, November 26, 1902, Y492–4 (Gustaf Dyrssen). 27 SSFH minutes, November 26, 1902, Y484–5. 28 SSFH minutes, November 26, 1902, Y480. 29 SSFH minutes, November 26, 1902, Y483. 30 The petition cited in the statement from the preparatory committee, SSFH 1902:56, November 13, 1902, 10. 31 SSFH minutes, November 26, 1902, Y505 (Ekegren); Y524 (de Champs); Y526 (Herlitz). 32 SSFH minutes, March 16, 1902, Y158–9. 33 Jan Östlund, Reglering av kollektivtrafik: striden på 1910-talet om tillkomsten av AB Stockholms spårvägar (Umeå: Umeå & Uppsala University, 1995); Hallenberg, Kampen om det allmänna bästa, 156–63. 34 The KES concession also reserved the right for the municipality to take over operations after 15 years (in 1909), as long as the company shareholders were duly compensated. Fasting, Sporveier i Oslo, 9–24 & 41–55. 35 Fasting, Sporveier i Oslo, 55–59. 36 Kristiania, Aktstykker, Bystyrets saker, 1905:20. 37 Kristiania, Aktstykker, 1905:20, 1–14. 38 Ibid., 15–26. Sinding was a member of the formandskab 1902–1904, https://nbl.snl. no/Gustav_Sinding. 39 Kristiania, Aktstykker, 1905, vol. 3 referater, 117–18 and 128 (the Venstre letter). On chairman Skousgaard: https://snl.no/Johan_Kristian_Skougaard. 40 Kristiania, Aktstykker, 1905, vol. 3 referater, 118–23. Christian Knudsen would play a prominent role for the social democrats in the city council, right up to party split in 1918, when he joined the radical faction: https://nbl.snl.no/Christian_Holtermann_Knudsen. 41 Kristiania, Aktstykker, 1905, vol. 3 referater, 124. Jens Andersen Aars was the director of The Central Bank of Norway, https://snl.no/Aars_-_slekt. 42 Kristiania, Aktstykker, 1905, vol. 3 referater, 134. Johan Steen was a conservative politician, a leader of both the local and the national merchant organizations in Kristiania/Norway: https://nbl.snl.no/Johan_Steen. 43 Kristiania, Aktstykker, 1905, vol. 3 referater, 152; https://snl.no/Johan_Throne_Holst. 44 Kristiania, Aktstykker, 1905, vol. 3 referater, 129 (G. A. Sinding), 190 (C. H. Knudsen), 193–94 (Sørli, Frisch, Jeppesen). 45 Kristiania, Aktstykker, 1905, vol. 3 referater, 142, https://nbl.snl.no/Olav_Kringen. 46 Kristiania, Aktstykker, 1905, vol. 3 referater, 164 (Jeppesen), 171–72 (Frisch) and 180 (Dines Jensen). 47 Kristiania, Aktstykker, 1905, vol. 3 referater, 141 (Christie), 183 (A. Holst). 48 Kjeldstadli, Oslo – spenningenes by, 193–99. 49 Kristiania, Aktstykker, 1905, vol. 3 referater, 131–33; https://nbl.snl.no/ Gustav_Sinding. 50 For example, Kristiania, Aktstykker, 1905, vol. 3 referater, 124–25 (Andersen Aars). 51 Kristiania, Aktstykker, 1905, vol. 3 referater, 139. 52 Ibid., 38–40. 53 Ibid., 137. 54 Ibid., 157 and 161.

124  Mats Hallenberg 55 Ibid., 167–68; https://snl.no/Hans_Jacob_Sparre. 56 Kristiania, Aktstykker, 1905, vol. 3 referater, 181–82. 57 Ibid., 134 (Steen), 157–58 (Harbitz). 58 Fasting, Sporveier i Oslo, 66–68 and 91–92. 59 For example, discussions on strikes, ticket prizes and changing between operators, Aktstykker, Bystyrets saker & Referater, 1917/18:145, 1918/19:35 and 323, 1919/20:253. 60 Timothy Moss has demonstrated how this ideal permeated infrastructure policies in Berlin during the Weimar republic: Moss, Remaking Berlin: A History of the City through Infrastructure (Cambridge, MA and London, England: The MIT Press, 2020), 52–55.

7 The rise of the negotiated welfare city after the Civil War Inclusion, welfare and reconciliation Kati Katajisto At the end of January 1918, the Reds declared a coup d’état and seized the capital of Finland. A full-blown Civil War broke out. The Reds and the Whites were divided along class lines: the Whites were the proprietary class, including peasants, and the Reds were the non-proprietary class, including workers and crofters. In a few months’ time, White troops ‘liberated’ the country, as they called it, although the capital was rescued by German troops invited by the White’s government. Over 36,000 people died in the Finnish Civil War, which corresponded to about 1.2% of the whole population.1 The newly independent state was a divided and utterly shaken nation. Tens of thousands of Reds were in prison camps, acute problems of poverty and hunger were widespread and reactionary Whites contested the political system of Finland. Instead of a republic, they wanted to have a strong monarchical system, even though Finland had been declared a republic in the declaration of independence in December 1917.2 Dreams of a democratic turn and a more equal society seemed shattered. However, as staggering as it seems, Finland’s first municipal elections based on universal and equal suffrage were held already in December 1918. Finland remained a republic, and the features of the welfare city were expedited because of war, as well as both internal and transnational democratic forces and pressures – which will be addressed more in detail in the following. I will argue in this chapter that the rise of the welfare city after the Finnish Civil War was intertwined with and inextricable from the democratization process. The welfare city was pivotal for the democratization process, and a prerequisite for reconciliation after the Civil War. Municipal democracy enhanced the welfare of the citizens; this may seem obvious, but it is important to note that the process was neither easy nor uncomplicated. In this chapter, I will tackle the questions of the welfare city on an empirical level: how was it pursued and negotiated in the municipal council, and what were the actual prerequisites, conditions and pitfalls? Furthermore, I will show how welfare was entangled in complex ways not only in the case of social welfare but also in questions of the city’s built environment and its infrastructure and more profoundly in questions of inclusion and equality. Discussions and disputes in the council indicate clearly that welfare must be DOI: 10.4324/9781003379232-7

126  Kati Katajisto understood broadly: it is not just a question of material welfare, although that is an essential aspect.3 In essence, it is a question of a similar phenomenon as that which the economist and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has emphasized in his studies of food crises; namely that the availability of food or income does not solely explain causes of famines. The way society functions, its practices and experiences of entitlements as well as the capacity of both groups and individuals to exert influence, are equally decisive matters. Therefore, material circumstances cannot be separated from immaterial aspects of how societies work and operate, as reflected in particular society’s legal rights. According to Sen, other pertinent factors like ‘market forces can be seen as operating through a system of legal relations (ownership rights, contractual obligations, legal exchanges, etc.)’.4 In other words, besides material welfare, autonomy and inclusion both impact how well societies manage to solve their problems and crises. Thus, democracy, with its procedures and institutions, provides excellent tools for handling complicated questions of inclusion, autonomy and justice. Sen’s view is reinforced also by self-determination theory (SDT). Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci have emphasized the importance of competence, relatedness and autonomy as people’s basic needs in SDT – which can be seen as correspondingly crucial elements behind the claims of communal democracy. Unlike Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, SDT does not separate basic needs, such as food, clothing and shelter, from the other basic needs mentioned earlier, and it describes well the deepest motives behind communal suffrage.5 Workers did not demand only basic subsistence and welfare but also inclusion in society as equal human beings. They wanted the competence to take part in decision-making, a relationship with the environment and community and they had a desire for autonomy. Urban municipal democracy – from designated welfare to negotiated welfare Before the democratic reform, communal suffrage was based on the ability to pay taxes in a twofold way. Only those who paid communal taxes had a right to vote, and those who paid more taxes had more votes. The maximum number of votes was 25, which in Helsinki required an income of 10,000 marks. The minimum amount, one vote, required an income of 800 marks. This meant that a major part of the working class lacked suffrage. The law also decreed that individuals who were not allowed to control their property (i.e. married women) and individuals under patronage were not allowed to vote. Interpretations of what constituted individuals under patronage varied and municipal tax authorities had leeway to define to whom the liability to pay tax extended, which made suffrage rights seem vague and unfair. In addition, the voting system, which was a majoritarian party-list system, ensured that the power in the city council remained in

The rise of the negotiated welfare city after the Civil War 127 the hands of the bourgeoisie. The Social Democrats had in protest refused to participate in municipal elections since 1905 in Helsinki.6 The disparity of political rights became even more blatant from 1906 onwards when universal and equal suffrage was accepted in parliamentary elections. Plutocratic communal governance was not equal or fair from the workers’ point of view. The ruling elite of Helsinki’s city council did not necessarily even understand how harsh the living conditions for the working class really were. Separate spheres of urban living had materialized in the concrete structure of the city, with working-class districts distinguished from those of the bourgeoisie and workers from each other, as well as other daily realities. Rapidly growing Helsinki had expanded beyond the city planning area, and even beyond the city borders.7 In 1916, the Workers’ Association of Helsinki criticized the ‘criminal negligence of the plutocratic communal governance’ that ‘has led to a situation in which acquisition of firewood and foodstuff was threatened’; they also blamed rent extortion, which had exacerbated the housing shortage, on city officials.8 In the newspaper Työmies, which was the official organ of the Social Democratic Party, the following demand was issued on November 1917: ‘Time to eliminate oppressive communal power. One cannot tolerate any longer plutocratic councillors, who protect speculators who make money on workers’ hunger and who in order to chastise hungry workers organize butcher guards’.9 Municipal suffrage had been one of the most pressing questions ahead of the Civil War. There were two main reasons for that: (1) the question of inclusion and (2) the inextricable link between inclusion and the question of welfare and, ultimately, survival. It had been humiliating for the working class to be treated like minors on matters that concerned their daily subsistence. Poverty laws obliged towns to assist only the disabled, the sick, the elderly and minors – that is groups of people who could not work – but the reality had been different. Unemployment and poverty had not disappeared by denying their existence.10 In practice, municipal authorities in Helsinki had acknowledged that there was poverty, for example, because of unemployment. The city’s pauper board had also assisted people without a formal legal right to aid. Nearly one-fourth of the assistance had gone to these kinds of people in 1907.11 Wretched circumstances as the February Revolution plunged forward would have been easier to manage at the local level if democratic communal reform had been accepted earlier. Rising numbers of unemployed workers and the termination of grain deliveries from Russia highlighted the importance of municipal authorities’ ability to solve acute local issues, especially in the cities. The welfare state was negligible, and citizens’ basic subsistence in times of crises depended on municipal governance. Relief works for the unemployed, food deliveries to ease food shortages and poverty care were organized at the municipal level, but since the control of local governance was in the hands of bourgeoisie (i.e. the Whites) in Helsinki, mistrust and suspicion were only amplified. The bourgeoisie in turn were leery of and concerned by the unrest and illegalities that had

128  Kati Katajisto emerged since the February Revolution. After the collapse of Russian authority, the power vacuum made the situation highly unstable and chaotic.12 The Parliament of Finland accepted universal and equal municipal suffrage, albeit under pressure, in November 1917. The socialists had warned of serious consequences unless reform was accepted, the fear of an outbreak of Civil War had been palpable. As a result, a years-long dispute over communal law reform was resolved according to the Social Democrats’ demands.13 The bourgeoisie had been willing to accept, reluctantly, communal suffrage already earlier: the Parliament had agreed on communal reform in 1908, which would have guaranteed universal suffrage in terms of changes in economic matters were restricted efficiently, but Russians had obstructed the reform.14 After the reform, the ability to pay tax was no longer a precondition of suffrage, and women and men had equal voting rights. From the point of view of the bourgeoisie, it was a highly radical reform. The main issue was not women’s rights or equal suffrage per se, but the fact that the non-propertied class could seize economic power in councils.15 However, when communal democratic suffrage was finally decreed in November 1917, the situation had become aggravated, and Finnish society was already in such a state that even the promise of democratic municipal elections in January 1918 could not prevent the outbreak of a Civil War.16 Therefore, the success of the municipal democracy reform was not astounding as such; rather, it was the fact that it was implemented for the first time so soon after the tragic Civil War. The Reds had lost the war, but soon afterwards, the non-proprietary class were allowed to participate in municipal governance, even though there was a risk they might outnumber the bourgeoisie in cities. After the Civil War, the situation was even worse overall: a slight majority of the people who received assistance did not have a right to poverty aid according to the law.17 In addition, all forms of aid remained mainly in the hands of councillors and city officials.18 Workers criticized the aid as insufficient and argued that the forms of aid were humiliating and repressive.19 Therefore, municipal suffrage was an essential improvement because it enabled discussions and negotiations of workers’ living conditions and the common principles of city governance. Previously, aid and all of the city council’s decisions concerning workers’ lives in the city had been dictated to them, which had accentuated discontent, mistrust and frustration, in the sense of Amartya Sen, during the tumultuous year of 1917. Furthermore, municipal suffrage was a particularly vital element from the perspective of the reconciliation process after the Civil War. At last, workers and their representatives had a voice. They were entitled to express their views; they were able to tell their first-hand experiences and suggest improvements as equals in municipal councils. They were no longer treated as targets of municipal decisions. Workers, and women as well, were empowered to be agents who had political control over their lives according to democratic principles – which did not guarantee welfare automatically but granted the legitimacy to pursue it.

The rise of the negotiated welfare city after the Civil War 129 Communal politics as a site of political contestation for inclusion, welfare and reconciliation In the case of Finland, it is clear that the realization of municipal democracy was a key factor to advance and ensure the well-ordered function of society. Finnish researchers have long acknowledged the importance of democratic municipal reform. There has, however, been a lack of empirical studies exploring how municipal democracy worked in practice. As this study demonstrates, it is vital to explore the practical consequences of the reform and the ways in which it helped to stabilize the political situation in Finland after the Civil War. It was crucial that the losing side was being acknowledged as a legitimate political force; indeed, the Social Democratic party was able to rise from the ashes back to political life via local elections, which took place prior to the parliamentary elections. This was manifested especially in the capital. Nearly all the new leaders of the Social Democratic Party were elected to the municipal council of Helsinki. Among them was Väinö Tanner, the former senator and member of the Parliament, who became chair of the SDP (1918–1926). Another former senator and member of the Parliament, Matti Paasivuori, was chosen to be chair of the Finnish Trade Union Federation (1918–1920), and Miina Sillanpää, a former member of the Parliament, was chosen as the director of the Servants’ Association and, later, the first female minister in Finland. They had all been neutral during the Civil War and had neither accepted nor condoned the coup.20 The Social Democrats gained a total of 26 seats out of the 60 seats on the council. The bourgeois side was subdivided into three parties. The Swedish Party had 22 seats, the National Coalition Party had eight seats, and the National Progress Party had four seats. Elections were held on 27 and 28 December 1918, and the first session of the council was convened a few weeks later in January 1919.21 The legitimate right to participate in municipal decision processes was nevertheless just the first step – although it was pivotal by enabling entry into and inclusion in local politics. After the working-class representatives had entered the municipal council, a real struggle over power and influence began. The bourgeois side had the upper hand in many respects aside from the fact that they had a majority of the seats. They had a superior socio-economic position, and they had previous experience and knowledge of how to govern a city of over 185,000 inhabitants.22 It was not enough that socialists managed to get their representatives in the council; it was also vital they gained seats on the various boards and commissions of the city, for those were essential instruments for governing Helsinki. The municipal council had delegated some of its prerogatives to the boards, which represented experts and professionals of different branches, such as technical or educational experts, or social care professionals. The election of the members of boards and commissions was among the first lessons that the socialists learned about their power and influence in the municipal council. Members were to be elected by proportional representation

130  Kati Katajisto according to municipal law. However, the bourgeois councillors decided that one should first elect the chair of each board, which would secure their own sway. The socialists protested, and the chair of the council agreed to order a vote; however, the socialists could not overrule the decision, because the bourgeois side had the majority.23 Accordingly, the chair of the council and vice-chair were both bourgeois councillors. The chair, Alexander Frey (Swedish Party), and vice-chair, Karl Alfred Paloheimo (Coalition Party), were also entitled members of the Preparatory Committee, which prepared all the decisions for the council. The socialists would have wanted to elect all members of the Preparatory Committee according to proportional representation, but the bourgeois majority decided to uphold the earlier custom, whereby chairs were included without deliberation.24 The controversy surrounding the election of the members of boards and the Preparatory Committee reveals that, aside from having a quantitative majority of the seats, the bourgeois councillors’ firm experience of communal governance, better educational background and their confidence in their ability to interpret the law gave them a more advantageous position to dominate on the council. The power to expound laws and rules was generally an essential factor when rivalling parties competed over decisions. In addition, the bourgeois side also knew how to slow down decision-making processes by demanding expert opinions or by appealing to the council’s regulations or other laws.25 Municipal officials who executed decisions were also mainly bourgeois. Councillors were not able to formulate decisions down to the details, which created leeway to manipulate the rulings of the council. Socialist councillors were well aware of this, and, therefore, they did not demand basic subsistence or welfare for the destitute alone, but also practices to carry out care for the poor and other social measures that would not humiliate their receivers. How decisions were made and how they were executed were highly important questions for socialists.26 Besides material welfare, questions of equality, autonomy and justice were at stake in ways similar to those emphasized by Amartya Sen. It should be pointed out that the councillors of the Socialist Worker’s Party of Finland espoused ambitions similar to those of the Social Democrats in the council. The party was founded in December 1919 by leftist radicals, who were left in the minority at the party convention of the Social Democratic Party. The programme of the Socialist Worker’s Party was based on communist principles; in practice, however, they tried to improve workers’ living conditions through municipal politics. In other words, they adapted to the system although they claimed that class struggle was inevitable and reconciliation between the classes impossible.27 The socialists’ main demand was to guarantee daily subsistence, and preferably employment, to all workers in need, but they also demanded equality and justice in other aspects of living as well. They required green parks, for example, as well as playgrounds for children and similar kinds of sporting facilities and

The rise of the negotiated welfare city after the Civil War 131 infrastructural services that the bourgeoisie had in their residential districts.28 Municipal councils offered a forum in which representatives of the working class had a legitimate right to ask for equal treatment and services, which was tremendously important, especially after the Civil War. Socialists were able to disclose the grievances workers faced, and they had a chance to criticize bourgeois councillors’ arguments and conclusions. On the council, opposite parties also had a rare opportunity to debate contradictory and sensitive questions regarding the practical repercussions of the Civil War and its commemoration. Discussions and negotiations on the council also served as a learning process for workers’ representatives (as demonstrated in the following). Therefore, even though the bourgeois parties were in an advantageous position when it came to governing the city, the municipal council was a crucially important forum in which to pursue inclusion and equality. It was critical that local and potentially explosive controversial issues were handled in an institution that both parties acknowledged as legal and in which disputes were dealt with in a regulated way. Rules, laws and established procedures defined the limits of the council’s work and ensured that disagreements did not escalate over certain boundaries – and both parties had to accept the limitations of the judicial framework.29 This included the novel aspect that bourgeois male councillors had to accept being put under surveillance, as in questions of prohibition or firms’ work safety. Previously, the council’s supervision was directed principally towards the working class.30 Nevertheless, the struggle in the council was at times hard and on the verge of legality. The most contested question was the financing of the White Civil Guard – which, interestingly, was not a question of material welfare but social equality. The bourgeois side saw the White Guard as an essential guarantee of peace and security after the Civil War. As far as the socialists were concerned, the White Guards were proof of an oppressive class system. The White Guards were already compromised due to violent post-war incidents, and its position as a half-military, half-official institution that assisted the police did not generate trust. In addition, the White Guards were associated with the coup d’état aspiring right-wing partisans.31 Dispute over financing the White Guard of Helsinki

Socialist councillors strongly condemned financing the White Guard. They argued that it was wrong to use taxpayers’ money on an organization for the wealthy classes, while thousands of workers and their children lived in utter poverty. Bourgeois councillors, in turn, justified the financing of the White Guard by underlining their duty to guarantee peace and security in society. They reminded the rest of the council about the events of 1917 when the Reds rampaged through the city and used violence towards the city council in an attempt to force councillors to make the demanded resolutions.32

132  Kati Katajisto Strikingly, after the Civil War, bourgeois councillors had allocated only 200,000 marks to the White Guard in the budget, which can be ascribed to the councillors’ economic and thrifty mentality. Bourgeois councillors had expected that the state would pay the bulk of the capital’s security expenses, as governmental institutions, the Parliament and the Government were situated in Helsinki. Anyhow, a newly independent state, which was struggling after the Civil War’s destruction and disarray, could not afford to grant sufficient allowances to the White Guard. Support for the White Guard of Helsinki was mostly symbolic, with only 8,000 marks.33 If the bourgeois councillors had raised the amount provided in the budget to the White Guard already in December 1918, while they still dominated the council, there would not have been any difficulties the next year. Previous years’ budget allowances had been decided according to simple majority rule, but an increase in spending required a two-thirds qualified majority – which bourgeois parties lacked later on. The Chamber of Finance, which had a mandate to control the city’s finances and manage its properties and assets, itself proposed 1.2 million marks to the White Guard without any clarification, even though the previous year’s allowance had only been 200,000 marks and other expenses had been extracted from the operating expenses of the city council.34 The Social Democrats, of course, noticed this blatant attempt to raise the allowance and opposed it. The controversy sparked a long discussion in the city council. All bourgeois councillors, even the moderate ones, supported the Chamber of Finance’s proposition. They claimed that every single person who preferred to live in a society based on the rule of law and order should endorse the White Guard. The most prominent councillor of the Social Democratic Party, the lawyer Väinö Tanner, pointed out that there were two distinct ways to achieve peace in society: either one could resort to arms or one could achieve it by making reforms. He preferred reforms, rather than arming the White Guard. As a lawyer by training, he also pointed out that the decision would require a two-thirds majority. Arthur Söderholm, a councillor from the Swedish Party, bank manager and lawyer, also said that the decision would require a two-thirds majority. Some other bourgeois councillors agreed in principle, although they simultaneously deemed the White Guard all-important for society.35 Confusion over procedure placed the chair of the council in an awkward situation. Initially, the chair had figured the decision should be made only by voting on the proposal of the Chamber of Finance. To resolve the situation, the councillor of the Swedish Party, Carl Arne Öhman, also a lawyer and bank manager, suggested that the council should first vote on the proposal, and if it did not receive two-thirds support, the council should vote on the allowance of 200,000 marks, which only required a simple majority. The chair changed his mind and came to the conclusion that the council should vote on whether the Chamber of Finance’s proposal required a simple majority or a two-thirds majority. The socialist councillors objected and claimed that councillors should not vote on the interpretation of communal law. Nevertheless, the vote took place, and the result

The rise of the negotiated welfare city after the Civil War 133 was favourable to the socialists. Most of the councillors (46) voted to require a two-thirds majority, and only nine bourgeois councillors found a simple majority sufficient.36 Most bourgeois councillors respected proper procedure – it was obvious that the decision required a two-thirds majority. After voting on the procedure, the council voted on the question itself. All the socialists were against the allowance, and all the bourgeois councillors were in favour. A majority of the votes supported the proposal, but it did not receive the necessary two-thirds majority; thus, the 1.2-million-mark allowance was dismissed.37 The bourgeois councillors were able to allocate only 200,000 marks for the White Guard.38 Nevertheless, the White Guard renewed its petition and pleaded anew for an allowance of one million marks. This time, the Chamber of Finance proposed that the allowance be paid from the operating expenses of the city council.39 The ploy was that decisions concerning the use of operating expenses only required a simple majority. The astonished socialists decided to thwart allowance by boycotting the council.40 The rules of the city council stipulated that at least two-thirds of the councillors were present when decisions were made.41 The socialists managed to postpone the decision, but they could not afford to hold up the running of the council. The renewed petition was handled soon after. The socialists argued the decision required a two-thirds majority, and since the allowance had already been declined earlier, it was clearly an attempt to circumvent the law and the council’s previous rulings. This time, the chair of the council decided that a simple majority was enough. He ordered a vote, regardless of whether he was right or whether the decision should have been made by a two-thirds majority. The chair’s view won: the socialists objected and started to boycott the council again, but the outcome was unexpected and surprising. After the discussion, the chair proclaimed that no one had supported the rejection of the proposal, and therefore there was no need to make a vote. The White Guard received its one million marks.42 The minutes of the council do not explain how this was possible, but a description of the unexpected events is contained within the pages of the Social Democratic newspaper. The socialists had agreed that Väinö Mikkola, a member of the Social Democratic Party, would oppose the proposal, and a member of the radical left party, the Socialist Worker’s Party of Finland, which had been founded at the end of 1919, would support the rejection, as stipulated by the rules of the council. Mikkola had opposed as agreed, but the member of the Socialist Worker’s Party had delegated his duty to another councillor of his party. Unaccustomed to the habits and routines of the council, the poor man did not manage to support the opposing proposal in time, which had offered the chair the opportunity to close the decision without a vote.43 The founding of the Socialist Worker’s Party had made the political atmosphere extremely tense. Members of the party were deemed communists in bourgeois newspapers.44 The Socialist Worker’s Party even managed to take control of the municipal association of the Social Democratic Party of Helsinki.45 It seems that

134  Kati Katajisto the strained situation pushed even moderate bourgeois members to join rightwing councillors in granting the allowance to the White Guard by circumventing the law, although technically adhering to the rules. After the controversial decision, the work of the council continued as usual. It was vital for both parties, and consequently for all citizens, that the council was able to function. In the next meeting, the council made over 50 decisions within two hours, as the reporter of the Swedish Party’s newspaper observed.46 Nevertheless, the fight was not over. J. O. Aarnio, from the Socialist Worker’s Party, and Mikkola appealed to the governor to revoke the decision. They claimed that according to municipal laws, the council could not grant the White Guard funding, because the statutes decreed that the tax assets of the city could only be used for the municipality’s common causes, and White Guard was not a common cause. In addition, the council had not made the decision in accordance with law, since, according to the attached testimony, at least 23 councillors were absent.47 The governor demanded an explanation and suspended the execution of the decision. Bourgeois councillors explained that the White Guard existed to protect lawful order and every citizen’s legal rights. Because the threat of a coup d’état existed, it was the duty of the council to support the White Guard in its effort to guarantee security in Helsinki. They claimed that the decision was made in accordance with the law and correct procedure and denied the value of the testimony of the 23 absent councillors. The official minutes of the council indicated that there were enough councillors present to make the decision legally; if someone would have wanted to contest this, they should have had asked for a vote at the time the decision was made.48 The governor decided to reject the appeal by emphasizing the explanations the bourgeois councillors had presented.49 Aarnio and Mikkola appealed next to the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland.50 The Supreme Administrative Court proclaimed, after an investigation, that the verdict of the governor was correct. According to the court ruling, the minutes of the council were authoritative proof that none of the councillors had requested that their departure be recorded. Thus, there was no conclusive evidence that the meeting had not been quorate.51 The bourgeois side won the case, but with highly arguable justifications. Technically, the law had not been broken, but allocating funds to the White Guard from the council’s operating expenses was clearly a way to circumvent regulations. However, the case was not a total defeat for socialists; quite the contrary. First, they managed to thwart the execution of the decision by year; most importantly, however, they ensured that similar kinds of circumventions of the rules would not succeed in the future. It was a one-time trick. The socialists had learned their lesson, and so had the bourgeois side. When the question came up again, the bourgeois councillors did not even try to get a larger amount for the White Guard. They settled on the 200,000 marks that had been prescribed in the council’s previous budgets.52 The bourgeois side acknowledged the new reality: they could no longer impose decisions.

The rise of the negotiated welfare city after the Civil War 135 Laws, interdependence and reciprocity

The significance of the fight over the allowance to the White Guard can hardly be overestimated. The case represents essential aspects of how communal governance changed after the democratic turn. The White Guard’s allowance was a crucial question for both socialist and bourgeois councillors. All bourgeois councillors, even the moderates, supported the White Guard as guarantors of peace and security. By contrast, the socialists saw the White Guards, along with amnesty, as the two most critical questions that prevented reconciliation and caused antagonism after the Civil War.53 Amnesty towards the Reds belonged entirely to the jurisdiction of the Parliament. Financing the White Guard, on the other hand, was under the purview of the council, and the bourgeois councillors had to adapt to the new circumstances in which the laws and rules did not enable them to get the results they wanted, even if questions were regarded as crucial. The mighty bourgeoisie of the capital had to give in, despite all of their power and their social, financial and judicial resources. For the socialists and the defeated Reds, it was a powerful demonstration that democracy worked, even if democracy was not perfect – as it never seems to be. The socialists emphasized laws and legal procedures with regard to the White Guard’s allowance, to which the bourgeois side paid attention.54 It was a clear indication that the socialists conformed to the bureaucratic, judicial and often very slow procedures of municipal decision-making, which often favoured the goals of the bourgeois parties. The socialists had to accept that changes were most often incremental by nature; the key issue, however, was that they were not powerless. They had power and influence within the limits of laws and rules. The bourgeois side, on the other hand, was on the defensive when socialists drew on the law to appeal their rulings, because the rule of law had previously been their prime argument.55 The whole foundation of bourgeois legitimacy would have collapsed if laws and rules had been ignored. First, they had fought against illegal rulings by Tsarist Russia, and, following independence, they had defeated the Red’s illegal attempt to accomplish a coup d’état. Significantly, neither the socialist nor the bourgeois councillors denied the validity of the rule of law, even if their fight over the proper interpretation of laws and decrees was occasionally extremely heated. Attempts to test the limits of the law or attempts to circumvent the law by technically lawful means were made, but in the end, proper ruling and judicial procedures and their outcomes were accepted, as in the case of the White Guard’s allowance. Besides, the reliance on judicial procedures also curbed ineffectual and useless disputes. For example, councillors did not want to start a new debate after they were informed that the socialists had made an appeal to the governor.56 The question was no longer in the hands of the councillors; hence, there was no point in continuing to argue about it. Interestingly, both bourgeois and socialist newspapers also kept quiet.57 Both sides clearly understood communal governance as an inherently reciprocal

136  Kati Katajisto process, and therefore it was in neither side’s interest to overheat controversial issues. Reciprocity was inscribed in council’s rules and in the municipal laws. As stated earlier, the rules of the council required the presence of at least two-thirds of the councillors, which meant the socialist and bourgeois parties were both able to obstruct decision-making entirely. Consequently, reciprocity required both parties to participate in decision-making and to respect each other’s legitimate requirements. The legitimacy of demands and claims was tested in debates, and, if needed, in higher administrative or legal instances – although the latter were extremely rare. In addition, reciprocity became particularly apparent in economic decisions, which required a two-thirds qualified majority. Financial questions required reciprocal co-operation from both parties. For example, raising the wages of the municipal officials depended on gaining the socialists’ approval. Inflation had lowered officials’ salaries, but the socialists were not willing to allow pay raises unless the wages of the communal workers were also increased. The socialists’ tactic was to grant pay raises for officials for only a few months, which kept this powerful tool in their hands.58 Thus, the councillors debated and argued repeatedly on recurring themes, such as the municipal salaries of both workers and officials, as well as relief works and their organization. However, only a few questions offered socialists the parity of power through the requirement of a two-thirds qualified majority. Reciprocity was still a substantial tool in questions where councillors could not rely on stipulated reciprocity. Councillors could plead equality and fairness. If the city financed some benefits for bourgeois citizens, the socialists could legitimately ask for the same or at least similar kinds of benefits for workers. For example, the workers’ swimming club demanded and were allowed to run a similar kind of sporting facility as the bourgeois club enjoyed. A Social Democrat councillor complained that the electric lightning services were not good enough in the workers’ residential district, which bourgeois councillors admitted was true, and reassured the socialists that the situation would be corrected in the next year’s budget. The bourgeois side accepted this kind of reciprocal reasoning in principle and followed it, but within the limits of the financial restraints of the city.59 In fact, communal democracy was intrinsically a question of infrastructural citizenship. The welfare city was pointedly a matter of infrastructural services for all inhabitants provided by the city, such as schools, hospitals, sewerage, heating and cooking provisions and affordable transport facilities. The interdependence/reciprocity and equality/fairness of decisions were constantly weighed in the council’s debates. And as could be expected, the socialists quickly learned to use similar kinds of tactics as the bourgeois councillors to reach their goals, such as the use of judicial and statistical arguments, referring to precedent decisions and citing financial or nationwide political reasons.60 Council work was a learning process not only for the socialists but also for the bourgeoisie. This study has demonstrated that the council as a forum generated

The rise of the negotiated welfare city after the Civil War 137 a learning culture in which all parties learned inclusive ways to handle controversial issues. The interdependence and reciprocity of the council work forced rivalling parties into cooperation, which was a crucial step towards reconciliation after the Civil War. As a matter of fact, the city council of Helsinki, as well as other councils around the country, were unique places in which representatives across Civil War lines were able to express their points of view, discuss questions of inclusion and equality and provide counterarguments.61 Furthermore, they were able to seek common solutions, compromises and decisions that both parties found acceptable, or at least bearable. Otherwise, most spheres of life in Finland were rigidly separated along the lines of the Civil War: there even existed distinct recreational and sports clubs for socialists and the bourgeoisie. Apart from the fact that councils were important institutionalized forums in which controversial issues were discussed and settled, councils were also by nature institutions that generated common interests. For example, all councillors on the Helsinki city council had common financial interests in other cities and state authorities. Councillors could also find common interests across political lines in areas of their interests and professional expertise. The bourgeois councillors’ traditional belief in expertise and professionalism in communal governance created room for rational and pragmatic argumentation, and not all questions were seen through the lens of bourgeois/socialist division. As a rule, councillors were more willing to allocate taxpayers’ money when it had to do with subjects in which they considered themselves experts or in which they were professionally involved. Therefore, women more readily found common ground with socialists because women were experts when it came to domestic issues, children and widows, as well as in matters of general social care and schooling. Even so, financial expertise was most often, in terms of the city’s financial limitations, valued on the highest in the council.62 Besides common and intersectional interests, it is worth pointing out that a major part of the decisions taken by the councillors in Helsinki were uncontroversial everyday questions that did not evoke division into two blocs according to Civil War lines, or intraparty schisms or disputes. Helsinki had a relatively large population; it was still a rapidly growing and modernizing city, and the trade, industries, infrastructure and services for its citizens required constant maintenance and improvements, which was often accomplished only by the rulings of the city council. A steady flow of council decisions guaranteed the daily running of the city and fulfilled the needs of citizens as well as businesses.63 The Finnish road to the negotiated welfare city Municipal democratization reform in Finland was complex and markedly impacted by transnational forces such as warfare, politics, economic changes and processes intertwined in modernization. Unforeseen occurrences and upheavals

138  Kati Katajisto initially opened the way for radical parliamentary reform. Russian efforts to constrict Finland’s autonomy at the end of the nineteenth century created favourable circumstances that would lead to universal suffrage for all men as well as women. Everyone was needed to form a strong united front against Russian oppression.64 Next, the sudden Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 revealed Russia’s weakness and enabled Parliamentary reform and universal suffrage, although Russia succeeded in thwarting municipal reforms until the austere conditions of World War I led to the October Revolution. Yet the turmoil within Finland escalated into the Civil War, wherein the Reds were totally defeated; however, only the first democratic communal elections were organized around the country six months later.65 It is remarkable that radical democratic municipal suffrage came about after the tragic Civil War, although the reform was sealed by the eventual turn of World War I. However, the reform had deeply embedded roots in Finnish society, which, in combination with external developments, explains its acceptance. Institutionally solid municipal structures, traditional confidence in the rule of law and self-­ governance on the local level, which had endured and even become stronger during Finland’s decades under Russian rule, paved the way. In addition, ­Finland’s social structure was relatively egalitarian, as it was still predominantly an agrarian society where the myth of peasant freedom was embraced. The myth rested on a real foundation, in the sense that peasants had had political rights already during the society of the estates. In Finland’s homogeneous agrarian society, the myth was a powerful democratizing mental conception. This was especially the case after the Civil War because Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil M ­ annerheim had conquered the country with the help of the White peasant army. The compelling idea of peasant freedom was further enhanced after the Civil War by the liberation of crofters, which transformed the rural poor into landowners.66 It is conspicuous that, despite the agrarian structure of Finnish society and its being an autonomous part of the Russian empire, communal governance in Finland had followed the Western European, and particularly Swedish, ideas and models so closely. Even during the autonomous period, Finland followed in Sweden’s tracks. The municipal reforms of 1865, in the countryside, and 1873, in the towns, were made according to liberal ideas, inspired especially by the Swedish model.67 Moreover, the modifications to municipal law demanded by the bourgeoisie after the Civil War were justified by arguing that they were being made according to the bill that the government of Sweden had recently filed with the Parliament.68 Nevertheless, political turmoil hurled Finland back to the more radical track of democratization. Germany’s defeat in World War I ruined the monarchists’ dreams of having Friedrich Karl as king of Finland. The Entente powers required democratic parliamentary elections, as well as the departure of German troops, or else they would not recognize Finland’s independence. Finns were eager to orientate towards the Entente powers: they were seen as the guarantors of Finland’s

The rise of the negotiated welfare city after the Civil War 139 independence because Civil War was still ongoing in Russia. Therefore, the government of Finland decided to arrange nationwide democratic municipal elections in January 1919, according to the radical municipal laws of 1917, although the rule requiring a two-thirds qualified majority for economic decisions was approved slightly later.69 In addition to judicial and administrative developments, the modernization of urban life followed Swedish and European patterns in other aspects as well, especially with regard to infrastructural services. It is generally agreed that infrastructural services such as tramway systems, as well as gas, water and electricity utilities, were the major elements in the urbanization process during the last half of the nineteenth century.70 Helsinki especially had observed and tried keenly to absorb the best practices of other European cities. Helsinki’s municipal officials made a total of 154 study tours to Sweden in the period 1870–1917, 124 of which were made to Stockholm. Germany and Denmark were also popular study destinations, chiefly the capitals of Berlin and Copenhagen. Visits to Germany totalled 148 and to Denmark 93. European capitals, mainly from the Scandinavian countries and Germany, were clearly the reference point for the municipal officials in Helsinki. Remarkably, only eight visits were made to Russia, with six of them to St. Petersburg, even though Finland was part of the Russian empire at the time.71 Furthermore, ideals for governing cities were strikingly similar in Germany, Finland and other Nordic cities, as well as in Western Europe: they all strove for rationality, efficiency, professionalism, fiscal prudence and an entrepreneurial spirit.72 The capital of Finland urbanized and modernized along similar lines as other European capitals, which not only is a remarkable indication of the power of the city networks and innovation transfers but also underlines the resilience and power of cities under extreme circumstances. The oppressive Russian measures, shifting global power relations, dire circumstances of World War I, Russian revolutions and the Finnish Civil War did not derail municipal democratization and urban modernization. And, vice versa: although universal municipal suffrage was a radical reform, in the light of previous decades, it was a continuation of the earlier trends towards democratization and modernization processes that had taken place in Scandinavia and in Western Europe. Within the shifting power constellation of Europe, Finland ended up being at the forefront of democratization, which turned out to be a great advantage, especially after the tragic Civil War. Communal democracy duly offered a new and far more inclusive venue to handle crucial problems of welfare, equality and reconciliation than former systems of plutocratic municipal governance. Conclusion This chapter has demonstrated that welfare was not only a question of social welfare, but it was also entangled in questions of the city’s built environment, its

140  Kati Katajisto infrastructure and, more profoundly, in questions of inclusion and equality. As a forum, the city council generated a learning culture in which all parties learned inclusive ways to handle controversial issues. Interdependence and reciprocity, anchored in the municipal laws, forced rival parties into cooperation, which was crucial for reconciliation and for the welfare of the citizens. The municipal council was a forum in which more or less controversial local questions were handled in a legitimate and regulated environment. Reconstruction and reconciliation after the Civil War would have been difficult, even inconceivable, if there would not have been an institution that both parties of the divided nation acknowledged as legitimate and in which both parties had a legitimate voice. Municipal democracy enabled debate over the issues that had escalated and aggravated the turmoil in Finnish society, especially in cities, after the Russian revolutions in 1917. Previous studies have recognized the importance of democratic municipal reform for Finland’s capacity to move forward after the tragic events of the Civil War. This study has delved deeper by taking a closer look at how municipal democracy actually worked, based on an empirical study of the minutes of the city council. This analysis has demonstrated how questions of inclusion, welfare and equity were discussed in a safe environment in which councillors were able to contest each other’s arguments, facts and values. One essential feature was that rules and laws set the limits of council work. Both sides had to acknowledge that their power and influence were curtailed according to democratic principles and legal frameworks. Municipal laws and rules ensured cooperation and compelled the opposing sides to reciprocity. Prior to municipal suffrage, the majority of citizens had been at best targets of municipal decision-making; however, after the democratic turn, the welfare of citizens became a question of negotiated outcomes. A dictated welfare city turned into a negotiated welfare city. Notes 1 Tepora Tuomas and Aapo Roselius, eds., The Finnish Civil War 1918: History, Memory, legacy (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2014); Rasila Viljo, Kansalaissodan sosiaalinen tausta (Helsinki: Tammi, 1968). 2 Vesa Vares, “Demokratian haasteet 1907–1917,” in Kansanvalta koetuksella, ed. Vesa Vares, Mikko Uola, and Mikko Majander (Helsinki: Edita, 2006), 107; Vesa Vares, Konservatiivi ja murrosvuodet: Lauri Ingman ja hänen poliittinen toimintansa vuoteen 1922 (Helsinki: Suomen Historiallinen Seura, 1993), 320, 375, 379. 3 Kati Katajisto, Sodasta sovintoon (Otava: Helsinki, 2018). 4 Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 154–62, 165–66; Samu Nyström, Poikkeusajan kaupunkielämäkerta: Helsinki ja helsinkiläiset maailmansodassa 1914–1918 (­Helsinki: Helsingin yliopisto, 2013), 16–17. 5 Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci, Self-Determination Theory, Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development and Wellness (New York and London: The Guilford Press, 2017), 8.

The rise of the negotiated welfare city after the Civil War 141 6 Jussi Kuusanmäki, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston historia 1875–1918 (Helsinki: Helsingin kaupunki, 1987), 30–32, 297–98. 7 Katajisto, Sodasta sovintoon, 12–22; Ranja Hautamäki and Silja Laine, “Suuria suuntaviivoja’ – Puistovyöhykkeet Helsingin 1910-luvun kaupunkisuunnitelmissa,” in Humanistinen kaupunkitutkimus, ed. Tanja Vahtikari, Terhi Ainiala, Aura Kivilaakso, Pia Olsson, and Panu Savolainen (Tampere: Vastapaino, 2021), 332; Kuusanmäki, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston historia 1875–1918, 15–16, 39. 8 Tero Tuomisto 1984, Tienraivaajan osa (Helsinki: Helsingin työväenyhdistys, 1984), 248. 9 The National Library of Finland, Työmies, January 1, 1917. 10 Panu Pulma, “Vaivaisten valtakunta,” in Armeliaisuus, yhteisöapu ja sosiaaliturva (Helsinki: Sosiaaliturvan keskusliitto, 1994), 62. 11 Helsinki City Archives, Helsingin kaupungin kunnalliskertomus 1907, Vaivaishoitohallitus 12, https://www.hel.fi/static/tieke/digitoidut_asiakirjat/helsingin_kunnalliskertomukset/1907_01.html (borrowed February 24, 2024). 12 Katajisto, Sodasta sovintoon, 12–22. 13 Anthony Upton, Vallankumous Suomessa 1917–1918, part I (Helsinki: Kirjayhtymä, 1980), 297–98; Hannu Soikkanen, Kunnallinen itsehallinto kansanvallan perusta: maalaiskuntien itsehallinnon perusta (Helsinki: Maalaiskuntien Liiton Kirjapaino, 1966), 488. 14 Soikkanen, Kunnallinen itsehallinto kansanvallan perusta, 448–52; Jussi Kuusanmäki, “Kunnallisen kansanvallan kehitys ja kunnallishallinnon organisaatio 1875– 1917,” in Suomen kaupunkilaitoksen historia 2: 1870-luvulta autonomian ajan loppuun ed. Päiviö Tommila and Eino Jutikkala (Helsinki: Suomen Kaupunkiliitto, 1983), 73. 15 Yrjö Harvia, Marraskuun 27 päivänä 1917 annetun Kaupunkien kunnallislain arvostelua: Suomen kaupunkiliiton hallituksen toimesta kirjoittanut Yrjö Harvia (Helsinki: Suomen Kunnallisen Keskustoimiston julkaisuja, 1918), 88–90. 16 Katajisto, Sodasta sovintoon, 12–22. 17 Helsinki City Archives, “Helsingin kaupungin kunnalliskertomus 1919,” 269–70, https://www.hel.fi/static/tieke/digitoidut_asiakirjat/helsingin_kunnalliskertomukset/ 1919_01.html (borrowed November 1, 2022). 18 Pulma, “Vaivaisten valtakunta,” 62. 19 Katajisto, Sodasta sovintoon, 255–57. 20 Ibid., 10–11. 21 Ibid., 99. 22 Suomen tilastollinen vuosikirja, “uusi sarja, kahdeksastoista vuosikerta 1920,” Helsinki 1921, https://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/69235/stv_1919. pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y (borrowed November 15, 2022), 10. 23 Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 28.1.1919, § 4, mf. Kvsto ca:59–ca:60 v.1919. 24 Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 16.1.1919, § 3, mf. Kvsto ca:59–ca:60 v.1919. 25 Katajisto, Sodasta sovintoon, 263. 26 Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 26.3.1919, § 1, mf. Kvsto ca:59–ca:60 v.1919; Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 21.5.1918, liite § 18, mf. Kvsto ca:56–ca:57 v. 1917–1918. 27 Ilkka Hakalehto, Suomen kommunistinen puolue ja sen vaikutus poliittiseen ja ammatilliseen työväenliikkeeseen 1918–1928 (Helsinki: WSOY, 1966), 154–60; Katajisto, Sodasta sovintoon. 28 Katajisto, Sodasta sovintoon, 154, 219–20.

142  Kati Katajisto 29 Ibid., 265–66. 30 Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 5.5.1920, § 4 & liite, mf. Kvsto ca:62–ca:64 v.1919–1920; The National Library of Finland, Suomen Sosialidemokraatti 7.5.1920. 31 Marko Tikka, Valkoisen hämärän maa (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2006), 85. 32 Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 12.11.1919, § 33, mf. Kvsto ca:61–ca:62 v.1919. 33 Helsinki City Archives, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston painetut esityslistat 1918, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston kokous 10.12.1918, N:o 47; Helsinki City Archives, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston painetut esityslistat 1919, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston kokous 26.11.1919, N:o 1. 34 Helsinki City Archives, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston painetut esityslistat 1918, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston kokous 10.12.1918, N:o 47; Helsinki City Archives, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston painetut esityslistat 1919, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston kokous 26.11.1919, N:o 1. 35 Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 26.11.1919, § 1, mf. Kvsto ca:61–ca:62 v.1919. 36 Ibid. 37 Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 26.11.1919, § 1 & liite, mf. Kvsto ca:61–ca:62 v.1919. 38 Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 30.12.1919, § 1, mf. Kvsto ca:62–ca:64 v.1919–1920. 39 Helsinki City Archives, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston painetut esityslistat 1918, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston kokous 18.2.1920, N:o 23. 40 Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 18.2.1920, § 23, mf. Kvsto ca:62–ca:64 v.1919–1920. 41 Helsinki City Archives, Helsingin kaupungin kunnallinen asetuskokoelma 1914, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston työjärjestys, § 6. 42 Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 17.3.1920, § 2, mf. Kvsto ca:62–ca:64 v.1919–1920. 43 The National Library of Finland, Suomen Sosialidemokraatti 18.3.1920 & Suomen Sosialidemokraatti 7.4.1920. 44 The National Library of Finland, Uusi Suomi 24.2.1920. 45 Hakalehto, Suomen kommunistinen puolue ja sen vaikutus poliittiseen ja ammatilliseen työväenliikkeeseen 1918–1928, 154–58; Arvo Tuominen, Sirpin ja vasaran tie: Muistelmia (Helsinki: Tammi, 1956), 129. 46 The National Library of Finland, Hufvudstadsbladet 1.4.1920. 47 Helsinki City Archives, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston painetut esityslistat 1920, kaupunginvaltuuston kokous 19.5.1920, N:o 14. 48 Ibid. 49 Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 8.12.1920, § 9, mf. Kvsto ca:64–ca:65 v.1919–1920; Helsinki City Archives, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston painetut esityslistat 1920, kaupunginvaltuuston kokous 8.12.1920, N:o 9. 50 The National Archives of Finland, korkein hallinto-oikeus, Aa:3 valitus- ja anomusdiaarit, Aarnion ym. valitus korkeimmalle hallinto-oikeudelle 9.12.1920. 51 The National Archives of Finland, korkein hallinto-oikeus, taltio 237, diari 1894/47– 20, Da:26 päätöstaltiot 1921, Päätöstaltio 9.12.1921 Aarnio J.O. & Mikkola V. 52 Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 30.12.1920, § 1, mf. Kvsto ca:65–ca:66 v.1920–21. See also The National Library of Finland, Suomen Sosialidemokraatti 8.12.1920: Socialists observed finance of the White Guard rigorously.

The rise of the negotiated welfare city after the Civil War 143 53 Väinö Tanner, Kahden maailmansodan välissä: Muistelmia 20- ja 30-luvuilta (Helsinki: Tammi, 1966), 14. 54 The National Library of Finland, Uusi Suomi 27.11.1919 & Hufvudstadsbladet 27.11.1919. 55 The National Library of Finland, Hufvudstadsbladet 19.2.1920. 56 Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 8.12.1920, § 9, mf. Kvsto ca:64–ca:65 v.1919–1920; Helsinki City Archives, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston painetut esityslistat 1920, kaupunginvaltuuston kokous 8.12.1920, N:o 9. 57 The National Library of Finland, Suomen Sosialidemokraatti 9.12.1920, Hufvudstadsbladet 9.12.1920, Helsingin Sanomat 9.12.1920 & Uusi Suomi 9.12.1920. 58 Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 11.5.1921, § 24, mf. Kvsto ca:65–ca:66 v.1920–21; Helsinki City Archives, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston painetut esityslistat 1921, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston kokous 11.5.1921, N:o 24; Helsinki City Archives, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston painetut esityslistat 1921, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston kokous 25.5.1921, N:o 30; Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 25.5.1921, § 30, mf. Kvsto ca:65–ca:66 v.1920–21; Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 15.6.1921, § 25 & 36, mf. Kvsto ca:66–ca:67 v. 1921; Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 7.9.1921, § 12 & 13, mf. Kvsto ca:66–ca:67 v. 1921; Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 30.11.1921, § 50, mf. Kvsto ca:66–ca:67 v. 1921; Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 14.12.1921, § 39, mf. Kvsto ca:67–ca:68 v. 1921–1922. 59 Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 20.6.1919, § 7, mf. Kvsto ca:61–ca:62 v.1919; Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 19.8.1919, § 47, mf. Kvsto ca:61–ca:62 v.1919; Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 24.11.1920, § 27, mf. Kvsto ca:64–ca:65 v.1919–1920. 60 Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 15.6.1920, § 7 & liite, mf. Kvsto ca:64–ca:65 v.1919 1920; Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja13.10.1920, § 26, mf. Kvsto ca:64–ca:65 v.1919 1920; Helsinki City Archives, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston painetut esityslistat 1919, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston kokous 3.6.1919, N:o 36; Helsinki City Archives, Kaupunginvaltuuston pöytäkirja 3.6.1919, § 4, mf. Kvsto ca:61–ca:62 v.1919, rulla 44. 61 Katajisto, Sodasta sovintoon, 33; Katja Heiska, “Jämsän malliin: Punaorpokysymys Jämsässä vuosina 1918–1939,” in Kun sota on ohi: Sodista selviytymisen ongelmia ja niiden ratkaisumalleja 1900-luvulla, ed. Petri Karonen and Kerttu Tarjamo (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2006): However, in the communes the bourgeois side had a hegemonic position, and socialists were in a vulnerable position. 62 Katajisto, Sodasta sovintoon, 254–56, 262, 265. 63 Ibid., 12, 262. 64 Irma Sulkunen, “Naisten äänioikeus meillä ja muualla,” in Yksi kamari – Kaksi sukupuolta: Suomen eduskunnan ensimmäiset naiset ed. Pirjo Markkola and Alexandra Ramsay (Helsinki: Eduskunnan kirjasto, 1917), 15–21. 65 Katajisto, Sodasta sovintoon, 10. 66 Juhani Mylly, Suomen eduskunta 100 vuotta, 1: Edustuksellisen kansanvallan läpimurto (Helsinki: Edita, 2016), 10–16. 67 Kauko Heuru, Kunnan päätösvallan siirtyminen: Oikeudellinen tutkimus kunnanvaltuuston vallasta suomalaisen kunnallishallinnon demokraattisten arvojen ja tehokkuusarvojen ristipaineessa (Tampere: Tampereen yliopisto, 2020), 37–38. One can also add that Sweden had followed Norway, and Norway had followed Denmark. Original source was Prussian Karl vom und zum Stein (1757–1831), who has been seen as a father of the town laws of Prussia.

144  Kati Katajisto 68 Harvia, Marraskuun 27 päivänä 1917 annetun Kaupunkien kunnallislain arvostelua, 90–91; Hakalehto, Kunnallisen kansanvallan kehitys, kunnallisvaalit ja valtuustot, 122–23. 69 Juhani Paasivirta, Suomi ja Eurooppa 1914–1939 (Helsinki: Kirjayhtymä, 1984), 142–45; Jaakko Paavolainen, Helsingin kaupunginvaltuuston historia 1919–1976 (Helsinki: Helsingin Kaupunki, 1989), 23; Katajisto, Sodasta sovintoon, 31–32. 70 Hietala Marjatta, Services and Urbanization at the Turn of the Century: The Diffusion of Innovations (Helsinki: Suomen Historiallinen Seura, 1987), 29; Marjaana Niemi and Tanja Vahtikari, “Ylirajaisten yhteyksien suomalainen kaupunki,” in Suomalaisen yhteiskunnan historia 1400–2000, osa 2: Yhteisöt ja identiteetit, ed. Pirjo Markkola, Marjaana Niemi, and Pertti Haapala (Tampere: Vastapaino, 2021), 416. 71 Marjatta Bell and Marjatta Hietala, Helsinki the Innovative City: Historical Perspectives (Helsinki: Finnish Litterature Society & City of Helsinki Urban Facts, 2002), 116–17; Peter Clark, European Cities and Towns, 400–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 3. 72 Hietala, Services and Urbanization, 134, 398–99; Paul M. Hohenberg and Lynn Hollen Lees, The Making of Urban Europe 1000–1950 (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1985), 318.

8 Infrastructural citizenship The everyday politics of slum clearance in mid-twentieth-century Copenhagen Mikkel Høghøj Housing served as a key site of political contestation in the making of Nordic welfare cities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Not only has the right to adequate housing been at the forefront of both local and national political agendas since the late nineteenth century, but housing also served as a prism through which architects and urban planners imagined and designed everyday life in the emerging Nordic welfare societies. Thus, in the current historiography regarding the urban and architectural history of the Nordic welfare societies, housing rightfully occupies a central position. Urban scholars have scrutinized both the development of new national and municipal housing policies1 and the construction of modernist housing estates designed to catapult millions of urbanites into a bright welfare future.2 However, with this study, I wish to draw attention to that part of the urban housing stock that disappeared in the name of welfare and modernity. In 1939, the Danish parliament passed the first national legislation for slum clearance. Converging with several related acts for urban planning and housing subsidies, this act was part of a broader governmental process through which urban space was turned into an effective tool of governance.3 Not only did it provide the municipal authorities with a broad range of new tools to inspect, regulate and demolish impoverished urban housing, but it also signalled that such housing conditions, in a very material sense, had no place in an emerging welfare society. By adopting the term ‘slum’ as the official label for housing deemed unfit for human habitation, the act formalized slums as a distinct type of urban space in midtwentieth century Denmark. Since the nineteenth century, decrepit ­working-class tenements have presented a key challenge for urban welfare reformers including politicians, philanthropists, planners and the labour movement.4 In this process of urban welfare reform, the concept of the slum came to serve as a powerful governmental tool in the name of social progress. As Alan Mayne argues, this concept quickly developed into ‘an unambiguous marker of what was and was not appropriate to the modern urban world’.5 While the nineteenth century witnessed the emergence of ‘urban slums’ in public imagination and discourse, the twentieth century became a period of urban reform and renewal. Already during DOI: 10.4324/9781003379232-8

146  Mikkel Høghøj the first half of the century, public authorities across Europe launched ambitious slum clearance plans aiming to eradicate impoverished housing areas and thereby improve the social conditions of their urban populations.6 In this sense, the introduction of slum clearance policies underlines the pivotal role of the city as both a privileged site for the identification of housing as a legitimate welfare concern and an actor in formulating and implementing new welfare housing reforms before the universalist welfare state had reached maturity. However, slum clearance was not merely a political tool for urban reformers to realize the ideal welfare city. In this chapter, I argue that in m ­ id-twentieth-­century Copenhagen, the so-called urban slums functioned as socio-spatial arenas for negotiating both the meaning and limits of welfare and citizenship in everyday life. Mobilizing multiple actors, including the state, municipal governments, civil servants, technical experts, landlords and the urbanites themselves, these areas open a window into the multi-scalar operations through which w ­ elfare and citizenship became negotiated in exchange with the existing and, in many cases, dysfunctional fabric of Danish cities. As such, they allow us to redirect focus from the level of political decision-making and planning towards the politics of everyday life and thus to investigate the everyday contestations through which the meaning and limits of welfare citizenship became interpreted. In particular, the notorious Borgergade-Adelgade quarter located in inner Copenhagen provides a rich case study for exploring the connections between slum clearances, citizenship and everyday life in a Danish context.7 As the Danish capital and largest city, Copenhagen was instrumental in the development of Danish slum clearance politics and legislation. Not only did Copenhagen contain the greatest amount of impoverished housing areas in Denmark by far, but the slum clearance act of 1939 had also been developed based on data gathered predominantly from this city. Having provided most of these data, the BorgergadeAdelgade quarter epitomized urban poverty and thus exhibits how processes of social inclusion and exclusion became negotiated through the urban built environment in the early formative years of the Danish welfare society. As one of the most powerful international symbols of urban poverty, the concept of ‘slum’ is highly contested and ambiguous. In many ways, it is a deceitful construct that misrepresents the complex realities of urban social inequality and stigmatizes the people who inhabit such places.8 Still, it remains useful as a historical category. Accordingly, in this study, I approach ‘slum’ as a historically specific type of space in the sense that it assembled and was conceptualized by contemporary observers in mid-twentieth-century Denmark. More specifically, I seek to move beyond the idea of ‘slum’ as merely a floating linguistic category. Rather, I argue, it was intimately tied to the urban material world and infrastructures that, to varying degrees, supplied the urban population with numerous everyday utilities. Infrastructure is not just one of the key mediums through which citizens relate to the state or municipality; it is also one of the primary ways in which governmental authorities are represented on a local level. In mid-twentieth-century

Infrastructural citizenship 147 Copenhagen, these dynamics were particularly evident in the case of slum clearances. The governmental regulations of impoverished housing areas involved both the development of larger slum clearance schemes and small-scale inspections of the houses and inhabitants. Typically, such inspections revolved around sanitary shortcomings and dysfunctional infrastructures for water, electricity or heating. In some cases, municipal inspectors were called because of complaints by the residents. In other cases, they were called to inspect the residents’ own behaviour and lifestyle. As the intermediary link between public infrastructural services and the realm of everyday life, the home thus came to serve as a site of both protest and discipline at the threshold between public and private. To investigate how welfare and citizenship became formed and negotiated through the production of urban space and materiality,9 I adopt the concept of ‘infrastructural citizenship’ as proposed by Charlotte Lemanski.10 While scholarly interest in infrastructure and citizenship respectively has surged from especially the early 2000s onwards, these research tracks have only recently started to converge in urban history.11 Nevertheless, as I seek to demonstrate with this study, in the case of mid-twentieth-century Denmark, this interplay between infrastructure and citizenship offers a privileged entry point for studying the role of cities as welfare laboratories. Following a brief presentation of the concept of ‘infrastructural citizenship’, the chapter proceeds in two successive parts. First, I examine the role of infrastructure in the development of Danish slum clearance legislation. Then, I turn my attention to the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter, where I both address the redevelopment plans for the area and examine in depth the everyday negotiations of infrastructural citizenship that played out through municipal housing inspections in the 1940s and 1950s. By combining these perspectives, I aim to illuminate how welfare and citizenship acquired meaning across several and sometimes conflicting arenas that, in turn, point to the multiplicity of actors involved in the making of Copenhagen as a welfare city. Infrastructural citizenship In recent years, scholars in both urban studies and urban history have increasingly adopted an infrastructural perspective to study the formation and negotiation of various aspects of socio-political life.12 By foregrounding the material and technological systems that underpin urban life, this research has convincingly demonstrated the significant role of urban infrastructure in shaping social relations, inequalities and power structures in the modern city. Moreover, this so-called ‘infrastructural turn’ has entailed a shift in focus from the technical and supply side of infrastructures to the ways in which infrastructures are produced through social relations and interactions between different urban actors.13 As delineators of social power, networked infrastructures actively shape processes of urban inclusion and exclusion. Yet, at the same, urban dwellers continuously appropriate and circumvent infrastructures to manage their daily lives and routines. In the

148  Mikkel Høghøj impoverished parts of the 1940s and 1950s Copenhagen, this ambiguity of urban infrastructures, as I seek to demonstrate in this chapter, came to facilitate various everyday negotiations of welfare and citizenship that combined governmental rationalities, everyday life and urban materiality in unforeseen ways. Like infrastructure, citizenship has in recent decades been subjected to increasing scholarly attention and critique in urban history, as well as in the humanities and social sciences more broadly.14 While urban historians have criticized the state centrism that characterizes the prevailing historiographies of modern citizenship,15 scholars spanning from political science to cultural studies have critiqued traditional conceptions of citizenship for ignoring both the exclusionary aspects of modern citizenship and the conflicts and struggles through which marginalized groups have claimed their right to citizenship and societal inclusion.16 Instead, scholars are increasingly approaching citizenship from the perspective of social practice and bodily performativity, stressing how access to full citizenship and inclusion has been predicated upon and negotiated through certain practices, norms and social dynamics. In this study, I focus on the urban scale of welfare citizenship with a specific emphasis on the role of social practice in shaping both the meaning and the limits of citizenship. Specifically, I use Lemanski’s concept of ‘infrastructural citizenship’ to capture the everyday dynamics through which public infrastructure and citizenship become mutually constitutive. According to Lemanski, ‘infrastructural citizenship’ denotes ‘the ways in which citizenship acts and practices are embodied in public infrastructure (and vice versa)’.17 Inspired by Lynn Staeheli et al.’s concept of ‘ordinary citizenship’, which emphasizes the mundane and normalized ways in which citizens demonstrate practices of citizenship,18 Lemanski localizes ‘infrastructural citizenship’ specifically in the realm of everyday life. Thus, ‘infrastructural citizenship’ is not restricted to those engaged in radical protest; rather, it has relevance for ‘all citizens who (sometimes struggle to) access infrastructure in both everyday and radical ways’.19 Empirically, this approach to ‘infrastructural citizenship’ draws attention towards the concrete sites where urban dwellers access infrastructural utilities in their daily lives. As an assemblage of infrastructures translating water, heating and electricity into everyday life, housing offers a privileged case study of the socio-material dynamics between infrastructure and citizenship in the modern city. Exhibiting how welfare and citizenship became spatially construed and negotiated at the nexus of governance, infrastructure and everyday life, slum clearances provide a particularly apt case for understanding Copenhagen’s multifaceted history as a welfare city. As I seek to demonstrate in the following, ‘infrastructural citizenship’ in mid-twentieth-century Copenhagen was not shaped through political decision-making and planning alone. It was also formed through everyday interactions and conflicts between public authorities and urban residents regarding access to various forms of infrastructural utilities.

Infrastructural citizenship 149 Slum clearance as a governmental site of intervention Although local slum clearance projects had been carried out in Danish cities already since the late nineteenth century,20 the passing and implementation of the first national act regarding slum clearance in 1939 represented a governmental formalization and systematization of the Danish state’s responsibility to provide adequate housing for its urban dwellers. As I will demonstrate in this section, the act thus entailed an expansion of the welfare city, turning urban space into both a site of governmental intervention and a protest from below. The preparatory work behind the act was carried out between 1935 and 1938 and subsequently published in a governmental report.21 Besides proposing a legislative framework and practical procedures for slum clearance, the report consisted of demographic and social analyses of the housing standards in Danish cities, especially Copenhagen, as well as a survey of slum clearance legislation in other European countries. As such, the report shows how Danish slum clearance legislation developed at the intersection of local, national and transnational scales. On the one hand, the legislation was based on concrete analyses of the socio-material conditions of Danish cities. On the other hand, by adopting ‘slum’ as the official label for the most impoverished part of the urban housing stock, the report actively reproduced international conceptualizations of urban poverty. Concretely, the report defined a slum area as ‘a residential area that due to the design, condition and location of its buildings is harmful for humans to live in health-wise’.22 Besides issues of overpopulation and fire hazards, the degree of harmfulness was determined based on seven criteria that, to a great extent, revolved around whether the dwelling provided adequate access to everyday infrastructures. According to the act, an adequate dwelling had to provide protection against dampness, cold and heat; give access to daylight; ensure good access to fresh air in every room; provide adequate options for heating; have access to good and clean drinking water; have adequate drainage facilities for wastewater and have easy access to a WC or sufficient toilet.23 As these seven criteria illustrate, the Interior Ministry’s report and recommendations were particularly focused on the role of ‘infrastructured water’ in the home. On the one hand, an adequate dwelling needed to provide the residents with clean water for drinking, bathing and handling food, as well as water for flushing. At the same time, this involved keeping wastewater and dampness at a distance. By emphasizing the importance of adequate modern water infrastructures in ensuring the health of the residents, the report identified infrastructural access as a threshold to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy housing.24 Urban slums were thus composed of dwellings that did not meet one or several of these seven requirements. While such housing could be found anywhere in the city in principle, the Interior Ministry’s report from 1938 identified three types of slum areas that were widespread not only in Denmark but also across urban Europe, thereby turning slums into physically localizable sites in the city.

150  Mikkel Høghøj The first category encompassed the so-called ‘central slums’ located in the old city centres. These areas had originally possessed a more respectable status but had deteriorated over time due to the lack of maintenance and modernization. The second category included working-class tenements which had been built in the late nineteenth century to house the vast influx of workers from rural areas. The third category included temporary and illegally built shanty towns on the urban peripheries. While shanty towns were less common in Denmark, they were widespread in other Nordic cities, including Helsinki as demonstrated by ­Marjaana Niemi in this book.25 Both aesthetically and in terms of their locations in the city, these three types of slum areas differed significantly. However, what all of them had in common was their disconnection from the wider urban infrastructural systems. These areas were, to a large degree, decoupled from adequate access to water, electricity and gas, and, with the passing of the 1939 slum clearance act, this material disconnection from the rest of the city now became construed as a social disconnection as well. As such, this legislation can, at least partly, be interpreted as a governmental attempt to reconnect this part of the urban population to the urban infrastructural community. With the passing of the slum clearance act of 1939, Danish municipalities became obliged to employ local housing commissions, which were responsible for supervising the urban housing stock. Besides providing the groundwork for the development of slum clearance schemes, these housing commissions functioned as complaint bodies to which tenants could turn if their dwelling did not meet one or several of the seven requirements outlined in the act. Following an official inspection of the dwelling, the municipal housing inspectors could then compel the landlord to fix the given problem and ultimately prohibit the use of the house for residence until the issues had been remedied. By providing the municipal authorities with specific criteria for identifying ‘slums’ and ensuring the creation of local housing commissions, the act provided the municipal authorities with new tools to combat urban poverty. Yet, since neither the slum clearance act of 1939 nor the governmental circular distributed to Danish municipalities with guidelines for implementing the act provided detailed standards for these criteria, it was in practice up to the urban authorities to interpret the meaning of these categories.26 As such, the act did not prescribe a simple top-down process. Rather, it transformed specific urban areas into sites of negotiation where different local actors interpreted, claimed and contested the meaning and limits of welfare citizenship. Redeveloping the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter In central Copenhagen, between Rosenborg Castle Gardens and the royal castle of Amalienborg, the notorious Borgergade-Adelgade epitomized the category of ‘central slums’. Composed of poorly maintained houses mostly from the late

Infrastructural citizenship 151

Figure 8.1 Aerial photo from 1939 of the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter before the area was demolished. Located at Copenhagen City Archives. Source: Photographer: Nowico

eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the Borgergade-Adelde quarter showcased all the material deficiencies that, according to the act of 1939, constituted a slum area. Not only was the neighbourhood immensely overpopulated and filled with fire hazards due to the density of front houses and back houses and inadequate staircase conditions,27 but it was also largely disconnected from Copenhagen’s infrastructural networks. In comparison with the average standard of living in Copenhagen, the houses in the neighbourhood had poor access to both water and electricity. While 66% of all dwellings in Copenhagen had easy access to WCs in 1930, this was the case in only 20.9% of the dwellings in the ­Borgergade-Adelgade quarter.28 In terms of electricity, 91.2% of homes in Copenhagen had access to electric lighting in 1925, yet in the BorgergadeAdelgade quarters, only 55.7% of the dwellings enjoyed this privilege.29 Due to these conditions, the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter was instrumental in the development of the slum clearance act of 1939. The Interior Ministry’s report from 1938 overwhelmingly drew upon data from this area; thus, the act was in many ways tailored to redevelop the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter specifically. In practice, as mentioned earlier, it was up to the municipal authorities to create

152  Mikkel Høghøj redevelopment plans for the area, which then had to be approved centrally by the National Housing Council.30 Thus, a local commission within Copenhagen Municipality was already formed in 1939 to prepare such plans for the area. In December 1941, the first sketches, which had been made by the city engineer Olaf Forchhammer, were presented to and approved by the city council.31 These sketches proposed the demolishment of all buildings in the area and the construction of new housing, industry, widened streets and a garden square, all conceived within the ideological framework of urban modernism. To develop the sketches further, the city council formed an architectural commission in February 1942 consisting of four modernist architects, namely Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Povl Baumann, Poul Holsøe and Svend Møller.32 The commission’s suggestions for changes, which most notably involved a revision of the street plan, were finally approved in April 1942.33 In June 1942, the first houses were demolished. In July, however, the Ministry of Commerce banned all demolition of housing because of an increasing lack of building materials due to World War II.34 Consequently, a housing shortage prevailed in all larger Danish cities, and the redevelopment of the BorgergadeAdelgade quarter was paused indefinitely. By this point, though, Copenhagen Municipality had already expropriated the majority of the housing stock in that area; thus, it now suddenly became the official landlord of the tenants there. As I will demonstrate in the following, this situation allowed for new forms of socio-material negotiations to take place between the residents and the municipal authorities. The redevelopment of the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter did not resume before the late 1950s. In total, the redevelopment of the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter entailed the demolition of 260 houses.35 As a replacement, the streets were widened and several new buildings in the functionalist style for businesses, industry and housing were constructed. The eight-storey housing complex Dronningegården, designed by architects Kay Fisker and Eske Kristensen, epitomized this process. The complex, which enclosed a green square and offered 481 dwellings as well as rooms for shops and communal events, had already been initiated in 1943 but was not completed before 1958. Although the redevelopment of the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter had been conceived with the welfare of the residents in mind, few of these residents actually benefitted from the transformation of their neighbourhood. As part of reforming the Danish slum clearance legislation in 1959, the Ministry of Housing published two reports in 1957. The second report included an evaluation of the redevelopment of the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter that, besides evaluating the entire redevelopment process as well as the usefulness of the act from 1939, documented the reallocation of the residents.36 As a replacement for their dwellings, Copenhagen Municipality had acquired the right of first refusal on 700 residences on newly built social housing estates located in the southern part of Copenhagen. Still, the vast majority of the residents ended up moving to other

Infrastructural citizenship 153

Figure 8.2 The Borgergade-Adelgade quarter in the 1940s seen from the Marble Church. In the back of the picture, the housing complex Dronningegaarden is under construction. Source: Located at Copenhagen City Archives, Directorate of the City Engineer. Photographer: Mogens Falk-Sørensen. Public domain

‘slum areas’, mostly in the inner city. The report estimated that while only 27% of the former residents had moved into social housing estates or other dwellings of improved quality, 67% had reallocated to housing of a similar standard as the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter. According to the report, these moving patterns were caused both by the residents’ poor financial situation and, in many cases, their deviant lifestyle that tied them to Copenhagen’s inner city.37 This alludes to the limits of citizenship at play in Danish slum clearance politics. As will be further emphasized in the following, the lifestyle and morality of the residents were also questioned in the practical regulation of these spaces and thus came to serve as a delineator for inclusion and exclusion. In other words, the municipal authorities did not necessarily consider everyone equally worthy of infrastructural citizenship. Infrastructural citizenship on the ground In many ways, the slum clearance act of 1939 continued and expanded work that was already being executed locally in many Danish cities. In Copenhagen, the police had employed a specific taskforce, the so-called Health Police, since the mid-nineteenth century to ensure that the municipal health statutes were

154  Mikkel Høghøj complied with.38 In addition to a wide range of tasks including the supervision of food handling and venereal diseases, the taskforce inspected dilapidated housing, seeking to uphold cleanliness standards and thereby prevent the outbreak of new epidemics. In 1920, the municipal authorities of Copenhagen expanded this work by creating a new unit within the health commission responsible for supervising the urban housing stock. In 1940, this unit was transferred to the newly formed housing commission in response to the slum clearance act of 1939. Based on complaints – typically filed by various public representatives or the residents themselves – it appears that both the health police and the municipal unit for housing inspections supervised the impoverished part of Copenhagen’s housing stock. As the housing commission was responsible for remedying various deficiencies and nominating tenants for new housing, the health police’s inspection reports were typically forwarded to the municipal housing commission. Depending on the topic of the case, these processes also involved other forms of civil servants and municipal expertise such as the city doctor (Stadslægen), the office distributing Copenhagen Municipality’s residential properties (Direktoratet for Københavns Kommunes Beboelsesejendomme) and the municipal board for child welfare (Børneværnet). As such, these cases open a window into how infrastructural citizenship became negotiated through complex and often conflicting interactions between residents, landlords, various municipal actors and the built environment of Copenhagen. As mentioned earlier, in July 1942, Copenhagen Municipality became the official landlord of the tenants in the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter. Consequently, the municipal authorities had the official mandate not just to prohibit the use of the flats as dwellings but also to evict tenants who did not live up to the required behavioural standards. At the same time, the residents now negotiated directly with their landlords in matters concerning dysfunctional infrastructures and other material shortcomings in their homes. Dysfunctional infrastructures as a site of protest

Most of the housing inspections carried out in the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter between the passing of the slum clearance act in 1939 and the final demolition of the neighbourhood in the late 1950s concerned material deficiencies of the houses. Typically filed as complaints by the residents, these material lacks especially concerned the residents’ poor access or excessive exposure to different forms of water. On the one hand, residents complained about dysfunctional water-driven infrastructures such as clogged water locks, frozen pipes, leaky drainage facilities and broken water closets. On the other hand, the residents also complained about the presence of various unwanted forms of water in their residences, especially dampness. When Copenhagen Municipality became the owner of most of the buildings in the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter in 1942, the tenants in the area gained a new

Infrastructural citizenship 155 platform to negotiate their rights to infrastructural utilities in their dwellings. While the municipal authorities had previously only had the mandate to sanction private landlords and ultimately forbid the use of the flat as a dwelling, they now also had the opportunity to reallocate the tenants to new housing owned by the municipality. Numerous housing inspection reports thus tell the kind of story in which residents complained about various infrastructural deficiencies with the declared purpose of being granted access to better housing. Although most of these cases were successful in being nominated for new housing, few succeeded in being reallocated due to the continuous deficit in urban housing that remained a significant challenge for Danish urban authorities throughout the 1950s. Nevertheless, the residents’ complaints can in themselves be seen as acts of infrastructural citizenship as they point to the residents’ ability to assert their position as citizens with certain socio-material rights. In the inspection reports, the tenants often tried to justify their rights to better housing by stressing the damaging health consequences of their current dwellings. In this context, problems with dampness and mould caused by bad insulation, leaky sinks, poor washing facilities and inadequate drainage facilities were frequently highlighted by the tenants. In these cases, the question of health was particularly emphasized in relation to children. In the case of Adelgade 33, for example, severe problems with dampness caused two families in 1958 and 1959, respectively, to file complaints to the municipal housing commission. In the first case, the complaint concerned the health of a one-and-a-half-year-old boy who suffered from a kidney disease that, according to his parents, largely stemmed from the poor material conditions of their dwelling. The boy had already undergone surgery four times, which had resulted in the removal of one of his kidneys. In the second case, the complaint concerned the health of an 11-year-old girl who suffered from bronchitis due to the damp conditions of the flat she inhabited with her parents. Both families argued that for the sake of the children’s health, they were entitled to better housing, and in both cases, their requests were accepted.39 Besides underlining the parents’ concern for their children, these examples illustrate how tenants in the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter claimed their right to infrastructural citizenship by referring to traditional welfare issues, including health and child welfare. If these themes intersected, their claims seem to have become even stronger. In many of the successful complaints, the tenants actively used different municipal representatives and experts to their advantage. This was the case with the families in Adelgade 33, who both attached statements from their doctors, as well as a family with two small children living in the house at Adelgade 96. In June 1950, the health police inspected their flat following a request from the family’s health nurse (sundhedsplejerske). The report specifically underlined that not only had the family obtained a statement from their health nurse, in which she recommended that they be allocated better housing, but they had also persuaded her to report their case to the health police.40 The position of the health nurse was

156  Mikkel Høghøj

Figure 8.3 Kitchen with dysfunctional water supply and broken panels in a flat in Borgergade 59, 1954. Such material shortcomings were among the most typical issues that tenants complained about to the Municipal Housing Commission. Located at the Museum of Copenhagen. Source: Photographer: unknown

officially created in 1937 to mitigate problems with infant mortality. Employed by the municipalities, health nurses visited families, especially poor families, in their homes to provide counselling in relation to infant care, hygiene and diet.41 The health nurse thus represented a municipal welfare authority that the family in Adelgade 96 actively used to obtain better housing and hence claim their right to infrastructural citizenship. These examples suggest that not only were the residents in the BorgergadeAdelgade quarter highly capable of asserting their right to infrastructural

Infrastructural citizenship 157 citizenship, but the municipal housing commission was also in general positively disposed towards their requests. However, this only applied if the families were deemed worthy of public help. All the examples above represent working-class families with steady incomes. In other situations, different rationalities prevailed. In the case of Adelgade 5, for example, the municipal housing inspector inspected the flat of a family with six children in May 1949. Although the flat was damp, poorly maintained and without adequate water supply, the housing commission ultimately declined the family’s request to be reallocated to new housing. According to the correspondence between the housing commission and the office distributing Copenhagen Municipality’s residential properties, the family had an unsteady income and had previously been unable to pay rent on time. Therefore, Copenhagen Municipality was neither interested in improving their housing situation nor in keeping them as tenants at all.42 As this example underlines, the tenants’ access to infrastructural citizenship was not simply determined based on the material state of their dwelling. Also, the tenants’ abilities to comply with certain social and moral norms determined the outcome of each specific case. The shifting boundaries between infrastructure, citizenship and social behaviour also influenced the case of Borgergade 41. In October 1939, a representative of the municipal board for child welfare contacted the municipal housing commission regarding Mrs. Rasmussen. According to the representative, who supervised Mrs. Rasmussen’s parenting, the material state of her dwelling was so poor that it actively hindered her chances to fulfil her maternal duties. Although it was her gendered responsibility to provide an adequate home for her two children, even in impoverished circumstances, the representative argued that the material deficiencies in her dwelling made that virtually impossible.43 Consequently, Mrs. Rasmussen was reallocated to better housing. In this way, her right to infrastructural citizenship was presented as a legitimate precondition for her ability to provide a good home for her children. Nevertheless, as I will demonstrate in the next section, some behavioural patterns could not be excused by the decrepit state of the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter. Hygiene and morality as markers of infrastructural citizenship

Not all inspection reports originated from residents seeking to assert their infrastructural citizenship by protesting poor housing conditions. In some reports, the main issue was the problematic behaviour of the residents themselves. In such cases, it was typically neighbours who contacted the health police or the municipal housing commission, complaining about the disorderly and unhygienic behaviour of another tenant in the house. These cases typically revolved around the misuse of various everyday infrastructures, especially for personal hygiene, and thus exhibit how infrastructural citizenship could also work as a site of discipline. It bears remembering, though, that each case was different and so were the responses from the municipal authorities.

158  Mikkel Høghøj In the case of Adelgade 87, this dynamic was particularly evident in the inspections of Mr. and Mrs. Mørch, who rented a flat on the fourth floor. The first report about the couple was filed by the health police in July 1943. After some followup inspections by the municipal housing inspector, the couple was finally evicted in February 1945. The recurring theme in all the reports concerned the couple’s lack of cleanliness in terms of their bodily hygiene, handling of food and the general untidiness of the flat. In this context, their misuse of domestic technologies for bodily hygiene caused particular concern. In a report from September 1943, the health police found several paper wrappings with human excrements in the kitchen, and in December 1944, the municipal housing inspector discovered that the couple used a bucket, which was placed on the floor in the kitchen, to urinate in. When the bucket was full, they emptied it in the sink, which, according to the inspector, leaked, causing a stench that disturbed the neighbours. Both the health police and the municipal inspector repeatedly notified the Mørches that their continued tenancy was predicated on a significant change in behaviour. As no notable improvement occurred, the couple was eventually evicted. Thus, the couple’s inability to live in accordance with certain ‘infrastructural ideals’ – even though the flat that they inhabited did not provide adequate infrastructural amenities – came to work as a strong marker of immoral behaviour, which prompted governmental authorities to intervene in their domestic life and eventually evict them from their home.44 Similar processes played out in Borgergade 53 and Adelgade 96. In both cases, the complaint was filed by unhappy neighbours, and in both flats, the health police and the municipal housing inspector discovered piles of trash, stale food, paper-wrapped excrements and buckets filled with urine. In the case of Borgergade 53, the first inspection took place in July 1947. The flat was then inhabited by Miss Wallengren who was instructed to clean her flat in order to keep her tenancy. As she did not meet the request, she received an eviction notice in September 1947. However, although she never cleaned her flat, the municipal authorities repeatedly extended the eviction date and continuously informed her that she could keep her tenancy if she improved her sanitary standards.45 Similarly, in the case of Adelgade 96, the health police visited Mr. Rosenstand in August 1949. Like Miss Wallengren, he was instructed to clean his flat. Nevertheless, in the next report, the municipal housing inspector dedicated more attention to the social consequences of Mr. Rosenstand’s mental state than to the conditions of the flat. When he passed away in December 1949, the case was closed, and the flat was rented out to new tenants.46 In contrast to the Mørchs, what characterized both Miss Wallengreen’s and Mr. Rosenstand’s cases was that the municipal authorities perceived them as socially and mentally disabled. Thus, their inability to fulfil the prevalent hygienic and infrastructural ideals was not met with the same level of moral condemnation. Although these examples might seem insignificant within the larger framework of twentieth-century urban development, they point to the small-scale

Infrastructural citizenship 159 interactions through which the laws and institutions of urban governance translated into and became formed through everyday life. They display the ways in which the meaning of welfare and the limits of citizenship became negotiated both as everyday protest and discipline and the ways in which these negotiations intertwined with the material fabric of the most intimate spaces of urban life. Conclusion In this chapter, I have examined how the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter in Copenhagen served as a locus for socio-material negotiations of infrastructural citizenship in the 1940s and 1950s. By analysing the interactions and conflicts between the municipal authorities and the tenants that were prompted by dysfunctional infrastructures in the home, I have shown how the meaning and limits of welfare and citizenship in everyday life were shaped by a close relationship with the built environment of the city. In demonstrating how urban slum clearance politics expanded Copenhagen as a welfare city by transforming urban space into both a site of governmental intervention and regulation and citizen protest, this study has provided new perspectives on the urban history of welfare in twentieth-­century Denmark. In conclusion, I thus wish to reflect upon what the case of slum clearance might offer to the history of welfare cities more broadly. First of all, this case has drawn attention to the multiplicity of actors involved in the production of Copenhagen as a modern welfare city. The distribution and negotiation of urban welfare did not just take place in the city council, but it also involved many forms of civil servants and technical experts. It was through the daily work of housing inspectors, police officers, health nurses, doctors and engineers that the urban residents of Copenhagen interacted with the municipal authorities. As the housing inspection reports show, such interactions were rarely apolitical or neutral. Rather, they were concrete negotiations that determined the boundaries of everyday welfare and citizenship for many urban citizens in Copenhagen during the 1940s and 1950s. As the criteria for slums were vaguely defined in the legislation, it was precisely through such negotiations that the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable housing conditions became defined in practice. Besides providing the municipal representatives with the mandate to interpret the limits of urban welfare in relation to housing, it also provided the tenants with an opportunity to assert their rights to infrastructural citizenship. This emphasizes that the distribution of urban welfare was not merely a top-down process in mid-twentieth-century Copenhagen. Rather, the meaning and limits of welfare and citizenship were continuously defined and negotiated through several arenas of the city. More broadly, this shows how the city was not just a neutral background onto which the welfare politics of the state were projected. Rather, the city – the municipal authorities, the urban residents and the material fabric – actively shaped and interpreted welfare in its own right.

160  Mikkel Høghøj Second, the case of slum clearance also encourages us to revisit the category of welfare in general. It reminds us that, in the modern city, welfare could mean different things to different groups of urbanites. For the tenants in the ­Borgergade-Adelgade quarter, everyday welfare was highly material. It concerned access to adequate water supply, electricity and sanitary facilities in general. Approaching the history of the Nordic welfare societies from the angle of the city and through the politics of everyday life thus draws our attention to other dimensions of welfare that tend to evade the attention of welfare-state scholars, but which were central for how urban residents in mid-twentieth-century Copenhagen experienced and dealt with the progress and shortcomings of the emerging Danish welfare society. Finally, the case of slum clearances can help to bring nuance to the ways in which we periodize the history of welfare. In the research literature, the decades after World War II are often defined as the golden age of the welfare state.47 In terms of social politics, the social reform of 1933 in many ways marked the beginning of a more universalist social system in Denmark, and in 1961, the distinction between ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ was removed from the social legislation entirely. However, as this study has demonstrated, this distinction continued to influence the ways in which the municipal authorities of Copenhagen approached impoverished housing areas and their inhabitants in these highly formative decades of the mid-twentieth century. While the complaints of some tenants were immediately remedied, other tenants were, in the eyes of the municipal authorities, to blame for their own misfortune, and therefore they were not granted the same level of welfare. Thus, while other chapters in this book demonstrate how Nordic cities provided inclusive welfare services already in the late nineteenth century, my study points to the limitations of this inclusiveness. However, for that reason, the combination of chapters in the book reminds us of the richness that characterizes the modern city as a means of understanding the complex history of welfare politics and citizenship. Notes 1 Henning Bro, “Velfærdsstaten og boligen,” i Dansk Forvaltningshistorie II. Stat, forvaltning og samfund. Folkestyrets forvaltning fra 1901–1953, red. Tim Knudsen (Copenhagen: Jurist- og Økonomforbundets Forlag, 2000), 565–613; Søren. Kolstrup, Velfærdsstatens rødder: fra kommunesocialisme til folkepension, SFAH skriftserie, nr. 38 (Kbh: Selskabet til Forskning i Arbejderbevægelsens Historie, 1996); Olaf Lind og Jonas Møller, Folkebolig Boligfolk. Politik og praksis i boligbevægelsens historie (Copenhagen: Arkitektens Forlag, 1994). For a nordic perspective, see Bo. Bengtsson, red., Varför så olika? Nordisk bostadspolitik i jämförande historiskt ljus (Malmö: Égalité, 2006). 2 Mikkel Høghøj, “Between Utopia and Dystopia: A Socio-cultural History of Modernist Mass Housing in Denmark, c. 1945–1985” (Aarhus University, 2019); Sidse Martens Gudmand-Høyer m.fl., Gellerup (Aarhus: Arkitektens Forlag, 2021); Thomas Hall og Sonja Vidén, “The Million Homes Programme: A Review of the Great

Infrastructural citizenship 161 Swedish Planning Project,” Planning Perspectives 20, no. 3 (2005): 301–28. For Nordic studies on the relationship between architecture and the welfare state more broadly, see: Katrine Lotz m.fl., red., Forming Welfare (Copenhagen: The Danish Architectural Press, 2017); Kirsten Marie Raahuage ed. m.fl., Architectures of Dismantling and Restructuring: Spaces of Danish Welfare, 1970-Present (Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers GmbH, 2022); Helena Mattsson og Sven-Olov Wallenstein, Swedish Modernism: Architecture, Consumption, and the Welfare State (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2010). 3 Arne Gaardmand, Plan over Land – Dansk byplanlægning 1938–1992 (Nykøbing Sjælland: Bogværket, 2016); Mikkel Høghøj, “Planning Aarhus as a Welfare Geography: Urban Modernism and the Shaping of ‘Welfare Subjects’ in Post-war Denmark,” Planning Perspectives 35, no. 6 (2020): 1031–53. 4 Peter Hall, Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design since 1880, red. Peter Hall (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell, 2014), 12–49; Alan Mayne, Slums: The History of a Global Injustice (London: Reaktion Books, 2017). 5 Mayne, Slums: The History of a Global Injustice, 42. 6 Colin G. Pooley, Housing strategies in Europe, 1880–1930, red. Colin G. Pooley (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992). 7 For historical studies of the Borgergade-Adelgade quarter, see: Kristian Buhl Thomsen, “Da de danske byer blev revet ned” (Aarhus University, 2015), 65–77; Nina Kløcker-Nielsen og Kenneth Johansen, “En ‘Skamplet’ forsvandt – En illustreret analyse af Adelgade-Borgergadekvarteret før, under og efter totalsanering” (Roskilde University, 199e.v.t.). 8 Mayne, Slums: The History of a Global Injustice, 8–9. 9 The close connections between urban materiality and power structures have received growing scholarly attention in recent years as part of the broader analytical shift towards the active role of space and materiality in the shaping of social life. Work in this field is extensive. For discussions pertaining to the field of urban history, see Tony Bennett og Patrick Joyce, Material Powers: Cultural Studies, History and the Material Turn, red. Tony. Bennett og Patrick. Joyce, Culture, Economy and the Social (London: Routledge, 2010); Katherine Fennelly, “Materiality and the Urban: Recent Theses in Archaeology and Material Culture and Their Importance for the Study of Urban History,” Urban History 44, no. 3 (2017): 564–73; Tom Hulme, “Urban Materialities: Citizenship, Public Housing and Governance in Modern Britain,” i New Approaches to Governance and Rule in Urban Europe since 1500, red. Simon Gunn og Tom Hulme (London: Routledge, 2020), 190–210; Mikkel Thelle, “Et rumligt fix for historievidenskaben?” Temp 9 (2014): 187–201. 10 Charlotte Lemanski, Citizenship and Infrastructure: Practices and Identities of Citizens and the State (London: Routledge, 2019). 11 Simon Gunn m.fl., “Cities, Infrastructure and the Making of Modern Citizenship: The View from North-West Europe since c. 1870,” Urban History (March 25, 2022): 1–19. 12 Stephen Graham og Simon Marvin, Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition, red. Stephen. Graham og Simon. Marvin (London: Routledge, 2001); Martin V. Melosi, The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present, red. Martin V. Melosi, Creating the North American Landscape (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Timothy Moss, “Divided City, Divided Infrastructures: Securing Energy and Water Services in Postwar Berlin,” Journal of Urban History 35, no. 7 (2009): 923–42; Simon Gunn og Susan Townsend, Automobility and the City in Twentieth-century Britain and Japan, red. Simon Gunn og Susan C. Townsend, SOAS Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019).

162  Mikkel Høghøj 13 Nikhil Anand, Hydraulic City: Water and the Infrastructures of Citizenship in Mumbai (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017); Stephen Graham og Colin McFarlane, Infrastructural Lives: Urban Infrastructure in Context (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014). 14 T. Hulme, “Putting the City Back Into Citizenship: Civics Education and Local Government in Britain, 1918–45,” Twentieth Century British History 26, no. 1 (2015): 26–51; Tom Hulme, After the Shock City: Urban Culture and the Making of Modern Citizenship, Studies in History New Series (Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2019); Gunn m.fl., “Cities, Infrastructure and the Making of Modern Citizenship,” 1–19; Engin F. Isin og Bryan S. Turner, Handbook of Citizenship Studies, red. Engin F. Isin (Engin Fahri). og Bryan S. Turner (Bryan Stanley) (London: Sage, 2002); Per Mouritsen, En plads i verden: det moderne medborgerskab (Kbh: Gyldendal, 2015). 15 Hulme, “Putting the City Back Into Citizenship: Civics Education and Local Government in Britain, 1918–45”; Hulme, After the Shock City: Urban Culture and the Making of Modern Citizenship; Gunn m.fl., “Cities, Infrastructure and the Making of Modern Citizenship”. 16 Isin og Turner, Handbook of Citizenship Studies; Engin F. Isin, Acts of Citizenship, red. Engin F. Isin editor og Greg M. Nielsen editor (S.l.], 2008); Mouritsen, En plads i verden: det moderne medborgerskab.; Ruth Lister, Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Krista Cowman, Nina Javette Koefoed, og Åsa Karlsson Sjögren, red., Gender in Urban Europe: Sites of Political Activity and Citizenship, 1750–1900, Routledge Research in Gender and History 19 (New York: Routledge, 2014). 17 Charlotte Lemanski, Citizenship and Infrastructure: Practices and Identities of Citizens and the State (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2019), 13. 18 Lynn A. Staeheli et al., “Dreaming of the Ordinary: Citizenship and the Complex Geographies of Daily Life,” Progress in Human Geography 16, no. 3 (2012): 627–43. 19 Charlotte Lemanski, “Infrastructural Citizenship: Spaces of Living in Cape Town, South Africa,” i Citizenship and Infrastructure: Practices and Identities of Citizens and the State, red. Charlotte Lemanski (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019), 14. 20 Mette Tapdrup Mortensen, “Et skjul for al slags elendighed: Peder Madsens Gan i 1870’erne,” Historiske meddelelser om København (2004): 52–75. 21 The Interior Ministry’s Commission for Slum Clearance, Betænkning afgivet af Indenrigsministeriets Saneringsudvalg (Copenhagen: The Interior Ministry, 1938). 22 The Interior Ministry’s Commission for Slum Clearance, 29. 23 Ibid., 9. 24 Ibid., 117–25. 25 Ibid., 29–30. 26 The Interior Ministry, “Indenrigsministeriets Cirkulære af 2. November 1940 om Boligtilsyn og Sanering,” 1940. 27 The Interior Ministry’s Commission for Slum Clearance, Betænkning afgivet af Indenrigsministeriets Saneringsudvalg, 78–100. 28 The Interior Ministry’s Commission for Slum Clearance, 88; Copenhagen Municipality, Statistisk Aarborg for København, Frederiksberg og Gjentofte Kommune 1935 (Copenhagen: Copenhagen Statistical Office, 1936), 49. 29 The Interior Ministry’s Commission for Slum Clearance, Betænkning afgivet af Indenrigsministeriets Saneringsudvalg, 88; Copenhagen Municipality, Statistisk Aarborg for København, Frederiksberg og Gjentofte Kommune 1925 (Copenhagen: Copenhagen Statistical Office, 1926), 49–50. 30 Kristian Buhl Thomsen, “Da de danske byer blev revet ned” (Aarhus University, 2015), 54–56. 31 Copenhagen City Council, Københavns Borgerrepræsentations Forhandlinger 1941– 42 (Copenhagen: Copenhagen City Council, 1943), 1289–409.

Infrastructural citizenship 163 32 Den af boligministeriet den 22. oktober 1949 nedsatte kommission, “Boligtilsyn og Sanering. Betænkning afgivet af Den af boligministeriet den 22. oktober 1949 nedsatte kommission. Bind 2: Lovudkast og bilag” (Copenhagen: The Ministry of Housing, 1957), 156. 33 Copenhagen City Council, Københavns Borgerrepræsentations Forhandlinger 1942– 43. Bind I (Copenhagen: Copenhagen City Council, 1944), 54. 34 Thomsen, “Da de danske byer blev revet ned,” 73–75. 35 Den af boligministeriet den 22. oktober 1949 nedsatte kommission, “Boligtilsyn og Sanering. Betænkning afgivet af Den af boligministeriet den 22. oktober 1949 nedsatte kommission. Bind 2: Lovudkast og bilag,” 157. 36 Ibid., 151–62. 37 Ibid., 159. 38 Gerda Bonderup, Omsorg for at afværge smitsomme Sygdomme. Sundhedspolitiet ca. 1750–1900 (Copenhagen: SAGA Egmont, 2020). 39 Copenhagen Housing Commission, “Adelgade 33,” 1959, Copenhagen City Archives: The Housing Commission’s Archive, Journal cases, 1939–1999, Letter: A – Street name: Adelgade 1–44. 40 Copenhagen Housing Commission, “Adelgade 96,” 1950, Copenhagen City Archives: The Housing Commission’s Archive, Journal cases, 1939–1999, Letter: A – Street name: Borgergade 26–45. 41 Henriette Buus, Sundhedsplejerskeinstitutionens dannelse. En kulturteoretisk og kulturhistorisk analyse af velfærdsstatens embedsværk (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, u.å.). 42 Copenhagen Housing Commission, “Adelgade 5,” 1949, Copenhagen City Archives: The Housing Commission’s Archive, Journal cases, 1939–1999, Letter: A – Street name: Adelgade 1–44. 43 Copenhagen Housing Commission, “Borgergade 41,” 1939, Copenhagen City Archives: The Housing Commission’s Archive, Journal cases, 1939–1999, Letter: A – Street name: Borgergade 26–45. 44 Copenhagen Housing Commission, “Adelgade 87,” 1945, Copenhagen City Archives: The Housing Commission’s Archive, Journal cases, 1939–1999, Letter: A – Street name: Adelgade 86–101. 45 Copenhagen Housing Commission, “Borgergade 53,” 1948, Copenhagen City Archives: The Housing Commission’s Archive, Journal cases, 1939–1999, Letter: A – Street name: Borgergade 46–73. 46 Copenhagen Housing Commission, “Adelgade 96,” 1949, Copenhagen City Archives: The Housing Commission’s Archive, Journal cases, 1939–1999, Letter: A – Street name: Adelgade 86–101. 47 Jørn Henrik Petersen m.fl., Dansk velfærdshistorie – Bd. 4. Velfærdsstatens storhedstid: 1956–1973, red. Jørn Henrik. Petersen m.fl., University of Southern Denmark Studies in History and Social Sciences, 410 (Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2012).

9 The conflict-filled holiday village The expansion of summer houses in the Copenhagen metropolis’ open land 1918–1990 Henning Bro In the twentieth century, holiday villages became widespread in the Scandinavian countries at the same time as the general public’s outdoor recreation gained an increasingly central role in the welfare states of Western Europe. This development created tension between individual leisure settlements and the framework for the general public’s recreative use of open land that the welfare state tried to impose. The conflict became particularly evident in the Danish capital metropolis. Introduction This chapter will analyse (1) the background and development of Danish summer-home villages in the open land of the expanding welfare city Copenhagen in the twentieth century; (2) the position of outdoor recreation in the development of the welfare state; (3) the tension between particular leisure settlements, of which the summer-home villages serve as an example, and the welfare state’s framework of outdoor recreation among the general public; and (4) the outcomes of the conflict between leisure settlements and the general public’s interest in outdoor recreation. Danish research positions

Beyond regional studies of twentieth-century holiday villages,1 Danish research on this topic has focused on the summer homes that leading architects designed for the upper class. The treatment of the ever-increasing challenges that followed the spread of summer-home villages, and the regulatory and planning provisions that the public authorities made, has been extremely scarce.2 Nan Dahlkild’s study of the summer home construction in the western part of Limfjord has shown that the municipal authorities were extremely reluctant to regulate the construction of summer homes up until the middle of the century and include it in urban planning. This became possible after the Town Planning Act of 1938. In this study, the provisions of the 1937 Nature Conservation Act DOI: 10.4324/9781003379232-9

The conflict-filled holiday village 165 regarding the minimum distance between buildings and the coast- and forest-line were the only regulation restricting the construction of summer homes.3 However, local and regional authorities’ firmer grip on the spread of summer homes in the 1970s led to the fact that ‘for a long period up to the turn of the millennium, the summer home landscape did not expand significantly, either nationally or in Limfjord’.4 Landscape architect Jørgen Primdahl describes the interwar period as one in which it was in practice ‘impossible to say no to development without it triggering compensation for the owner’. The majority of the coasts had ‘gradually been filled up with summer homes, predominantly located according to the principle of the most possible building sites per subdivision and, by and large, without common areas and proper trail links’. Primdahl argues that during this period, Denmark had ‘northwestern Europe’s worst planning system’, but that ‘this miserable situation was changed with the planning reform’ whereby there ‘was more control over urban growth and summer home development’.5 This is a development that tourism research has seen as decisive for the much smaller growth in newly built summer homes during the later post-war period.6 An international perspective

In contrast to the Danish research literature, international scholarship has dealt with the challenges that holiday villages created in post-war Western Europe and North America quite thoroughly. Some contributions have thus demonstrated how some contemporary politicians, planners and economists saw the boom of summer homes as an expression of a naturally self-selected and individual form of leisure activity, which at the same time provided an economic and social lift to rural areas in crisis, while others positioned themselves ever more critically towards the increasingly large holiday villages. In some cases, they were seen as an expression of an increasing social inequality, considering that significant populations were homeless or lived in poor and dilapidated urban apartments at the same time as the summer home boom. In other cases, the focus was put on summer-home villages’ destruction of open land and coastal areas. This destruction also led to an imbalance between individual leisure settlements, which comprised summer homes, and the general public’s access to coastal and natural areas, which holiday villages were increasingly taking over. This created a critical imbalance that, in Sweden, led to holiday villages being included in regional planning for the Stockholm metropolis already in the 1930s. The post-war period’s new regional plans went a step further and forbade any further construction of summer homes in the Swedish capital metropolis. These regional planning provisions also came to include Sweden’s two other metropolises. Outside of the Swedish urban regions, local and regional planning in principle prioritized the maintenance of the landscape’s recreational and natural

166  Henning Bro value over the development of summer homes. This principle was implemented by reserving significant coastal areas near seas, lakes, rivers and mountains for summer home developments and by a simultaneous integration of these developments into specially designed sub-areas in other parts of Sweden’s natural areas. In areas where only a third of the land was available for the construction of summer homes, the remaining two-thirds were included in larger shared recreational areas and service facilities for grocery shopping, sports facilities and so on. In addition to this, those responsible for the Swedish planning sought to provide spatial frameworks for campsites, the rental of cabins and other outdoor resorts, which could mitigate the need for new summer-home villages. On top of these regional planning provisions, the central government issued a general ban on the construction of summer homes closer than 300 m to the coastline. At the same time, it also issued a requirement for proper wastewater disposal and waste management to prevent pollution from holiday villages. Combined provisions from both the state and the regional municipal councils sought to ensure that the general public’s recreational access to and the conservation of the Swedish landscape was advanced alongside a planned integration of new summer home development. Even if the spread of holiday villages was more fragmented and constrained by multiple authorities in Norway, the Scandinavian means of handling these challenges was the most far-reaching and progressive in Western Europe, not least in comparison with North America. There, planning and regulatory interventions were the least pronounced in the post-war period. This had the result that vast areas of land without any kind of planning regarding the very diverse forms of leisure settlement and other, comparatively primitive, more or less yearround settlements are what characterize North America. In the rest of Western Europe, international research states quite certainly that, during the post-war period, no political line was formulated from the central government in relation to the spread of summer-home villages in the continent’s individual nation-states. Instead, the challenges were overwhelmingly resolved by local authorities’ regulations and the various local and general planning powers that had been assigned to them. Most pronounced and thorough in this matter was Great Britain, where the post-war period’s new summer home developments were isolated in special holiday villages.7 Scope and limitations

This chapter takes as its departure point the time around the end of World War I since the formation of holiday villages on a wider scale was initiated at this time. The final year for the chapter is 1990 because regional planning in the capital metropolis changed drastically as a result of the liquidation of this kind of planning in that year.8

The conflict-filled holiday village 167 During the twentieth century, the expanding welfare city of Copenhagen developed into a capital metropolis, comprising the central city (Copenhagen and Fredriksberg Communes), all of Copenhagen County, and Birkerød and Hørsholm Communes in Fredriksberg County. After 1950, the metropolis comprised the central city’s municipalities as well as Copenhagen, Frederiksborg and Roskilde County. Theoretically, the chapter argues that the capital metropolis constitutes an urban region. There is a consensus in the research literature that an urban region can be defined as an urban system that is functionally coherent and integrated across political-administrative and jurisdictional frameworks and as a network with real capital, labour, goods, services, information, culture and ideologies that integrates functionally diverse urban entities. With the capital city’s functionally diverse urban units, holiday villages, as leisure settlements, serve as an interaction point for the metropolis’ population, and, together with associated occupations, develop a special urban functionality.9 Method and sources

The methodological approach is guided by the chapter’s stated purpose. The analysis of the spread of holiday villages in the Danish capital metropolis’ open land is based on a study that was published in 2021. The motives behind the central government’s legislation of culture, leisure and recreational policy are included in the analysis of the position of outdoor recreation within the Danish welfare state. Accompanying justifications for legislative proposals and debates in the Danish parliament, which were published in Rigsdagstiden up to 1953, and in Folketingstiende thereafter, are also included. Linking the position of outdoor recreation to the contemporary spread of holiday villages reveals a tension between the individual leisure settlements and the welfare state’s strategies for providing outdoor recreation to the general public. The analysis of the welfare state’s handling of the conflict is based on legislation and the implementation carried out by local and national nature conservation authorities and later by the capital metropolis’ regional municipal authority – the Capital Metropolis Council. This includes printed documents published by these authorities, as well as archival material from the Frederiksberg City Archives.10 The rural life of the privileged – the time before 1918 Right up until the first decades of the twentieth century, only the upper strata of society had the privilege of leisure time and holidays, as well as the economic possibility to spend these resources on summer stays outside of the capital city. Beginning in the seventeenth century, the royal family and the court moved from the increasingly densely built and fortress-enclosed Copenhagen out to the summer palaces in the capital’s uplands during the summer period.

168  Henning Bro

Figure 9.1  Shipowner A.P. Møller’s summer house directly next to Udsholt Strand (­Kattegat coast) around 1920. Source: Gribskov Arkiv. Photographer: unknown

First, they went to Frederiksborg Castle in Hillerød, later Frederiksberg Castle, just outside the city ramparts; then, they went to the newer North Zealand castles in Hørsholm and Fredensborg. From the end of the eighteenth century and into the first half of the following century, the most prosperous bourgeoisie and the provincial landowners with mansions in Copenhagen followed suit and built a large number of country estates in the capital’s northern upland area and in Frederiksberg. With the breakthrough of industrial capitalism in the second half of the nineteenth century, an urban class society formed that comprised blue-collar workers, white-collar workers and a new upper class of manufacturers, wholesalers, shipowners, large contractors and civil servants. In addition to huge differences in income and working conditions, as well as in housing and living conditions, the class divisions were reflected in unequal access to leisure time and holidays. Leisure time was a privilege that, right up until a bit after the turn of the twentieth century, only the upper classes enjoyed. They used it for sociability and participation in the culture, sport and outdoor recreation that Copenhagen had to offer, all of which was initially reserved for the most well-off. The villa, on the other hand, formed the framework for the upper classes’ daily family life. Villas were one of the new forms of housing at that time, and they became the optimal setting for the nuclear families isolated from production and working life. They arose as part of a backlash against industrialism, the densification of urban space and Copenhagen’s incipient transformation into a capital metropolis.

The conflict-filled holiday village 169 The villa thus expressed a trend of the time: longing for a life in or surrounded by the outdoors, with access to fresh air and light. The villa also became the way in which the upper classes transferred the housing framework for summer country life to the upland area of the early capital metropolis. This first occurred in the form of stately villas that spread out along a narrow belt up along the Øresund coast, from Hellerup in the south to Helsingør in the north. The southern part of this summer villa belt became a catalyst for well-off suburbs between Hellerup and Rungsted, but west of Helsingør the spread further along the Kattegat coast to Hornbæk.11 The first summer home boom – the inter-war period and the 1940s While industrialization continued and the economy expanded in the interwar period and the 1940s, wider sections of society acquired the socio-economic leeway for an organized leisure time. This was the reason why, with 7,000 new summer homes, the period represented the first summer-home boom in the capital metropolis’ open upland. Among the metropolis’ diverse urban units, the holiday villages became a new and popular phenomenon. The development of holiday villages

All of the summer homes were located around the coastal area on the outskirts of the capital metropolis. There, they took the form of two long belts of holiday villages: one belt followed North Zealand’s coastline from Helsingør to Hundested for over 50 km, where good byroads led from the main roads further inland and to the North Zealand side network. The other belt originated at Køge Bay and stretched for over 30 km from Avedøre up to Jersie Strand. This belt became more accessible after the establishment of a new main road along the bay in the middle of the 1930s. Aside from these two main belts, smaller holiday villages arose in the capital metropolis’ open upland along stretches of the coast and fjord: one on Amager’s southern edge out to Køge Bay, one out to the Isefjord coast at Kulhuse in Hornsherred and one at Strøby on Nordstevns on the southern coast of Køge Bay. Just as the expanding welfare city was socially segregated into individual districts and suburbs, so too was the case for summer-home villages in the metropolis’ upland. With attractive coastal stretches and landscapes at Kattegat, property prices became so high that the summer-home village belt was predominantly restricted to the upper class. It was the opposite at Køge Bay, where parts of the coastline either were overgrown with reed forests or had narrow sandy beaches. The price of land was so low that this part of the holiday village belt was settled by white-collar workers and other people with moderate income. Since the older settlements (fishing houses and country villages) located close to the cottage towns had grocery stores and often some craft businesses, no specific urban service functions were attached to the North Zealand holiday villages

170  Henning Bro

Figure 9.2 With the increasingly widespread private motoring, ‘foreign elements’ mixed in the bourgeois idyll. Large crowds flocked to the coast’s bathing beaches, for which the public acquired land. The parking lot by the beach at Tisvildeleje sometime in the mid-1950s. Source: Gribskov Arkiv. Photographer: unknown

during the period. On the other hand, the holiday villages at Køge Bay formed the basis for establishing smaller grocery stores and craft businesses down along the Køge Landevej.12 The early welfare state and leisure, culture and outdoor recreation

As the early welfare state in the interwar period provided social planning and regulation of production on a wider scale, culture and leisure gradually became one of the supporting pillars of the welfare system. With the increase in leisure time available to the working class and lower officials, the democratization of social life was seen as a step towards increasing equality. This took the form of a more even distribution and a greater scope of leisure and cultural offerings, in order to give people from a broad range of social strata the opportunity for a substantive and elevating experience of leisure. Most of the welfare citizens, however, lived in multistorey buildings and did not have access to their own gardens or allotment houses. For this part of the population, outdoor recreation was directed to the capital’s public parks and the extensive natural areas of the northern suburbs. Recreation areas invited children and young people to make more active use of nature for scouting, cycling and hiking, camping and other athletic activities. An active outdoor life formed the basis of a number of organizations: the Danish

The conflict-filled holiday village 171 Scout Corps (1910), and later similar corps formations, Lejrklubben Danmark (1926),13 Herbergsringen and Dansk Vandrelaug (1930) and the Outdoor Council (1942), which served as an umbrella organization for all outdoor, nature and youth organizations. Outdoor recreation thus had an aspect of cultural elevation and was therefore incorporated into the early welfare state’s pillar of culture and leisure. Providing recreational areas became an independent welfare goal, not just for central Copenhagen and the larger market towns but also in the upland area of the capital metropolis.14 Conflict of interest

Providing recreation was a central goal of the governing social democratic party of the interwar period and the 1940s. Already at the implementation of the Nature Conservation Act in 1917, spokesman A.C. Meyer had stated: To give the Danish population greater access to what is Danish, and not to reserve it exclusively for private individuals, and in this high season of egoism that we live in [. . .] it seems to me that even when it comes to traffic rights and nature conservation in the narrowest sense, you must demand that the interests of the public take precedence over those of private individuals. He continued: ‘A limitation of property rights is probably intended here, but really all property rights should have a limitation’.15 In 1937, when the Nature Conservation Act underwent a significant expansion, fellow social democrat Bolholdt took up a similar thread: It is our task to make this Denmark accessible to the people, to link the people and the land as closely as possible. [. . .] Every summer day and during the holidays, thousands of people go to the forest and the beach, and it is a very important task to provide this population with access to our country’s natural resources. It is therefore natural that the state and municipality take the lead in opening up access to uncultivated land.16 Prime Minister Stauning added that ‘[n]ature can become the people’s refuge for physical development and for the general improvement of health and culture even more’.17 These statements contrasted sharply with the contemporary construction of summer houses around the capital metropolis and its upland area. This was especially visible on the outskirts of the metropolis, where the upper-class summer houses occupied most of Kattegat’s coastline, and at Køge Bay, where the ­middle-class and lower bourgeoisie’s holiday villages spread over the nearby beach areas. The villas along the Øresund had exclusive access to the coast, and in the hinterland, the suburban villas were closing in on the forests, lake and marsh areas of Nordengen. This created a risk not only of blocking off access

172  Henning Bro to former recreational areas but also of destroying the natural resources that lay adjacent to these areas. There was a conflict of interest between the welfare state’s ambition to improve the living conditions of the least privileged, and the more well-off groups’ desire for individual and exclusive holiday homes. In the early welfare state nature conservation, legislation and land acquisitions for recreational areas came to act in the public interest. Early conservation planning

While nature conservation legislation initially led to patchy conservation of Denmark’s most valuable and vulnerable natural areas, the increasingly central position of outdoor recreation from the 1920s led to the application of relevant legislation. Meanwhile, public land acquisition was redirected to a generally recreational and regional purpose. Public beach parks were opened at the exclusive Øresund beach between Charlottenlund and Klampenborg, and a wide walking path was established along the coast connecting the fashionable upper-class villas in Skovshoved. This central position of outdoor recreation was also the reason why the government instructed the Regional Planning Committee, set up in 1928, to prepare a draft for regional recreational areas in the capital metropolis’s upland. This assignment led to the Regional Planning Committee presenting the so-called Green Report in 1935, which proposed very extensive land allocations for public recreation. Specifically, the proposal recommended the partial conservation of extensive areas forming a connection between Nord- and Nordvestegnen’s large forest, lake and bog areas. Green belts in the flat and more rural Vestegn were also included in the Green Report. The document also introduced a finely meshed system of roads and footpaths that were to connect the various recreational areas with the central parts of the capital metropolis. With the Green Report, changes were made to the Nature Conservation Act and other legislation which in 1939 led to the establishment of the country’s first conservation planning committee. This committee, using the Green Report as a basis, was able to present a conservation plan the following year. The document concerned all properties in a large area, as it prevented further development until a local conservation board had decided on necessary conservation measures. Following the conservation plan from 1940, the regional recreational areas on the Nord- and Nordvestegnen and at Køge Bay, which were included in the Green Report, were established in the 1940s and into the first half of the 1950s. Although the conservation plan bypassed Vestegnen, it still represented a significant expansion of the public’s access to very significant outdoor areas. The conservation plan put a decisive stop to any summer home developments in the Nord- and Nordvestegnen or Vestegnen. The restrictions on the Køge Bay area, however, were of greatest importance in stopping the further spread of

The conflict-filled holiday village 173 holiday villages. Here, the general public was guaranteed the right to access and enjoy the beaches, and all undeveloped areas were kept free of development as public beaches and parks. These areas also provided opportunities for staying outdoors, particularly in the form of camping sites. On the other hand, as no regulations covered the rest of north-east Zealand, the spread of holiday villages could continue in this area. This applied to the summer-home village belt not only at Kattegat but also along Roskilde Fjord and on Hornsherred, where an influx of larger summer-home villages began to take shape in the landscape.18 The great summer home boom – the early post-war period A new expansion of holiday villages occurred in the first post-war period. With the additional free time, increase in income, greater consumption and private motoring, the conditions were right for a veritable summer home boom. This boom took the form of 40,000 new summer houses between 1950 and 1973. This was made possible by the formation of new holiday villages and by a vast expansion of existing older ones.

Figure 9.3 A typical summer house village around 1970. Dronning Mølle, by the Kattegat. On the right of the picture, you can see a part of the green wedges between the hinterland and the coast, which were created by the conservation planning at the Kattegat. Gribskov Arkiv. Photographer: unknown.

174  Henning Bro The growing pains of the summer-home villages

While the holiday village belt along Køge Bay was absorbed into the radial suburban belt that had developed in the interwar period, the 23 older summer-home villages on the attractive Kattegat coast expanded to such an extent that they came to comprise more than half of the period’s summer houses. As property prices were particularly high in this area, its character as a leisure settlement reserved for the upper class was upheld. Gradually, the smaller summer houses coalesced in three older and greatly expanded summer-home villages, while 45 new ones were located in other coastal areas of the capital metropolis. Of these, the coastal belt along the north and east sides of Roskilde Fjord was the closest to the metropolis; here, seven holiday villages were established, mainly for the better-off citizens among the white-collar workers and the less independent, while Hornsherred came to include 20 holiday villages. With its less-attractive coasts and lower land prices, Hornsherred’s summer homes attracted the less affluent white-collar population and, to a certain extent, also skilled workers. Even though a wider breadth of social groups gained access to the metropolis’ holiday villages, they still represented those parts of the population that had an income that could cover both a permanent residence and a holiday home, as well as the private car that was a prerequisite for accessing the outskirts of the metropolis. The holiday villages were spreading in ever longer and wider concentric layers of buildings, along the coast and into the hinterland. In the small- and medium-sized villages, the holiday villages covered a few hundred meters both along the banks and into the hinterland. In the larger developments, the buildings extended for over a kilometre both along the coastline and inland. Business-wise, the spread of holiday villages far from existing urban settlements generally encouraged the development of new, independent businesses. Some summer-home villages contained only a grocery store, a milk outlet or a small supermarket, while the large ones had various types of retail trade and craft businesses. In addition, these places could contain a nursery, a number of small workshops and entertainment sites. In addition to the seaside hotels, holiday and summer camps that were already in business, new hostels and amusement facilities also emerged in the post-war period.19 The universal welfare state and outdoor recreation

The universalist welfare state of the earlier post-war period promoted a massive expansion of the welfare system, improving the instruments for social regulation and planning. As a part of this process, the culture and leisure pillar of the state consolidated its central position. The success of this project was first realized in the establishment of the Ministry of Culture in 1961, and since then by the establishment of special cultural and leisure administrations in Denmark’s larger urban municipalities, as well as through the allocation of funds from both

The conflict-filled holiday village 175 state and municipal budgets for cultural and leisure purposes. The first minister of Culture, Social Democrat Julius Bomholt, had stated that ‘An effective cultural democracy’ must be created by ‘supporting the creative intellectual life’ and ‘ensuring the individual member of society’s access to culture’.20 The objectives of culture and leisure policies had their roots in the Social Democrats’ visions from the interwar period. These visions, with minor adjustments, continued to assert themselves through the post-war period and came to include both public support for artistic and cultural productions21 and their dissemination through various channels.22 In this context, equal access to outdoor recreation was maintained as a supporting element of the culture and leisure pillar that supported the universal welfare state. During this period, the organization Danish Camp Sports was transformed into the powerful Danish Camping Union. As an organization, it facilitated its members’ camping experience, but it also demanded larger areas for both mobile and stationary camping. For both the labour movement’s own holiday organization (Dansk Folkeferie) and the trade unions, the extensive holiday villages gradually became attractive as holiday destinations.23 The conflict of interest sharpens

Post-war efforts to provide additional regional recreation areas and land for outdoor activities, like camping, that were financially affordable for as broad a range of social groups as possible sharpened the contradiction between these welfare goals on the one hand and individual residential preferences and the simultaneous spread of the capital metropolis on the other hand. This conflict became most evident in the open land where summer-home villages spread not only along increasingly large parts of the undeveloped coastal stretches but also into the natural areas of the hinterland. An obvious conflict arose between the interests of the leisure settlements, which served that small section of society that could afford a summer house, and the universalist welfare state’s growing need for space and land for expanding possibilities for outdoor recreation. Together with the continued industrialization of the period, this increased the pressure on the open land of the metropolis itself. The radial suburban bands had grown from the inner concentric suburban layers in lengths of 30–40 km; gradually, they met and merged with the surrounding ring of the market towns Helsingør, Hillerød, Frederikssund, Roskilde and Køge. This market ring saw significant urban growth. Commuter satellite towns also began to form outside the market ring and between the suburbs that had resulted from the rising house prices in the inner parts of the capital metropolis. This urban process, together with the spread of holiday villages, significantly threatened the existing and potential recreational areas around the metropolis, as well as those that contained significant natural and cultural-historical value. The welfare state had to balance the general public’s access to the largest possible

176  Henning Bro outdoor space with the legitimate interests of the summer house owners and the land requirements that came with the growth of the capital metropolis.24 Extended conservation planning

In the capital metropolis, this balancing act led to a distinctive division of spatial planning. This took the form of district planning within the built-up areas of the metropolis with the intention of limiting urban growth to the suburban bands and areas around the market ring and commuter satellite towns; within these, the planning was also to address the distribution of building types (industry, different types of housing) and traffic lines. It was partly a coordinated and expanded conservation plan and was also meant to address the disposition of public land with a view to directing the use of the open land for recreational purposes. While district planning constituted one of the period’s new forms of planning, regional planning regarding the open land continued on the same track that had already been laid down in the interwar period and the 1940s. Through an amendment to the Nature Conservation Act, conservation plan committees were established in all of Denmark’s county municipalities. The one for the large regional area encompassed by the capital metropolis now included the whole of Northeast Zealand. Throughout the 1960s, this conservation plan committee drew up six conservation plans and plan proposals, which were largely implemented in the remaining part of the post-war period. With protections in place along the north and east sides of Roskilde Fjord, it was possible to prevent the larger holiday villages from growing together into a unified built-up area similar to the Kattegat coast’s holiday village belt. The holiday villages thus came to constitute a limited urban formation, both in relation to the coastline and the hinterland and with the open and freely accessible stretches of coast between them. At the same time, conservation areas secured significant outdoor areas in the beautiful and hilly fjord landscape. The same result was achieved in Hornsherred using a similar conservation strategy, whereby the peninsula’s 20 holiday villages, as contained urban formations, were distributed along the peninsula’s two surrounding fjords. As a result of the layout of the beach area along the Isefjord, however, with a greater concentration on the eastern part of the peninsula than along the west side of Roskilde Fjord, the protections also secured unique natural and cultural-­historical ­landscapes at Kulhuse, Selsø, Bramsnæs and Lejre Vig. Recreational areas were opened to the public in a similar way as in the belt that stretched from Hornsherred southeast towards Køge. The belt included summer house developments to an extremely limited extent, but its forest areas were significant. As a result of the protections, the landscape up to and between the forests was secured, thereby creating a large and more coherent outdoor recreation area. In addition to the extensive recreational areas that arose as a result of conservation efforts and other public land acquisition, parts of the protected areas that

The conflict-filled holiday village 177 were linked to the holiday villages often provided various forms of alternative leisure settlement for the social groups that did not have the financial power to acquire summer houses. These included colonies with small cabins for various associations, campsites laid out by the non-profit Danish Camping Union as well as private organizations and holiday villages with small houses and common rooms for various activities, which were supported by the labour movement. The concluding arrangement – the later post-war period Although significant gains were made in the earlier post-war period in terms of the spread and more varied social character of the holiday villages, they were achieved only in the areas that were subject to conservation plans or those that were protected or acquired by the public in some other way. Outside these areas, however, the planning and regulation possibilities remained limited, and the risk of the holiday villages’ further spread remained considerable. Many existing holiday villages were thus located in smaller rural municipalities, where urban planning legislation could not be applied and to which the so-called town development plans only extended later. Plans, which were one of district planning’s most important instruments, determined areas that could be built on in an urban fashion, as well as those that had to be kept free of development. Undeveloped areas that could only be laid out as holiday villages only existed to a limited extent. The welfare state’s new planning strategy

Significant gaps existed in both local and regional planning; however, these were closed in 1974. After that, binding regional plans were drawn up for the municipalities. In the majority of the country, this was done by the larger county municipalities, which had been established with an expanded remit after the municipal reform in 1970, and in the capital metropolis by the regional municipal body, the Capital Metropolis Council, which was formed four years later.25 In 1972, the social democratic government resolved to ‘implement an active recreational policy [that would] promote the establishment of so-called nature parks around the country’.26 During the later post-war period, the Capital Metropolis Council’s departure point when setting out binding guidelines for the municipalities in cases of local urban planning, land acquisitions and construction works was to create and develop regional outdoor areas and landscapes that were rich in experiences. The regional outdoor areas were concentrated in the inner part of the capital metropolis and were implemented by extending the green wedges between the suburban belts, transversely connecting the green belts, as well as by the construction of a large beach park at Køge Bay. Based on previous conservation efforts and public land acquisitions, a larger system of experience-rich landscapes with special excursion centres, which provided the option of shorter

178  Henning Bro

Figure 9.4 Karlstrup Strand, 1940. In contrast to summer house villages by the Kattegat, the cottages were modest and for the middle class in the summer house towns by Køge Bay.

stays, as well as educational information and leaflets about the special natural and cultural-historical features that characterized each of these landscapes, was formed in the open upland of the metropolis. Finally, a widely branched regional greenway was constructed, connecting all of the capital city’s recreational areas and built-up parts. A central focal point in the Capital Metropolis Council’s comprehensive regional planning regarding the capital metropolis’s open land was the past and potential spread of holiday villages. This issue received so much attention from the government that the Capital Metropolis Council’s provisions were guided by a series of benchmarks handed down by the central government that were set out throughout the 1970s.27 The central government’s benchmarks

On the basis of detailed studies, it was established in 1970 that Denmark’s existing holiday villages possessed enough undeveloped land for a further 80,000 summer houses, but, given an estimated annual construction of 8,000 summer houses, this land would be used up by the start of the new decade. With this projected expansion of existing holiday villages, a future expansion posed a serious threat to the value and recreational use of the coastal landscape. For the Kattegat

The conflict-filled holiday village 179 coast, the study predicted long, contiguous holiday villages along Denmark’s coastlines and into the hinterlands, which would thereby be closed off to other forms of outdoor recreation and deprived of their considerable natural value. This scenario and the active recreation policy launched in 1972 became clear expressions of the government’s wish that measures be taken against the spread of holiday villages to coastal areas, so that ‘people who cannot afford a hotel stay or a summer house can come there, too’.28 The contrast between the individual forms of outdoor settlement, represented by the summer houses, and the welfare state’s concern for the broader population’s opportunities to enjoy outdoor recreation, and possibly to stay outdoors during their leisure time, was at play once again. Based on the culture and leisure pillar of the welfare system, the welfare state chose to intervene in this conflict again, but this time with more effective means to prioritize the general view of the outdoors over individual ones. The basis for the government’s aspiration was that ‘various changes in the law are first implemented to strengthen society’s understanding of land use in the open land and in areas of importance for the recreational interests of the population’.29 This resulted in legislation and central administrative regulations that aimed to contain the spread of holiday villages and provide alternative forms of leisure settlement. State benchmarks influenced the Capital Metropolis Council’s planning regarding the recreational use of open land, which also came to include leisure settlements. The containment of holiday village sprawl

As early as the government’s presentation of the active recreation policy in 1972, the Ministry of Housing30 was empowered to ensure that summer houses could only be built on undeveloped land in existing holiday villages. The goal was to utilize the full capacity of these holiday villages in order to limit the need for additional new summer houses.31 This was the prerequisite for the Capital Metropolis Council to incorporate a ban on the expansion of existing summer houses and the construction of new ones throughout the capital metropolis in the 1973 Regional Plan. The Regional Plan was a very radical planning intervention intended to confront the spread of holiday villages, which threatened to spread further across the capital metropolis’ limited coastlines, landscapes and generally accessible recreational areas. On the basis of government circulars from 1978 and 1981,32 the Capital Metropolis Council incorporated provisions into the regional planning that were intended to ensure that existing holiday villages were maintained as such.33 They were not to be converted into year-round residential areas, and their recreational value had to be secured through the municipal and local plans of the primary municipalities.34 Legislation from 1983 worked in the same direction, which meant that any illegal year-round occupancy of summer houses that

180  Henning Bro had not obtained a personal municipal dispensation had to be resolved within a two-year period. If the illegalities continued, they would be brought before the courts to face fines or, in the worst case, eviction.35 The aim of these interventions was to maintain a certain volume of holiday homes because it was not possible to expand the existing or construct new ones. In order to maintain the character of the holiday villages and at the same time ensure the safety of their surrounding recreational areas, the Capital Metropolis Council laid out a 3-km-wide coastal zone along the Kattegat coast, Roskilde Fjord and the east coast of the Isefjord. Within this coastal zone, a ban was placed on the establishment of new facilities, including the construction of new buildings and expansion of existing facilities and buildings for holiday and leisure purposes. Exceptions could be made, however, as long as the public’s access to the coast was not impaired, for summer homes in existing holiday villages and for the sake of promoting alternative forms of leisure settlement, such as the establishment of holiday centres and extensions of existing ones, as well as campsites.36 Alternative leisure settlements

Other provisions were completely in line with the priorities expressed in 1972 as part of the government’s active recreational policy, according to which it would ‘seek to provide alternatives to the traditional summer house development’. To this end, in the same year, the government implemented legislation on the acquisition of real estate for leisure purposes, whereby the opportunities the public had to acquire large areas of land for these purposes improved through pre-emption rights and expropriation powers. In order to secure the financial basis of these rights, the legislation also made state funds available for the acquisition of land for holiday centres, campsites, allotment gardens and so on. The funds could be used for direct government loans to county municipalities, the Capital Metropolis Council or non-profit companies to purchase land for this purpose.37 Out of consideration for the public and non-profit organizations’ ability to acquire land for alternative forms of leisure settlement, the Ministry of Housing was also equipped with powers to prevent the acquisition of such land by private companies, other associations, private institutions, foundations and endowments.38 Since the legislation on the acquisition of real estate for leisure purposes was a fulfilment of an aspiration that the labour movement and the Danish Camping Club (later the Danish Camping Union) had already formulated in the 1930s, it was also seen by the social democratic governing party as an essential element in the further development of the welfare state’s culture and leisure pillar. It was thus emphasized that both the law itself and the overall perspective towards nature conservation legislation were expressions of an active recreational policy with the social aim of providing the general public with a framework for a real leisure and outdoor life. Within this framework, the allotment garden, the

The conflict-filled holiday village 181 campsite and the holiday centre were alternatives to the summer house, which not everyone could afford. In order to further strengthen this welfare objective, according to the circular from 1978, the Capital Metropolis Council and the other county municipalities had to consider whether and how those parts of existing holiday villages that had already been planned, but not developed, could be used for other purposes that required less land, such as campsites, holiday villages, holiday centres and so on. As a part of this goal, additional state funds were also set aside for the establishment of holiday villages. With government funds from the 1970s for alternative public leisure settlements, the Capital Metropolis Council was able to provide support for the municipalities on the Kattegat coast, as well as Vallø Municipality at Strøby Strand, to purchase significant tracts of land for this purpose.39 In addition, state support was provided to establish a holiday centre at Karlslunde Strand and to replace the older colony of holiday cabins in Gilbjerg Huse with a new and much larger holiday centre.40 The Danish state and the extended welfare city, represented by the Capital Metropolis Council, thus intervened on behalf of the large group of welfare citizens who could not afford to buy private holiday homes. Implementation by the Capital Metropolis Council

In addition to providing loans for various kinds of non-profit leisure settlements, the Capital Metropolis Council’s most important task in this regard was to reserve the land necessary for leisure purposes. Its regional planning thus incorporates guidelines for the location of allotment areas. It was emphasized that existing allotment garden areas should be preserved and that, in the event of closure, replacement areas should be provided. Moreover, three types of allotment gardens were designated for the municipalities to use as a basis for the establishment of new allotment garden areas in municipal and local planning. The different types of allotment garden areas were mostly found in the inner part of the capital metropolis, where the concentration of high-rise buildings was high and where, for welfare policy reasons, there was the greatest need to give the local population access to the outdoor experience that an allotment garden provided. Out in the open areas of the metropolis, regional planning also designated a further 13 areas for new campsites. Of these, half were established in connection with holiday villages. In order to protect the heavily exploited coastline at Øresund and Kattegat, however, the regional planning determined that no new port facilities could be created there for leisure purposes. Nevertheless, since dinghy sailing and more modest yachts could serve as an alternative form of outdoor recreation, guidelines were given for the expansion of existing, and the establishment of new, harbour facilities in coastal areas in the densely built-up inner parts of the capital metropolis along Køge Bay and by Roskilde Fjord and Isefjorden.41

182  Henning Bro Following the state’s requirement to use undeveloped parts of existing holiday villages for alternative kinds of leisure settlements, the Capital Metropolis Council finally designated nine so-called ‘areas of interest’ for this purpose: two on Hornsherred’s Isefjord coast, three on part of the peninsula at Roskilde Fjord, one next to the same fjord between Frederikssund and Frederiksværk and one each in Liseleje, Asserbo and Tisvildeleje, respectively.42 Although not all areas were used for this purpose, the Capital Metropolis Council in most cases succeeded in its negotiations with the municipalities, the state and the local landowners. They were most successful in the not-yet-­ developed parts of Vieholmgård’s land in Tisvildeleje. These were purchased by the state and Helsinge Municipality with support from the Capital Metropolis Council and were organized by the three public actors into a large area accessible to the public. A nature school and a hostel were located here; later, they became part of the same area’s Saint Helens’ Leisure and Learning Centre (Sankt Helenes Ferie- og Kursuscenter), which offered the rental of holiday apartments, family rooms and cabins in a large leisure resort with various types of activities. In several of the other areas of interest, the state, with the help of the Capital Metropolis Council, bought up quite significant tracts of land. These were opened to the public and used for smaller camping sites, cabin rental, a nature school and mooring for small boats.43 Conclusion This chapter has shown how a veritable summer house wave swept over Denmark in the earlier post-war period. White-collar workers and, to a lesser extent, skilled workers now had the opportunity to become summer homeowners. In the post-war period, 40,000 summer houses were built in 71 holiday villages in Copenhagen’s outermost upland at the Kattegat, the north and east sides of Roskilde Fjord and on Hornsherred’s coastal stretches out to both Roskilde Fjord and Isefjorden. The welfare city of Copenhagen was expanding beyond its limits, in the form of affluent urban citizens acquiring land and property for themselves in the most attractive upland areas. This was a result of Copenhagen’s transformation into a capital metropolis, as well as shorter working hours and longer holidays. In the interwar period, the outdoors became an opportunity to get away from the fast-growing metropolis and its hectic and often stereotyped work and family life. Spending time outdoors in a holiday village became one of the possibilities for a somewhat wider social class but was still reserved for those with higher incomes. As a result of the ever-increasing spread of holiday villages during the interwar period and especially into the post-war period, they came into conflict with the need for accessible recreational areas so that the general public could enjoy the outdoors. The chapter sees this tension as a conflict between the individual’s full use of personal freedom and society’s broader interests. In this conflict, the

The conflict-filled holiday village 183 emerging welfare state increasingly took the side of public interest and thus for the general public’s access to and residence in the recreational areas in the capital metropolis’s open land, which was being threatened to an ever-greater extent by the metropolis’s expansion at that time. The chapter has demonstrated how the Danish state, in cooperation with the capital’s municipalities, in 1940 launched a conservation plan to promote the establishment of open recreation. The plan managed to slow down the spread of the holiday village belt at Køge Bay, as well as other summer house developments within the area covered by the plan. The provisions were conditioned by the spread of the metropolis and the scarcity of recreational areas for the general population, but they initially bypassed the holiday village belt that had spread along the Kattegat coast. This part of North Zealand was not yet considered part of the capital city. Here, the spread of holiday villages could continue without a plan, as the local municipalities did not have sufficient planning powers or were reluctant to use them. While the first post-war district planning was established for the metropolis area, conservation planning eventually became coordinated with district planning and ran in parallel with regional plans. Comprehensive conservation plans and publicly funded conservation efforts in the 1960s and 1970s thus became instruments to provide additional recreational areas and contain the spread of holiday villages throughout the open country of the metropolis. Even if conservation planning only covered a small part of this area and did not address the spread of holiday villages outside the areas covered by conservation plans or public ownership, it made a decisive contribution to containing the spread of holiday villages in the parts of the open catchment of the metropolis where it was most urgently needed. Primdahl’s very critical position on the earlier post-war regional planning is thus not visible in this chapter. On the other hand, the chapter clarifies the importance that the regional planning of open land had for the later post-war showdown regarding the spread of summer cottage towns. This relationship brings nuance to Primdahl’s criticism of the Danish planning history and echoes the observations from the publication about the summer house areas by the Limfjorden. The chapter shows that the showdown became a reality in the open upland area of the capital city during the 1970s and 1980s, where the level of regional governing and planning had been strengthened after the municipal reform in 1970. It led to the formation of larger county municipalities with greatly expanded remits and a special regional municipal body for the capital metropolis: the Capital Metropolis Council. The welfare state’s ambition to carry out an active recreational policy was based on a powerful expansion of publicly accessible recreational areas, a limitation on the spread of holiday villages in these areas and the provision of alternative forms of leisure settlement for the part of the population that could not afford a summer house. Significant welfare goals were supported by state funds, but practical matters were left to the regional level. The task of the welfare city authorities was to implement and interpret the rules and regulations. In the

184  Henning Bro capital metropolis, the Capital Council’s ban on the expansion of an outlay of new holiday homes was implemented in order to maintain the character of previous holiday villages as such, as well as to reserve land for not only alternative but also non-profit leisure settlements such as allotment gardens, campsites and holiday villages and centres. With the recreational provisions that the Danish welfare state made in the interwar and post-war periods, the chapter supports the international research literature’s argument that the containment of holiday villages was most far-­ reaching and progressive in Scandinavia. The Danish provisions in relation to the spread of holiday villages admittedly lagged somewhat behind compared with the corresponding Swedish ones, but they were both of a more intrusive nature than those implemented at the same time in Norway. Notes 1 Line Vestergaard Knudsen, ed., Væk fra hverdagen: Sommerhuse ved Limfjorden (Aalborg: Aalborg Universitetsforlag, 2017); Henning Bro, “Sommerhusbyen. ­Sommerhusbyer i mellem- og efterkrigstidens hovedstadsmetropol,” Metropol no. 1 (2021). 2 Dahlkild, Nan, Fra sommervilla til feriehytte: Om århundredskiftets og mellemkrigstidens fritidsbebyggelser (Køpenhavn: Dansk Byplanlaboratorium, 1991); Juul Møller, Elith, and Poul Strømstad, Sommerhuset – fødsel og opvækst (Køpenhavn: Dansk Byplanlaboratorium, 1992); Nan Dahlkild, ed., Sommerlandets arkitektur: drømmen om det gode liv (Køpenhavn: Museum Tusculanum, 2018); Arne Gaardmand, Plan over Land: Dansk byplanlægning 1938–1992 (Nykøbing: Bogværket, 2016), 32; Gunther Tress, “Development of Second-Home Tourism in Denmark,” Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, no. 2 (2002): 109–22. 3 Hans Helge Madsen, Skæv og national. Dansk byplanlægning 1830 til 1938 (Køpenhavn: Bogværket, 2009), 148–255; Vestergaard Knudsen, Væk fra hverdagen, 14–17. 4 Vestergaard Knudsen, Væk fra hverdagen, 26–27, In the same work, the authorities’ regulatory and planning measures in relation to the proliferation of holiday homes are discussed. 5 Inge Alstrup et al., Arkitektonisk planlægning i by og landskab (Køpenhavn: Dansk Byplanlaboratorium, 2012), 12–14. 6 Tress, “Development of Second-Home Tourism in Denmark,” 117. 7 J. T. Coppock, Second Homes: Curse or Blessing? (Oxford: Pergamon, 1977), 11–12, 35–46, 155–64; Dieter K. Müller, “Second Homes in the Nordic Countries: Between Common Heritage and Exclusive Commodity,” Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 7, no. 3 (2007): 194–98. 8 With the abolition of the Capital Metropolis Council (see the following), collective regional planning in the capital metropolis ceased. In the years 1990–1999, it gradually passed to the five county units, after which it was raised to the regional level for a short time (2000–2006). Counties were dissolved in the structural reform that began in 2007; thus, all forms of regional planning were also dissolved, and only continued within primary municipalities according to narrower local interests. 9 Henning Bro, Hovedstadsmetropolen – den danske byregion. Regionale rammebetingelser for det danske hovedstadsområdes funktion som en byregion i perioden 1850– 1990 (Frederiksberg: Frydenlund Academic, 2023), 31–32. 10 Since Frederiksberg Commune was the capital city’s second-largest municipality and, like Copenhagen Commune, was first a market-town municipality before becoming

The conflict-filled holiday village 185 both a county and a primary municipality in 1970, its politicians and officials were represented at the regional decisions that were made in a variety of contexts and forums on behalf of the whole metropolis. These decisions, and their subsequent regional implementations, are thus reflected in a number of case series from central administrations in Frederiksberg Commune. The archives of these administrations have been handed over to and are accessible at the Frederiksberg City Archive. 11 Bro, “Sommerhusbyen,” 48–62. 12 Ibid. 68–125. 13 From 1955 named Dansk Camping Union. 14 Bro, Hovedstadsmetropolen, 315–18. 15 Rigsdagstidende (RDT) 1916/1917, FF, 1235–36. 16 RDT 1936/1937, FF, 2690–91, 2699. 17 RDT 1936/37, FF, 2690–91. 18 The content of the Green Report (Den grønne betænkning) is described in more detail in Henning Bro, “Hovedstadsmetropolen og den grønne betænkning,” in Den grønne metropol: Natur og rekreative områder i Hovedstadsmetropolen efter 1900, ed. Caspar Christiansen (Frederiksberg: Frydenlund Academic, 2016), 168–88. 19 Bro, Sommerhusbyen, 153–233. 20 Biblioteksbetænkningen 1979: Afgivet af Bibliotekskommissionen (København: Direktoratet for Statens Indkøb, 1979), 15–16. 21 Among other things in the form of the Danish Arts Foundation, state support for the independent Danish Authors’ Fund, state magazine support, alongside state orchestras, state and municipal support for regional orchestras, as well as support schemes for theatre and film productions. 22 A cultural policy statement issued by the Ministry for Cultural Affairs (1969), 69–222; Biblioteksbetænkningen 1979, 14–22. 23 Dahlkild, Fra sommervilla til feriehytte, 49–54. 24 Bro, Hovedstadsmetropolen, 654. 25 To handle the transfer of the majority of the welfare state’s tasks to the municipal level, Denmark’s almost 1,300 parish and city municipalities and 25 county municipalities were replaced by 275 primary municipalities and 14 county municipalities. The same process changed the division of tasks throughout the public sector. Thus, in addition to national tasks (railways, motorways and highways, higher education, defence and the police and judiciary), the state alone had to carry out the preparation, completion and administration of legislation. Primary and county municipalities were managed through executive orders, circulars, financial reimbursements and block grants. In addition, sector planning became a central state management apparatus. This regional level had to prepare sector plans within the remit assigned to the county municipalities and the Capital Metropolis Council. These had to be approved by the central government and were binding for the primary municipalities and other public actors. 26 This and the preceding quotation, Folketingstidende (FT) 1971/72, TA, 1957–1958. 27 Bro, Sommerhusbyen, 306–28. 28 Quoted after Gaardmand, Plan over Land, 256. 29 Quote in FT 1971/72, TA, 1957–1958. 30 In addition to administration of state support for non-profit housing construction, the Ministry of Housing was assigned central government tasks in relation to local and regional physical planning until the early 1970s. 31 Lovtidende (Lovt.) 1972, 518–20, FT 1971–72, TA, 1953–1970. 32 Ministialtidende 1978, 502–4 and 1981, 714–17. 33 The Regional Plan 1977–1992, 1978, 39–89, 98–101, 110–12, 116–17, 122–23, 128– 29 and 134–37. 34 Ibid.

186  Henning Bro 35 Lovt. 1983, 511–12; Betænkning om helårsbeboelse i sommerhusområder (Køpenhavn: Direktoratet for Statens Indkøb, 1981), §§ 7 and 7a, 9–81. 36 J.nr. 121 I and V–VI and J.nr. 82–11331, III, Sekretariatet, Frederiksberg City Archive. 37 FT 1971/72, TA, 1971–1984, FF, 2746–2749, 3204–3256, 6168–6205 Lovt., 1972, 435–36. 38 Lovt. 1972, 518–20, FT 1971–72, TA, 1953–1970. 39 J.nr. 121 I og V–VI og J.nr. 82–11331, III, Sekretariatet, Frederiksberg City Archive. 40 See, for example, https://dokument.plandata.dk/20_158_APPROVED_1182153462908. pdf https://dokument.plandata.dk/20_209_1550152381887.pdf 41 See, for example, J.nr. 121 XI, 1980, J.nr. 121 X, 1980, J.nr. 121 IV, 1981, and Emneordnede sager, Hovedstadsrådet I, 1986, XII 1989, A 10, Frederiksberg City Archive. 42 Regionsplantillæg 1982, Hovedstadsrådet, 1983, opslag 38, J.nr. 82–11331-I/IV, Sekretariatet, A 10, Frederiksberg City Archive. 43 Regionsplantillæg 1985, opslag 39, 1987, Regionsplanredegørelse 1989/4. Energiforsyning. Miljøbeskyttelse, 1989, 78–81, Emneordnede sager, Hovedstadsrådet IV 1987, A 10 Frederiksberg City Archive.

10 Three types of welfare cities The case of Sweden Heiko Droste

Since their beginnings, urban societies were religious as well as legal communities that encompassed parishioners, citizens and inhabitants with graded participation rights.1 Welfare is part of this urban fabric: it can simply be defined as an expression for the common good, bonum commune. This common good mostly concerned social care for the sick and elderly, as well as for the ‘honourable poor’. It also concerned the city’s defences against intruders and fire. The common good was organized by way of urban institutions, financed and controlled by the magistrate; however, various religious foundations as well as privately organized charity also played a major role. From the eighteenth century onwards, infrastructures such as lights, sanitation and water supply were an important part of this concept of the common good. In Sweden, the engagement with infrastructures increased considerably with the rapid urbanization that occurred in the late nineteenth century, especially in the bigger cities. There were also new urban settlements with different sets of town privileges, mostly following the needs of industrial settlements and the new railway infrastructure. The state did not yet comprehend this welfare as its own task. Nevertheless, the cities’ needs for credit, in particular when it came to investment in infrastructure, were secured by advantageous state loans.2 These investments in welfare were not undisputed. On the contrary, if the common good was to be the guiding principle, did that mean that investments needed to be beneficial for all citizens at the same time in order to be legitimate?3 Another debate concerned the question of whether or not investments should be organized by private companies and investors.4 These debates shaped municipal politics, particularly in the industrialized Northern capital cities. In the early twentieth century, most of these infrastructures were considered to be in the public interest (water, electricity, lights, transport and health care) and thus administered by the respective city councils. However, different civil and religious institutions still played a major role, not least concerning the problem of housing, which had been acute for many decades and remains unsolved today. In this case, the cities eventually favoured private-ownership solutions instead of municipality-driven social housing projects.5 DOI: 10.4324/9781003379232-10

188  Heiko Droste The present volume is about this first type of welfare city.6 Cities focused, in particular, on public infrastructures for industrialized societies with restricted participation rights for the vast majority of the inhabitants. The latter’s interests were mostly taken care of by different popular movements and religious institutions.7 General suffrage was introduced rather late  – and incompletely  – in 1919. It resulted, eventually, in several decades of social-democratic governments. Welfare was increasingly defined as an interest of the state, as it could be used in order to tackle societal problems. Previous undertakings by cities were re-defined or re-invented by the state, which at the same time extended the range of welfare considerably. This process was coeval with the gradual democratization of the evolving industrial society. Important steps forward were taken in 1909 and 1919; however, recipients of poor relief and those who had suffered bankruptcy did not enjoy the right to vote until 1945.8 According to the typology developed by Gøsta Esping-Andersen, this Swedish welfare state can be defined as a social-democratic welfare state, which was typical for the Nordic countries.9 This social-democratic welfare state was universalistic and based on the right to social citizenship. The welfare state intended to de-commodify welfare in order to maximize its equality. Welfare compensations were generous, while individual risks were comprehensively socialized. The welfare provisions were also defamiliarized due to the decision that women should be part of the wage-labour force. The goal was to achieve full employment and maximize citizens’ productivity.10 The starting point of my chapter is that the state decided to leave the organization of welfare in the cities’ and rural municipalities’ hands, where it had already been for centuries. Thus, a second type of welfare city emerged after World War I, one that organized welfare on the local level on behalf of the state. This second type became fully developed after World War II and was both legally and financially administered by the state. It had a major impact on notions of urbanity11 and the constitutional role of cities. As a consequence, welfare cities in post-war Sweden changed both their administrations and their city infrastructures in fundamental ways.12 The implementation of a welfare state will have ‘completely revolutionary effects [. . .] almost as if dynamite had been put under the old urban formations. The old settlements will thus more or less be blown to pieces’.13 In 1957, Hjalmar Mehr, the then president of the Swedish cities’ interest organization Svenska stadsförbundet, predicted that the implementation of the welfare state – which was well under way by that point – would have revolutionary effects on how urban settlements looked after the old structures had been blown to pieces. Mehr seemed to look forward to this revolution with all of its side effects. He foresaw the demolition of almost all Swedish urban centres, which were then rebuilt in the following two decades. In that way, the memory of the

Three types of welfare cities 189 old and poor Sweden was deliberately obliterated. The most well-known example of such ‘revolutionary’ effects on urban architecture is the demolition of central Stockholm (Klarakvarter), where the southern part of Norrmalm gave way to an entirely new city centre. This project had been discussed since the 1920s and the renovations in progress since the early 1950s; its completion is closely linked to Mehr personally, who, as the social-democratic mayor of Stockholm, pushed it through in the 1960s and 1970s.14 The welfare cities of post-war Sweden were built around a hugely amplified administration that could fulfil the needs of the new welfare society, which encompassed social care as well as different kinds of infrastructures. These cities visually represented the ideal of a modernized society, disrupting the traditions and appearances of a country that had been poor for a long time and was perceived as underdeveloped. This notion of the welfare city also applied to the urban centres that were built after World War II in order to organize welfare locally. Most of these new cities never enjoyed official town rights, which did not make any difference from the state’s perspective. The results of this process were rather homogenous, in both a city-building and an administrative perspective.15 There is a distinct spatial understanding underlying the design of welfare cities, in its turn shaping a distinct form of urbanity. The fabric of the second type of welfare city is the result of the implementation of a welfare state, which is inherently urban, as urbanness is the result of a spatial construction of welfare units (Castells). Thus, ‘[the] welfare state in this sense is the welfare city’.16 The state eventually abandoned the universalistic welfare society. Since the 1990s, the re-commodification of welfare services aided by bureaucratic and financial reforms, often subsumed under the umbrella term New Public Management, changed the agency of cities and municipalities once again. These reforms had, in their turn, consequences for the right to welfare as part of the idea of social citizenship. The results of this change are not yet fully discernible but seem to point towards a third type of welfare city, one that once again engages municipal, religious and social institutions: a locally organized civil society, albeit in new ways, which prima facie resemble the first type of welfare city, though with distinct differences. This chapter analyses welfare through its consequences for Sweden’s cities since the middle of the nineteenth century. In what ways, did the implementation of different types of welfare cities shape urbanity in Sweden? The process of developing welfare cities was formed by notions of a science-driven modernization that depended on the country’s industrialization. The changes were discussed both in cities and on the state level. That being said, there was no master plan for the implementation of a welfare state, which in fact took some decades to develop, intellectually as well as physically. In the twentieth century, designs were published in Swedish Government official reports that often did not have an explicit relationship to each other. The chronology of these different attempts to define and implement welfare is

190  Heiko Droste therefore vague, as there is often a considerable gap between the design of welfare solutions and their implementation, which required state resources that were rather limited until the 1950s. The different welfare solutions were also adapted to account for external changes like the introduction of private auto-mobility, which completely changed how cities were designed after World War II. In contemporary as well as scholarly discussions, the term welfare city is seldom employed. When it is, its use is mostly restricted to denoting cities in their role as welfare administrations.17 The concept of the welfare city is not only absent in the historiography of the welfare state, however. There is no museum in all of Sweden that displays the history of the welfare cities or for that matter the welfare state.18 The welfare city stayed outside of academic as well as public interest for a reason, which for the sake of simplicity can be called the state paradigm within Swedish historiography. This paradigm could simply be an accurate description of the state’s unparalleled agency, unquestioned by historians and seemingly even by the cities themselves. It could also be the implicit result of the constitutional changes resulting from the industrialization of an agrarian society with few and mostly small cities that had never played a decisive role in defining the self-image and, thus, the constitutional fabric of Sweden. In academic discourse, the cities’ political interests and their voices are mostly absent in debates about welfare.19 Whereas the Swedish welfare state since World War II is clearly the result of the social-democratic hegemony over Swedish politics, the presumed role of cities for the welfare of Swedish citizens cannot be ascribed to a particularly socialdemocratic way of thinking. In the same way, investments in the first type of welfare city in the late nineteenth century were not simply the result of a certain political ideology. The social-democratic notion of the constitutional role of cities as part of the nation-state has been labelled integrationism.20 Integrationism refers to the integration of cities into the fabric of the state based on their stateassigned functions. From that perspective, only a restricted agency is left in the hands of the cities themselves. Integrationism is thus the answer to the question of whether municipal self-government is about the ability to administer state politics or the freedom to decide for themselves, and consequently how welfare is supposed to work.21 State integrationism was itself initially a conservative concept that had already shaped the first municipal reform in 1862.22 Already in the middle of the nineteenth century, changes in the understanding of welfare services were publicly advocated, with reference to scientific expertise. In the twentieth century, however, these publicly acknowledged scientists aligned their statements regularly with the hegemonic social-democratic understanding of an industrialized nationstate. Historians have labelled these experts ‘social engineers’,23 a metaphor derived from the notion of a democracy that was based on the needs of an industrialized society. These experts not only changed politics; they designed a new state fabric. Up until the twentieth century, they had regularly worked for cities, but after World War I, they mostly went into state services.

Three types of welfare cities 191 This chapter focuses on the constitutional changes that resulted from the implementation of the second type of welfare cities. This constitutional perspective centres the agency of cities within the framework of the nation-state, concerning the cities’ ability to define welfare politics, as well as make welfare work and finance it.24 Politics are not without interest in this debate. However, the constitutional changes described in the following were generally accepted by all political parties, despite political controversies concerning particular decisions. Sweden’s institutional fabric was adjusted to meet the needs of a welfare state that was supposed to guarantee the functioning of an industrialized democracy. The changes resulted in municipal reforms in 1862, 1952, 1971 and 1974. The discussions have continued into the present day and gained public attention once again in the 2020s. The main material for my investigation is a number of official reports by the Swedish government (Statens Offentliga Utredningar – SOU). They were commissioned in order to prepare Sweden’s four municipal reforms in 1862, 1952, 1971/1974 and 2020, addressing the state’s interest in a unified state fabric. These official reports were mostly written by the aforementioned ‘social engineers’, without the direct involvement of cities, despite their right to answer the official report as referral bodies. In focus was the cities’ and rural municipalities’ ability to accomplish the tasks of welfare, which were spelled out by the official reports in detailed calculations. From a long-term perspective, the constitutional role of Swedish cities and municipalities in the twentieth century was increasingly equated with the welfare mission as the state defined it. This focus on urban development as an integral part of the welfare state is not in any way unique to Sweden. Rapid urbanization, driven by the needs of an industrialized economy and followed by the implementation of welfare cities, can be found in other European states, particularly in Northern Europe. The new welfare infrastructure of schools, health care, retirement homes, administration and the like took care of the industrialized workers’ needs, even if ­Esping-Andersen has shown that the rationale behind European welfare systems differed considerably. What seems specific for the Swedish case is the extent and decidedness with which the urban and municipal structures were reshaped and reformulated during the implementation of state welfare. The first municipal reform in 1862 The history of Swedish cities and rural municipalities has been researched rather unevenly, especially for pre-modern times up to the first municipal reform in 1862. Academic and public interest has focused on the rural municipalities that were based on parish communities (socken) dating back to the High Middle Ages. These parish communities had considerable agency regarding local matters as long as they fulfilled their obligations to the state, which was mostly interested in confessional unity, local jurisdiction, taxes and military manpower. Swedish cities had received privileges from the state since the Middle Ages and

192  Heiko Droste were controlled by royal town law (from the fourteenth century) and regional governors. However, the state had less direct influence over urban matters, most likely due to its inability to exert such far-reaching control. In 1862, when both urban and rural municipalities were redefined by the state after decades of liberal reforms of the economic system, the agency of existing local communities in parishes and cities seems to have been unclear in the state’s eyes.25 This uncertainty is reflected in a debate about the question of whether rural and urban communities were public institutions, and thus part of the state, or if they were more like private organizations.26 The answer to this question is less interesting than the fact that the question itself was deemed meaningful. The first municipal reform in 1862 resolved this uncertainty by transforming the local political structures that had been based on parish communities and their political institutions (sockenstämma). The parish communities were split into two communities of equal size. Parish communities themselves continued to exist, but their responsibilities were restricted to church matters; however, well into the twentieth century, this also encompassed schools and child care. The new civil municipalities took over the local administration of infrastructures, fire protection, as well as health and elderly care, although health care and regional infrastructures were transferred to the so-called secondary municipalities (landsting, as of 2020 regioner).27 The local municipalities changed their legal status; priests, in particular, lost an important part of their influence. Up until that point, representation rights had been based on the estates. The reform redefined these participation rights, which from then on were based on taxable income. In that way, the growing group of industrialists gained greater influence. For the most part, though, local representation was marked by personal continuity. Therefore, the municipal reform of 1862 is most often perceived as acknowledging a tradition, according to which local self-government was based on centuries-old institutions. The rights of the existing cities, moreover, were simply re-affirmed since they already held statederived privileges. Nevertheless, this first municipal reform can also be seen as a disruption. All forms of municipal administration received their rights and rules, once again, from the state: ‘as their authority entirely depends on the state’.28 The state, too, defined citizens’ participation rights, thus effectively excluding the vast majority of the municipalities’ inhabitants from active political participation. With the municipal reform in 1862, the state had – in theory – a strong influence over the work of the new municipal organizations, by way of assigning tasks, financing municipal and city projects and exerting control. The municipal reform created a unified nation-state fabric, in which local assemblies found their distinct – integrated – place, although this transformation was not fully achieved before the twentieth century. The goals were clearly defined and gradually deepened; however, they were implemented by a state that lacked the ability or the ambition to govern practical politics on the city level. That created space for agency and resulted in the first type of welfare cities.

Three types of welfare cities 193 In 1862, there existed about 2,400 rural municipalities and 88 cities; these were in most cases very small, with well under 1,000 inhabitants. The preservation of the historical parish structures was deemed so important that the subsequent problems of size were accepted. To organize the ever-new tasks of these municipalities during the processes of industrialization and urbanization, the state granted privileges to new cities and city-like urban settlements, the latter with a limited set of town privileges (mainly köpingar and municipalsamhällen). They were regularly founded at important railway junctions or industrial sites, not least as industrial sites and railway stations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries regularly became the new urban centres. From the state’s perspective, in the 90 years that followed the first municipal reform in 1862, there were only small and slow changes in the ways c­ ities and municipalities were governed. However, Sweden’s late urbanization in the early twentieth century, caused by rapid industrialization, an employment crisis in the agrarian sector and not least the state’s interest in establishing the first basic forms of welfare (such as the folk pension in 1913) created the need for adjustments in the municipal structures. This need became increasingly pressing, in particular after World War I. Voluntary cooperations between rural municipalities to address specific concerns gained momentum in many cases but did not substantially alter municipal structures. Some local communities were amalgamated in order to organize the municipal work in more effective ways. The state did not yet interfere thoroughly with the work of the municipalities. This lack of state agency opened up many opportunities for cities to engage in urban development, particularly when it came to infrastructures, city planning and welfare projects. Åke Sandström has shown, with the help of two case studies, the ways in which even small cities with rather limited budgets could engage in infrastructural projects on a grand scale, not least with the help of advantageous state credits.29 At the turn of the twentieth century, a number of urban settlements were consciously urbanized with the help of city-planning projects, creating a sense of modernity even in urban settlements with less than 1,000 inhabitants. This resulted in a first wave of urban renovation projects, where high streets were rebuilt in order to visualize urbanity.30 The modernization of Sweden in the inter-war period, designed by ‘social engineers’ Major debates about the ‘modernization’ of the nation took place during the interwar period. Modernity was based on industrialization and had consequences for the entire economic, social and cultural fabric of society. This process created conflicts due to widespread poverty, social unrest and workers’ strikes. Social welfare was supposed to remedy these problems, hence the increasing focus on measures of social care, created by the terms of the industrialized labour market, which eventually replaced investments in infrastructures.

194  Heiko Droste The Stockholm exhibition in 1930 is considered a turning point in these discussions. It established a functionalistic approach to architecture and society planning as interwoven forms of expertise.31 At that time, many foreign influences were being introduced into the Swedish debates. The modernization of the industrialized society was merged with conservative ideas about a patriarchal and Lutheran society (folkhem)32 that would mitigate the social and economic conflicts of a highly segregated society.33 While the new welfare institutions were meant to take care of the social needs of the workers, they were also supposed to educate workers into democratic citizens. This resulted in a strong patriarchal ambition to control citizens’ behaviour.34 Citizenship rights were seen as a result of accepting the state’s requirements for full participation. The welfare state’s universalistic approach was eased by the notion of Sweden as an old nation-state, inhabited by a culturally and ethnically homogenous population, with a Lutheran state church at its top. In these discussions, contemporary architects and other ‘social engineers’ applied a limited set of ideas that had been spelled out in a number of manifests since the late 1920s.35 They were accepted rather unanimously by local politicians and municipal experts, which is why one of the early programmatic manifests, from 1931, was called ‘Accept’ (Acceptera).36 These ideas were simply considered to be without alternatives. Planning was supposed to focus on utility, which in turn promoted efficiency in the planning process as well as in financial matters. Uno Åhrén (1897–1977), one of Sweden’s most influential architects of this time, had been engaged in both public debates and the re-design of many Swedish cities since the 1920s. In 1945, he wrote a manifest as an appendix to the first part of the Swedish government’s official report on social housing (Bostadssociala utredningen), where he defined city planning as a form of community building (samhällsbyggande).37 He clearly spelled out his ideas about the educational utility of this new functionalist society. He also engaged in the design of suburbs, which were supposed to function as independent communities or neighbourhoods of moderate size, preferably inhabited by citizens with similar social and cultural backgrounds.38 Åhrén and others perceived city planning as a way to construct a democratic society.39 Cities ought to be built around core welfare functions such as schools, hospitals, cultural institutions (in particular libraries), cafés, a town hall and a church. These functions were to be placed right in the city centre, even in new urban settlements without proper town rights and in suburban centres.40 This is why most urban settlements were ‘blown to pieces’ (Mehr) in order to create a new public sphere of church, library, market square and café, as well as metro, bus and train stations. The notion of a contract between ‘diligent’ (skötsam)41 workers, who were educated and secured against social risks (hence the universalistic approach to a welfare state that did not investigate personal needs), has been well researched. The industrialized state needed a reliable and disciplined, that is to say, organized,

Three types of welfare cities 195 workforce, both of which had been in short supply since the turn of the century. This workforce also included women (in industrial factories, but especially as the predominant group of employees in schools, as well as in elderly and health care professions),42 which is why the Nordic welfare states did not rely on the institution of the family in order to free women from their traditional role in the home. Instead, public institutions took over the role of both the supplier of security and the educator. The new urban centres created a public sphere in order to allow for educated citizens to engage with democracy. In the Swedish debate, Vällingby, a suburb of Stockholm built in the mid-1950s, is synonymous with these ideals.43 The new public sphere should offer spontaneous meetings for discussions, exchange, mobility and commercial activity, thereby fostering a classless democratic society.44 Once again, the inter-war period saw the continuation of a debate that had been going on for decades. The educational role of the welfare state had previously been organized by Sweden’s strong popular movements, which, next to a rich educational tradition (folkbildning), also organized social welfare for their members, including people’s parks and people’s houses (folkets hus).45 There were also movements that aspired to social reform, shaped by nineteenth-century liberal ideals, resulting, for example, in the highly influential Centralförbundet för socialt arbete, CSA.46 In the first decades of the twentieth century, cities took over many instruments of these movements, creating an idea of municipal socialism.47 In that way, there was both an ideological and a personal continuity between the popular movements and municipal politics, which eventually influenced state politics. The constitutional consequences of the step-by-step implementation of welfare after World War II Since the 1930s, public debates have focused on the needs of the welfare administration against the backdrop of Sweden’s recent history as a country plagued by social unrest, an assumed demographic crisis48 and not the least problems of widespread poverty in both urban and rural areas. This poverty was mostly linked to devastating housing conditions, called ‘Dirty Sweden’ in a famous report book from 1938 that was based on a series of radio programmes.49 The book, as well as many public debates, focused on the needs of the rural areas. In these discussions, Sweden’s alleged backwardness in social, political and economic matters was explained by national traditions that were inefficient and stood in the way of progress. Implementing the social-democratic welfare state was supposed to solve all of these problems step by step. It resulted in a vastly expanding administration and similarly increasing budgets in both rural municipalities and cities. The welfare workforce of mostly female employees expanded accordingly, eventually turning the municipalities into Sweden’s biggest employers. Cities and municipalities were in many cases not prepared for or simply unable to meet the state’s

196  Heiko Droste demands for reforms of both their administration and the spatial implementation of the welfare infrastructure. The second municipal reform in 1952 was the result of two decades of public debate and official reports from the Swedish government. In 1943, the minister of social affairs, Gustav Möller, ordered an official report on the 2,400 rural municipalities (kommunindelningskommittén)50 because their ability to organize welfare was in doubt. A reorganization of all rural municipalities was thus advocated, motivated by the needs of improved social care. The result of the report was a recommendation for an extensive amalgamation of smaller municipalities in the countryside into bigger units, thus streamlining administrative, financial and demographic needs and efficiency. On top of that, the welfare solutions were supposed to be uniform in all parts of Sweden. Thus, the municipalities of old, where the individual citizen was personally known to politicians and treated according to their personal qualities, were dismissed on principle as an injustice.51 The report contains detailed calculations on how big the new municipalities had to be in order to allow for a school, health care and other institutions at reasonable costs. In retrospect, the result was obviously a given. Still, the report is worth reading, as it clearly describes alternatives as well as problems caused by the suggested amalgamation process. Several reasons for a municipal organization of all kinds of welfare are mentioned that highlight administrative and financial efficiency, strengthened with historical arguments based on the tradition of selfgovernment at municipal and city levels.52 The main arguments were that these administrations were organized by local politicians with close connections to their constituencies, effectively furthering local democracy. These politicians were usually unpaid, which made this local organization comparatively cheap. The politicians, however, were not part of the expert group behind the report. Previous forms of urban welfare and the first type of welfare city were not explicitly considered predecessors. The cities were not directly affected by this municipal reform, although the reforms aligned rural municipalities and cities in different ways, thus paving the way for the third municipal reform. In 1946, the rural municipalities reacted positively to the report overall, although only one out of five answered the report in any way. Moreover, the smaller the municipality, the more likely they were to oppose the reform.53 Nevertheless, it was passed in the parliament after a rather unanimous discussion.54 On 1 January 1952, nearly 2,400 local municipalities were amalgamated into about 800 municipalities. In that process, the older parish communities (socken) lost all relevance for Sweden’s political organization.55 Only a few years later, in 1959, a new official report was commissioned. It was supposed to correct the mistakes of 1952’s reform, which, according to the government, simply did not suffice. Municipalities were still considered too small in demographic figures. On top of that, all kinds of cities and municipalities were included in this third reform, based on the notion that all Swedish citizens, regardless of their place of residence, had the same social rights to welfare, thus

Three types of welfare cities 197 emphasizing once again the argument that uniformity is the core of the Swedish welfare state. This report followed the reasoning of the previous one in all important aspects and came to the same result.56 What was needed were amalgamations. Moreover, there was no longer any need for specific city rights, as many privileges had already been abolished in previous decades. The third municipal reform eventually transformed all kinds of cities and municipalities into one form of municipality, leaving only matters of infrastructure and health care in the domain of the already-existing secondary municipalities. Amalgamations were supposed to merge municipalities that were considered similar in their social and economic structure, thus establishing a common labour market. This time, there were many political debates concerning the proposed reforms and they met quite some resistance from several political parties. Many cities and municipalities refused the change or – quite often – resisted the proposed amalgamation with a particular neighbouring municipality.57 The reform was passed in parliament in 1962 and recommended voluntary amalgamations, albeit preconceived ones. When the results were poor from the perspective of the government, which deplored the municipalities’ inability to adapt to necessary change, the social-democratic government decided, against political opposition, to enforce the reform in 1969.58 In the early 1970s, more than 800 municipalities and 133 cities were amalgamated into 279 new municipalities.59 The critique against particular amalgamation processes continued and, after some dozen local referendums, 11 municipalities split up once again. However, the majority of these referendums ultimately failed; 50 years after the third municipal reform, the results have mostly been accepted, although few of the amalgamated municipalities celebrated their fiftieth anniversary in 2021. After 1980, 14 municipalities decided to call themselves cities once again, although this did not make any difference in constitutional terms. The two amalgamation processes in 1952 and 1971 had reduced the number of both municipalities and local politicians by about 90%, thus going further than any other European country.60 However, the notion of the parish community as foundational to the Swedish nation-state remained strong in all political discussions. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, municipalities have been recurrently discussed as a form of community, highlighting their role as building blocks of the nation-state.61 The new constitution (regeringsformen), which was approved in 1974, explicitly addressed these ideas, balancing the results of the second and third municipal reforms. The pivotal role of municipal selfgovernment as the alleged backbone of Swedish democracy was spelled out and protected in 1§ of 1974’s constitution: All public power in Sweden emanates from the people. The Swedish democracy is based on the right to free opinion and on ­universal and equal voting rights. It is realized through a representative and parliamentary form of government and through municipal self-government.62

198  Heiko Droste Municipal self-government today and the advent of a third type of welfare city The strong emphasis on municipal self-government needs further evaluation, as it seems contradictory at first glance, given the step-by-step amalgamation of more than 2,500 municipalities. Moreover, the new constitution delineated the relationship between municipalities and the state in rather vague terms: ‘A restriction on local self-government should not go beyond what is necessary in view of the purposes for which it is imposed’.63 The main arguments for maintaining welfare as a municipal responsibility included the long history of the parish communities, the proximity of local decision-making to the citizens and the low costs of local administration, not least because local politicians were not remunerated for their work. All of these arguments were negatively affected by the municipal reforms of 1952 and 1971. In a broader European perspective, present-day Sweden has very large municipalities, which casts doubt on proximity as an argument for municipal political structures. Several investigations claim that the size of municipalities makes less difference when it comes to the citizens’ contentment with their municipal government.64 These investigations, however, fail to examine how the expectations and needs of the citizens changed due to the implementation of state welfare under municipal management. Even the supply of local expertise continues to be a problem and has been constantly under discussion since the 1940s. Political representation was also eventually professionalized; consequently, more and more fully employed politicians and public servants were introduced, which had consequences for municipal budgets.65 In the 1990s, small constitutional changes were introduced in order to address the dissatisfaction with the results of the third municipal reform. Discussions focused partly on the issue of diminished local representation. In order to balance the growing distance between citizens and local politicians, a new sub-municipal level of decision-making was introduced, especially in the bigger cities (stadsdelsnämnder). However, the constitutional role of municipalities was not altered; thus, the sub-municipal organizations were not the result of specific elections. Instead, they were entirely dependent on the municipality. As a consequence, these organizations never gained any meaningful autonomy and have since been weakened or abandoned altogether.66 At about the same time, Sweden’s membership in the EU (as of 1995) created new possibilities for urban agency, especially with regard to their international relations. Even the state’s integrationist perspective on cities mellowed, resulting in an increased municipal agency for the bigger cities in particular. More variations in welfare politics appeared, and state control was deliberately reduced and made more distanced. However, the endemic budget problems of cities that had never been able to finance their varied and state-assigned obligations without state subsidies entailed boundaries to their agency that are hard to ignore.67

Three types of welfare cities 199 Thus, the various changes in the 1990s did not reach their full potential, not least because many municipalities lacked the financial and personal resources necessary to enact their specific agendas. Instead, the latest official government report on the municipal organization, issued in 2020, once again indicates a more integrationist perspective regarding the role of municipalities. Its title, ‘Stronger municipalities – with the capacity to cope with the welfare mission’,68 links social welfare directly to the municipal institutional order, thus highlighting continuity in the state’s view on welfare municipalities. According to the state, the municipalities’ functions are equated with welfare: state subsidies target specific parts of the welfare mission instead of the municipal budgets in total, which are themselves insufficient to finance the municipalities’ tasks in almost all cases. The proposed solution to problems of efficiency, as well as the provision of specialized and skilled expert workers, has once again been an amalgamation process. This solution seems unlikely to be implemented in the near future, however, and the report’s phrasing is somewhat cautious, probably out of an expectation that a third amalgamation process would meet with considerable resistance in the municipalities. In 2023, a new investigation was commissioned in order to pave the way for voluntary amalgamation processes.69 The early 1970s are thus a landmark in Sweden’s urban history. A particular perspective on the role of municipalities for the nation-state, which had been shaped by way of implementing state welfare in all of Sweden’s municipalities since the 1950s, began to take form during this period. Despite different political ideas about municipal self-government spelled out in party programmes, the interest in a strong state seems to serve as common ground for an integrationist view on the role of municipalities within the industrialized nation-state.70 The partial de-industrialization that occurred after 1970 did not result in new welfare concepts. More challenging was the transformation of a rather homogenous Lutheran nation-state to one where more than one-fifth of the population have their origins in other countries. Conclusions Today’s historians do not usually research the twentieth-century history of Sweden from the perspective of the municipalities. It seems as if such a research topic does not make much sense for them. The research literature that this article is based on is, consequently, for the most part at least 20 years old. On top of that, there is no urban memory of the twentieth-century welfare cities in Sweden, despite Sweden’s welfare state being used as a metaphor for modernity all over the world. Still, if we try to turn the picture around in order to see all of these developments using the eyes of the municipalities, the state does not seem interested in those municipal politics that do not directly concern the welfare mission as it

200  Heiko Droste

Figure 10.1 St. Paul’s church in central Stockholm. Public domain.

is defined by the state. The surplus can be identified as the metaphorical 5% of municipal politics that go beyond the state mission, though the municipalities may still define them as an expression of the common good. Thus, after having fulfilled the state’s welfare mission, municipalities can almost engage in ‘city’ projects as if they were private interests. Even the EU and the subsequent movement for more autonomy in defining municipal politics beyond the state’s mission provided opportunities for more agency. In particular, bigger ‘cities’ frequently engage in local projects, primarily with an eye on city branding in order to attract new citizens, tourists and entrepreneurs. They have also started to cooperate more actively with those parts of the so-called civil society71 that gained renewed influence in the last decades as they began to provide welfare for those who are no longer secured against social risks by a welfare state that has decided to recommodify welfare in order to rationalize, modernize and be cost-efficient.72 St. Paul’s Church (see figure 10.1) in Stockholm City Centre, on Södermalm, is situated next to a centrally located park in a gentrified area. The church was transformed into ‘a meeting place for community and community involvement’. The project is run by Stockholm City Mission (Stockholms stadsmission), which can be described as a ‘politically independent non-profit organization that runs activities for people experiencing homelessness and addiction, children, young people and the elderly. Stockholm City Mission also runs social enterprises and

Three types of welfare cities 201 school activities’.73 This charity organization thus covers a range of those forms of welfare that had belonged to cities for centuries. Stockholm City Mission is just one example of private initiatives and, often, religious institutions that deliver welfare independently from the ‘cities’. The organization was founded in the middle of the nineteenth century and has since then represented an alternative to municipally or state-driven welfare. There are several similar organizations that are financed independently by a variety of private sponsors and numerous second-hand shops in all parts of Stockholm and the wider Stockholm region. Due to the state’s decision to reduce welfare transfers, these organizations have gained influence and are important voices in public debates on welfare. The recommodification of welfare resulted in conscious decisions to privatize welfare institutions, particularly in geriatric care and health care, as well as schools and pre-schools. These changes brought about the advent of discussions about a civil society. The 1990s can thus be used to mark the starting point for a third type of welfare city. Civil society organizations provide welfare in cooperation with local actors and the municipality, while municipalities must simultaneously subject themselves to a new bureaucratic rationality (New Public Management), which has reduced their agency. Welfare cities of this third type present themselves as different, unique and citizen-oriented, built at least partially from below – in ways that are similar to the first type of welfare city. It is not yet clear if this cooperation has a lasting potential at the local level. The state’s refusal and supposed inability to deliver welfare to all citizens in all parts of Sweden equally, which had in any case never been more than an ideal, once again creates agency for municipalities to define their tasks more openly with reference to their individual distinctiveness, and maybe even their urbanity. Civil society institutions are part of these initiatives, though they are not officially recognized as public welfare institutions. Accordingly, the responsibilities of the state and municipality have not been explicitly redefined. Welfare is still included among the needs of an industrialized nation-state. However, the strong role of New Public Management in municipal administrations has led to financial arguments for restrictions on welfare services, in practice changing the notion of rights to social citizenship substantially. The fact that Sweden is no longer a homogenous Lutheran nationstate has caused nationalistic reactions, similar to most other European countries. The change is perceived and propagated as a loss of identity. Immigrants are supposed to assimilate themselves into this ethnical idea, while failure to do so results in a lack of participation rights, segregation and expulsion. Consequently, today’s political discussions limit access to welfare, especially for immigrant groups, whose rights to social citizenship are openly questioned. A  substantial part of society simply does not conform to the ethnic definition of citizenship that the Swedish government applies. Intense debates regarding segregation, particularly in the bigger ‘cities’, which explicitly seek to protect the rights of immigrants without proper immigration status (e.g. by allowing free

202  Heiko Droste and anonymous health or child care), show that immigrants’ right to welfare is no longer exclusively secured by the state. This redefinition of social citizen rights has led to a widening gap between national and municipal politics;74 it also has negative consequences for the status of Sweden’s democracy. On the other hand, it is obvious that the municipalities’ dependence on earmarked state revenues counteracts their agency, effectively limiting it mostly to bigger ‘cities’. Change happens mostly on a practical level, without altering the state or municipal fabric. It just so happens that citizens with social needs choose to rely on civil society and church organizations, which are not bound by any formal obligations and so far have been able to ignore political pressure, maybe because their work can be defined as charity and not welfare in the sense of a publicly defined common good. Public opinion is often in favour of these organizations, which offers the necessary legitimation and funding for their work. How the agency of ‘cities’ can be defined from a constitutional perspective is still hard to say.75 In Swedish, the very term lokal självstyrelse is indistinct and used in different ways, which is why discussions are rather disparate.76 Uncertainties about the exact content of municipal self-government are matched by Esping-Andersen’s similarly crude typology. It offers no definition of the Swedish welfare state and, thus, no defining markers in order to answer the question of whether Sweden still is a welfare society today. The regular, albeit vague, references to Sweden’s history ab ovo, the time of Sweden’s Christianization, are in this context both telling and confusing. Municipal self-government is considered coeval with the Swedish Crown and, thus, with the state itself. The historical roots of parish communities in the High Middle Ages are still used as part of the narrative about municipal self-government in Sweden, although these parish communities lost their constitutional relevance entirely with the reform in 1952. Still, 2020’s SOU on municipal reforms phrased this tradition as follows:77 The local self-government has a long historical tradition in Sweden and was already founded with the formation of the church parish. How this historical argument is interpreted within the municipalities’ historical self-image is impossible to say. In 1952, welfare cities of the second type were based on entirely new municipal structures that deprived parish communities of their constitutional role entirely. As a consequence, these parish communities have not been accounted for in state statistics since 1999: the information was simply deemed obsolete. And yet, this information was in a way re-introduced in 2016 by way of the newly designed distrikt. There are today 2,523 districts in Sweden, mostly congruent with the historical parishes, in both rural and urban areas. These districts are meant to create a somehow unchangeable fabric of the nation-state, which would not be altered even in cases of future amalgamations. This reform was introduced as an answer to critique by local, genealogical as well as academic historians.78

Three types of welfare cities 203 There has never been any organized resistance against the constitutional changes described earlier – it has at least never caught historians’ attention. There are no initiatives to recreate or reform the nation-state into a federal organization with independent, self-sustaining cities and rural municipalities. This notion of autonomous cities and local communities already received a heavy blow with the advent of the centralized Swedish monarchy in 1523, when Gustav Vasa succeeded in demilitarizing the realm’s cities, subjecting all of Sweden’s cities to his plans for a hereditary monarchy in an early version of state integrationism. Still, even today matters of welfare are at the core of municipal politics. This welfare could be used as arguments in debates on the common good more explicitly, particularly in welfare cities, thus strengthening local democracy. However, scholarly discussion about welfare has thus far clearly been framed by the interests of a state that seems to be without any kind of interest of its own – contrary to the municipalities. Their interests are usually framed as problems, but they could also reveal political engagement on the local level. We certainly need new perspectives on Swedish urban history. The relationship between the state and its municipalities has been unclear for centuries, not the least because the constitution fails to consistently outline responsibilities and agency. However, this uncertainty allows for changes in the actual power balance without the need for new constitutional solutions. Informal institutions are creating more uncertainty, but open up agency in order to foster the political interests of ‘cities’. Historical arguments about parish communities as the starting points of a state-building from below might be nothing more than a nostalgic reference without a clear purpose; however, they could also be an argument that ‘cities’ can use in order to redefine the common good. Changing notions of welfare and municipal self-government, informed by studies on the use of history for the branding of local communities, might be a perfect tool in order to understand this possible agency. Notes 1 I thank the editors, Hannes Rolf, Thomas Etzemüller and, in particular, Torbjörn ­Nilsson for valuable comments. 2 Åke Sandström, Skellefteå och Strängnäs: moderniseringen av två svenska småstäder 1880–1914 (Stockholm: Stads- och kommunhistoriska institutet, 2018). 3 Sverker Oredsson on the railway debates in the second half of the nineteenth century; Sverker Oredsson, Järnvägarna och det allmänna: svensk järnvägspolitik fram till 1890 (Lund: Rahm, 1969). 4 Magnus Linnarsson, Problemet med vinster: riksdagsdebatter om privat och offentlig drift under 400 år (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2017); Mats Hallenberg, Kampen om det allmänna bästa: konflikter om privat och offentlig drift i Stockholms stad under 400 år (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2018). 5 Bo Gustafsson has published extensively on the Swedish housing policy and its consequences for questions of welfare over several decades; Bo Bengtsson and Martin Grander, Bostadsfrågan som politik och intressekamp (Malmö: Égalité bokförlag, 2023); Bo Bengtsson, Bostaden – Välfärdsstatens marknadsvara (Uppsala: Uppsala

204  Heiko Droste universitet, 1995); cf. also Micael Nilsson, Från barnrikehus till sociala kontrakt: den selektiva bostadspolitikens ursprung och förändring 1933–1994 (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2021). 6 In this chapter, I will use the term ‘city’ in order to denote Swedish urban settings, although they mostly are too small to fulfill the English definition of a city. However, the term ‘city’ makes it easier to relate to the analytical term welfare city. There are, however, specific terms such as town law, town privileges and others, which will be used in this article. 7 Maarten Prak, Citizens without Nations: Urban Citizenship in Europe and the World, c.1000–1789 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), has strongly emphasized the importance of the graded ‘citizenship’ in pre-modern cities in Europe. Even groups without formal citizenship had influence and representation. 8 Allmän rösträtt? rösträttens begränsningar i Sverige efter 1921, eds. Annika Berg and Martin Ericsson (Göteborg: Makadam förlag, 2021). 9 Gøsta Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990). 10 Niels Albertsen and Bülent Diken, “Welfare and the City,” Nordic Journal of Architectural Research (2004): 7–23; here 10–11. 11 I use the concept of urbanity in order to mark the notion of a city being defined by the density and diversity of urban functions. 12 Ulla Ekström von Essen, Folkhemmets kommun. Socialdemokratiska idéer om lokalsamhället 1939–1952 (Stockholm: Bokförlaget Atlas, 2003), argues that the changes have been ‘radical’, 29. De nya kommunerna: en sammanfattning av Kommunaldemokratiska forskningsgruppens undersökningar, eds. Lars Strömberg and Jörgen Westerståhl (Stockholm: LiberFörlag, 1983), 283–99, call it for a ‘systemskifte,” a change of systems, 299. 13 ‘fullständigt revolutionerande verkningar [. . .] nästan som om man satt dynamit under de gamla stadsbildningarna. De gamla tätorterna kommer sålunda att mer eller mindre sprängas sönder’. Hjalmar Mehr, 1957, Stadsförbundets protokoll. Svenska stadsförbundets tidskrift 1957, Kongressprotokoll, 433, quoted by Mats Hayen, “Staten på armlängds avstånd. Hjalmar Mehr och Svenska stadsförbundet, 1956–1963,” in Stockholm blir välfärdsstad. Kommunalpolitik i huvudstaden efter 1945, ed. Torbjörn Nilsson (Stockholm: Stockholmia, 2011), 29. 14 Anders Gullberg, City: drömmen om ett nytt hjärta: moderniseringen av det centrala Stockholm 1951–1979 (Stockholm: Stockholmia, 2001). 15 Ekström von Essen, Kommun, 12; Bo Gustafsson, Den tysta revolutionen. Det lokala välfärdssamhällets framväxt: exemplet Örebro 1945–1982 (Hedemora: Gidlund, 1988). 16 Albertsen and Diken, Welfare, 14. 17 Cf. Sten Jönsson, Lennart Nilsson, Sigvard Rubenowitz, and Jörgen Westerståhl, Decentraliserad välfärdsstad. Demokrati, effektivitet och service (Stockholm: SNSförlag, 1997); Nilsson, Stockholm, researches certain aspects of Stockholm’s postwar history. Neither study defines the term välfärdsstad, welfare city. Nilsson and Gullberg, however, do emphasize that the term describes health care, care for the elderly and schools, which are administered on a local level, albeit dependent on the central state power; Torbjörn Nilsson and Anders Gullberg, “Introduction,” in Nilsson, Stockholm, 7–8. Cf. Ekström von Essen, Kommun, and Kjell Östberg, Kommunerna och den svenska modellen: socialdemokratin och kommunalpolitiken fram till andra världskriget (Eslöv: B. Östlings bokförl. Symposion, 1996) concerning the social-democratic notion of urban Sweden. 18 Carl Magnus Gagge, Skinnskattebergs Boardfabrik 1950–1988: Fabriken, samhället  & den finska arbetskraftsinvandringen (Västerås: Västmanlands läns museum,

Three types of welfare cities 205 2020), gives a highly interesting presentation of a middle-sized urban settlement without proper town rights during the mid-twentieth century, when industrialization and the welfare society played along with each other. 19 An important exception are the studies by Erik Wångmar, Lågskattekommuner. Studier om kommuner med låg skattesats 1952–1973 (Stockholm: Stads- och kommunhistoriska institutet, 2024); see also the following for more studies by Wångmar. 20 Ingemar Norrlid, Demokrati, skatterättvisa och ideologisk förändring: den kommunala självstyrelsen och demokratins genombrott i Sverige (Lund: Liber/Gleerup, 1983); Strandberg, Självständighet, 120. 21 Ekström von Essen, Kommun, 55. 22 Urban Strandberg, Självständighet eller statsbundenhet. Den kommunala idédebatten 1962–1974 (Göteborg: Centrum för forskning om offentlig sektor, 1995), 121, shows that social democrats in twentieth century adopted an integrationist view regarding the role of municipalities for the state, which had been held by conservative politicians in 1862. Ekström von Essen, Kommun, 384, agrees about the nineteenth-century roots of this idea, which was once again introduced into parliamentary debates around 1900. 23 Torbjörn Nilsson, “Folkhemmets planerare: om samhällsplaneringens vågrörelser under 60 år,” in Sverigebilder: det nationellas betydelser i politik och vardag, ed. Urban Lundberg and Mattias Tydén (Stockholm: Institutet för Framtidsstudier, 2008), 89–111; Ekström von Essen, Kommun, 8–9; Thomas Etzemüller, Alva and Gunnar Myrdal: Social Engineering in the Modern World (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014). 24 Per Molander, “Inledning,” in Självstyrelse, likvärdighet, effektivitet. Målkonflikter i den offentliga sektorn, ed. Per Molander and Kerstin Stigmark (Göteborg: Gidlunds förlag, 2005), 13. 25 Urban Strandberg, Debatten om den kommunala självstyrelsen 1962–1994 (Hedemora: Gidlund, 1998). 26 Cf. Erik Wångmar, Från sockenkommun till storkommun: En analys av storkommunreformens genomförande 1939–1952 i en nationell och lokal kontext (Växjö: Växjö universitet, 2003), 38–48, for details of this discussion. 27 Lars Nilsson and Håkan Forsell, 150 år av självstyrelse: kommuner och landsting i förändring (Stockholm: Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting, 2013). 28 This explanation was given in 1859 by the committee that discussed the first municipal reform of 1862. It puts strict limitations on municipal autonomy; Urban Strandberg, “Nationell politik och kommunal självstyrelse – ett historiskt perspektiv,” in Molander & Stigmark, Självstyrelse, 48–68, here 56. 29 Sandström, Skellefteå. 30 There has not yet been any thorough investigation into these renovation projects. Ulrich Lange has researched the municipalsamhällen and their modernization, but without any major publications so far. Anna Micro Vikstrand, Strävan efter ett ordnat samhälle: stadsplanering i Huddinge 1900–1960 (Stockholm: Stockholms universitet, Konstvetenskapliga institutionen, 2005). 31 Helena Mattsson, “Funktionalismen och den svenska traditionen,” in Lundberg and Tydén, Sverigebilder, 67–87, discusses how this functionalism was framed in terms of its Swedishness. 32 Norbert Götz, Ungleiche Geschwister: die Konstruktion von nationalsozialistischer Volksgemeinschaft und schwedischem Volksheim (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2001); Thomas Etzemüller, “Total, aber nicht totalitär: die schwedische ‘Volksgemeinschaft,’ ”  in Volksgemeinschaft: neue Forschungen zur Gesellschaft des Nationalsozialismus, ed. Frank Bajohr and Michael Wildt (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2008), 41–59.

206  Heiko Droste 33 Erik Bengtsson, Världens jämlikaste land? (Lund: Arkiv förlag, 2020). 34 Peder Nielsen, Kommunindelning och demokrati. Om sammanläggning och delning av kommuner i Sverige (Uppsala University: Statsvetenskap, 2003), 13. 35 The Welfare City in Transition: A Compilation of Texts and Images 1923–2020, eds. Pernille Maria Bärnheim, Signe Sophie Bøggild, and Kristoffer Lindhardt Weiss (Copenhagen: Danish Architectural Press, 2020), offers an interesting collection of conceptual texts concerning the welfare city in a Danish context. 36 Gunnar Asplund, Wolter Gahn, Sven Markelius, Gregor Paulsson, Eskil Sundahl, and Uno Åhrén, Acceptera (Stockholm: Tidens förlag, 1931); see also Eva Eriksson, Den moderna staden tar form: arkitektur och debatt 1910–1935 (Stockholm: Ordfront, 2001). 37 Uno Åhrén, “Ett planmässigt samhällsbyggande,” in SOU 1945:63: Slutbetänkande, angivet av bostadssociala utredningen, part 1 (Stockholm: Ivar Häggströms boktryckeri, 1946), 580–640. 38 Björk, Retorik; Franzén and Sandstedt, Välfärdsstat; Ekström von Essen, Kommun; Mats Franzén and Eva Sandstedt, Grannskap och stadsplanering. Om stat och byggande i efterkrigstidens Sverige (Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 1981). For a broader discussion, cf. articles by Stefan Couperus and Harm Kaal, “In Search of the Social: Neighborhood and Community in Urban Planning in Europe and Beyond, 1920– 1960,” Journal of Urban History 42 (2016): 987–91; David Kuchenbuch, “In Search of the “Human Scale”: Delimiting the Social in German and Swedish Urban Planning in the 1930s and 1940s,” Journal of Urban History 42 (2016): 1044–64. 39 David Kuchenbuch, Geordnete Gemeinschaft. Architekten als Sozialingenieure – Deutschland und Schweden im 20. Jahrhundert (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2010). 40 Mats Franzén and Eva Sandstedt, Välfärdsstat och byggande. Om efterkrigstidens nya stadsmönster i Sverige (Lund: arkiv, 1993). 41 Ronny Ambjörnsson, Den skötsamme arbetaren: idéer och ideal i ett norrländskt sågverkssamhälle 1880–1930 (Stockholm: Carlsson, 1988). 42 Silke Neunsinger, Die Arbeit der Frauen – die Krise der Männer: die Erwerbstätigkeit verheirateter Frauen in Deutschland und Schweden 1919–1939 (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2001). 43 David Pass, Vällingby and Farsta – From Idea to Reality: The New Community Development Process in Stockholm (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1973); Rosemary Wakeman, Practicing Utopia: An Intellectual History of the New Town Movement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016). 44 Christian Björk, Den sociala differentieringens retorik och gestaltning: kritiska perspektiv på funktionalistisk förorts- och bostadsplanering i Stockholm från 1900-talets mitt (Stockholm: Stockholms universitet: Institutionen för kultur och estetik, 2016), 140. 45 Johan Pries and Erik Jönsson, “Folkets Hus och Folkets Parker: arbetarrörelsens unika kulturarv,” Plan. tidskrift för planering av landsbygd och tätorter 1 (2023): 12–19. 46 Socialt arbete och socialpolitik: om Centralförbundet för socialt arbete och dess betydelse, eds. Hans Swärd and Per Gunnar Edebalk (Stockholm: Studentlitteratur, 2017); Kerstin Thörn, “Hemkunskap: om vetenskapliggörandet av boendet före folkhemmet,” in Topos: essäer om tänkvärda platser och platsbundna tankar, ed. Erland Mårald and Christer Nordlund (Stockholm: Carlsson, 2006), 113–29; Eva Jacobsson, Till eget gagn – till andras nytta: en komparativ studie av allmännyttigt byggande i Stockholm fram till år 1940. Part 1 and 2 (Stockholm: Stockholms Universitet, 2000). 47 Thord Strömberg, Kommunsocialismen inför verkligheten (Örebro: Högskolan i Örebro, 1984); Östberg, Kommunerna. A  different perspective on municipal socialism

Three types of welfare cities 207 has been suggested by Søren Kolstrup, Velfærdsstatens rødder: fra kommunesocialisme til folkepension (Copenhagen: SFAH, 1996). 48 In 1934, Alva and Gunnar Myrdal published a book based on Malthusian ideas about the living standard in Sweden and its consequences for population growth; Alva Myrdal & Gunnar Myrdal, Kris i befolkningsfrågan (Stockholm: Bonnier, 1934). 49 Ludvig Nordström, Lort-Sverige (Stockholm: Kooperativa förbundets bokförlag, 1938). 50 SOU 1945:38, Kommunindelningskommittén (Stockholm: Ivar Häggströms boktryckeri, 1945). 51 Ekström von Essen, Kommun, 61–62. 52 Cf. for the early modern “welfare cities,” Annika Sandén, Stadsgemenskapens resurser och villkor: samhällssyn och välfärdsstrategier i Linköping 1600–1620 (Linköping: Linköpings universitet, 2005); Börje Harnesk, “Den svenska modellens tidigmoderna rötter?” Historisk tidskrift (Sweden) (2002): 78–90; Strandberg, “Politik,” 54–56. 53 Wångmar, Sockenkommun, 101–2, 291–96; Riksdagstryck, Proposition 1946:236, contains a lengthy summary of all reactions to the report. 54 Gissur Ó Erlingsson, Erik Wångmar, and Jörgen Ödalen, “Kommunsammanläggningarna 1952–1974. Hur blev de politiskt möjliga?” Offentlig förvaltning. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration 14 (2011): 3–36. 55 Wångmar, Sockenkommun; Storkommunreformen 1952: striden om folkhemmets geografi, eds. Peter Aronsson, Lars Nilsson, and Thord Strömberg (Stockholm: Stadsoch kommunhistoriska institutet, 2002). 56 SOU 1961:9, Principer för en ny kommunindelning (Stockholm: K. L. Beckmans boktryckeri, 1961). 57 Erik Wångmar, Storkommun till kommunblock: en djupstudie av reformen som skapade de moderna svenska kommunerna 1959–1974 (Stockholm: Stads- och kommunhistoriska institutet, 2013). 58 Kungl. Maj.ts proposition, Nr. 103, year 1969. 59 The reform actually took place over the course of a decade. However, it is usually dated to 1971, because the majority of the new municipalities came into existence during this year. 60 Anders Lidström, Kommunsystem i Europa (Stockholm: Publica, 1996), 175 and 193. 61 Peter Aronsson, “Lokala medborgarskapet – det dolda kulturarvet,” in SOU 1999:77, 265; Åhren, “Samhällsbyggande.” 62 ‘All offentlig makt i Sverige utgår från folket. Den svenska folkstyrelsen bygger på fri åsiktsbildning och på allmän och lika rösträtt. Den förverkligas genom ett representativt och parlamentariskt statsskick och genom kommunal självstyrelse’. 1§ Regeringsformen; Sverige, Regeringsformen: Riksdagsordningen. Successionsordningen. Tryckfrihetsförordningen: i lydelse 1 januari 1975 (Stockholm: Gotab, 1974). 63 ‘En inskränkning i den kommunala självstyrelsen bör inte gå utöver vad som är nödvändigt med hänsyn till de ändamål som har föranlett den’. Regeringsformen 1974; Anders Eka, Johan Hirschfeldt, Henrik Jermsten, and Kristina Svahn Starrsjö, Regeringsformen – med kommentarer, andra upplagan (Stockholm: Karnov Group, 2018), 680. 64 Cf. Molander and Stigmark, Självstyrelse. 65 Peder Nielsen, Kommunindelning och demokrati: om sammanläggning och delning av kommuner i Sverige (Uppsala: Uppsala University, 2003), 29–30. 66 Jönsson/Nilsson/Rubenowitz/Westerståhl, Välfärdsstad, a study that investigates the local administrative reforms (stadsdelsnämnd) in Gothenburg; accessed June 3, 2023, https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kommundelsn%C3%A4mnd.

208  Heiko Droste 67 Lars-Inge Ström, Den kommunala revolutionen. Svenska kommuners förändring under två decennier (Östersund: Statens institut för regionalforskning (SIR), 1999), 9–29. 68 “Starkare kommuner – med kapacitet att klara välfärdsuppdraget,” SOU 2020:8 (Kommunutredning) (Stockholm: Elanders Sverige, 2020). 69 Accessed May 10, 2023, https://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelanden/2023/03/ regeringen-tillsatter-utredning-om-frivilliga-kommunsammanlaggningar/. 70 Strandberg, “Politik,” 65–66. 71 The concept of a civil society appeared in 2000 in academic discourse. However, its very existence is contested; Lars Trägårdh, “Från folkrörelser till civilsamhälle: staten och samhället i det moderna Sverige,” in Det svenska civilsamhället: en introduktion, ed. Johan von Essen (Stockholm: Forum för frivilligt socialt arbete, 2010), 15–27. 72 Henrik Berggren, Moderna människor, gamla gemenskaper. Kommunerna och välfärdsstaten efter andra världskriget (Stockholm: SKL Kommentus AB, 2013). 73 Accessed January 21, 2023, https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholms_Stadsmission, my translation. 74 310 val. 2022 års kommun- och regionalval (Stockholm: Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner, 2023). 75 Gissur Ó Erlingsson and Jörgen Ödalen, “Den kommunala självstyrelsen,” in Att äga framtiden: Perspektiv på kommunal utveckling, ed. Josefina Syssner, Sören ­Häggroth, and Ulf Ramberg (Linköping: Linköpings universitet, 2017), 65–76. 76 Ekström von Essen, Kommun, 41–60, for a discussion of the different conceptions of local self-government. 77 “Den lokala självstyrelsen har en lång historisk tradition i Sverige och grundlades redan i och med den kyrkliga sockenbildningen,” in SOU 2020:8 (Kommunut­ redning), 63. 78 Accessed May 14, 2023, https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sveriges_distrikt.

11 The Nordic welfare city – types and dimensions Magnus Linnarsson and Mats Hallenberg

The municipal administration expanded greatly in cities and towns in the Nordic countries after 1850. The contributors to this book have argued that this expansion constituted the emergence of the Nordic welfare city: it was during this period that city councils wrestled with issues as diverse as how best to organize water distribution, improve housing conditions and support the local theatre scene and how to run the city’s tramway system. These public services were introduced as a means to improve the well-being of a city’s inhabitants. The expansion was also a response to deteriorated living conditions and impending social conflict. This book argues that our understanding of the history of welfare systems and public services requires reassessment. The various contributions each demonstrate that social reforms and the expansion of public services were first carried out at the municipal level, pioneering the development of the modern welfare state. Cities and towns experimented with different welfare solutions, and the emergence of the welfare state was an extrapolation from these processes.1 This perspective differs from the majority of previous research on the development of modern public services. Up until this point, the focus has most often been on the period after 1945 and on the national level and the welfare state.2 The approach argued for here is the opposite: the chronological focus must be shifted to consider the expansion of public services prior to 1945. The expansion was, furthermore, primarily a result of urban politics whereby specifically the period 1850–1940 represents a transition from an austere political agenda to a more expansive public policy. It was during this period that money and resources were invested in cities to improve living conditions and the welfare of the urban community.3 Using the concept of the welfare city, the aim of the book has been to explore a whole range of political agents and interactions, to show a different type of welfare than that which is more commonly surveyed on the national level. Let us therefore review the definition of the concept, as stated in the first chapter. There, the welfare city was defined as ‘the political vision of municipal authorities to expand and improve public services. It highlights a political shift that occurred DOI: 10.4324/9781003379232-11

This chapter has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 international license.

210  Magnus Linnarsson and Mats Hallenberg when municipal leadership abandoned parsimony in favour of investment in citizens’ wellbeing’. The concept of welfare city thus captures the centrality of historical developments, as it emphasizes the importance of urban politics as a driving force for the organization of human welfare. Furthermore, it reveals the importance of urban origins for the development of the modern state and the origins of urban citizenship.4 The concept of the welfare city has not been used often in historical research. By and large, its use has been limited to descriptive purposes, such as reporting on the general development of public services at a local level.5 This means that the welfare city has been more of a catchphrase than an analytical term applied with any theoretical rigor. It has, for example, been used analytically in architectural research, but only with regard to urban planning and urban life after 1945.6 In this book, we have argued for a shift in chronological focus to an earlier period. We contend that the expansion of public services during the period 1850–1940 needs to be taken into account when analysing the expansion of welfare services. Moreover, the contributions in this book have clearly shown that the expansion of public services was driven by urban politicians and was thus an issue that created political conflicts. The main objectives of the book have been threefold. The most important was to demonstrate that welfare systems and citizenship have urban origins and developed in cities before on the national level. This broadens our understanding of how and why local urban governments began to expand public services and what implications this had for the subsequent development of the welfare state. The development has been analysed using the Nordic countries as an empirical example. Consequently, the second goal was to put forward the Nordic countries as the focus of the study. As Magnus Linnarsson argued in Chapter 1, the Nordic countries represent a different path to the welfare city than the one usually recognized in previous research. Finally, a third important objective of the book was the conceptual and theoretical elaboration on the concept of the ‘welfare city’. As demonstrated by the previous chapters, the concept can fruitfully be applied when studying Nordic cities and towns and how they launched reform policies to meet the social demands and the political issues of the time. Contestation, negotiation and citizenship The expanding welfare city was a political vision, as well as a set of institutions and everyday practices. Historians have especially emphasized the importance of infrastructure in this process. The concept of the welfare city, however, comprises more than the expansion of infrastructural systems. Rather, infrastructure is only one example of institutions and practices that were established after 1850. The welfare city was built not only by infrastructure but also by health care, education, outdoor life and entertainment. This is, however, not just a categorization of different services in the city. These different institutions and practices formed arenas of negotiation within the welfare city and therefore within urban politics.

The Nordic welfare city – types and dimensions 211 The concept of the welfare city thus comprises various analytical elements. One of them is the growth of political contestation and negations themselves. The urban political arena, particularly the city council, became more politicized during the period. This led to increased political debates about how urban public services should be organized and operated. An important dimension of this is the conflict between public and private management. This dichotomy is one of the most obvious political conflicts where local politicians expressly have different opinions. The contribution by Mats Hallenberg, for example, shows this in the case of the debates on tramways in Stockholm and Kristiania. Another example is Christina Reimann’s chapter on theatres in Gothenburg. The political conflict between public and private demonstrates how a particular service develops from a specific infrastructure into a public service. The implication of this is that the welfare city transformed various services into public services. Importantly, this was not restricted to infrastructure but includes social and cultural services as well. The welfare city, thus, proposed to improve living conditions for the urban community.7 A consequence of this policy, however, was that controlling access became important: who should have the right to use these new public services? This points to another important arena of negotiation: the increased conflict between inclusion and exclusion. Some of the townspeople were entitled to use modern public services, and some were not. This sparked political debates on organization and equal access within the city. The latter points to another central theme of the welfare city: the question of urban citizenship. Citizenship is a central element of the concept of the welfare city. In an era before national citizenship was institutionalized, belonging or not belonging to the city was central to people’s lives. Marten Prak has identified citizenship as a bundle of social and political rights, manifested in everyday practices: to engage in the community and take part in public life.8 The welfare city broadened urban citizenship to more people, making them part of the urban community. Central to this was the expansion of public services and the policy that made them accessible to the inhabitants. This created the ‘welfare citizen’ who had the right to benefit from these new services and could partake in the political life of the city. The welfare city is thus a concept that merges various arenas of negotiations and comprehends the vision of municipal authorities to expand and improve public services. The vision stated that municipal authorities – politicians in city councils most of all – must assume responsibility for improving the living conditions of urban residents. The means and motifs for engaging in this process, however, varied between different cities and countries. The origins and transformations of the Nordic welfare city Knut Dørum traces the emergence of the welfare state in Norway through the municipal reforms of the 1830s. The reforms derived from traditions of self-­ government and put the initiative and control firmly in the hands of the established

212  Magnus Linnarsson and Mats Hallenberg elites. Even among these elites, though, there were reformers who strived to promote the common good and invest in public services to improve everyday life for most citizens. Dørum identifies three generations of urban reformers: the bureaucrats who wanted to improve the urban environment from a humanitarian viewpoint, then the liberals who wanted the city to provide public services also for the less affluent citizens and finally the social democrats who demanded equal access and decent living conditions for workers and their families. From Dørum’s perspective, the Norwegian cities were pioneers when it came to organizing various public services under strict municipal control. While Dørum puts the political elites at the forefront of the struggle for urban welfare services, Mikkel Thelle highlights the important role of educated professionals in the municipal office of Copenhagen. The disastrous effects of the cholera pandemics put freshwater supply and sewerage at the top of the agenda for municipal reform in the mid-nineteenth century. Educated experts in science and medicine were employed by the city to explore the best ways to combat disease and provide better sanitary systems for the future. Thelle identifies the water system as key in the metabolic expansion of the welfare city and goes on to investigate the different stages of organizing the vital flow of water through the city. The focus on identifying and eliminating the roots of disease was eventually supplemented by public bathing halls, where less privileged residents could learn and adopt cleansing practices to make the city a healthier place. While the municipality invested in public services for health promotion, the more affluent citizens began to invest in modern apartments with private bathing rooms. In the post-war period, when private bathing rooms had become a mainstay for most citizens, the public bathing halls were transformed into places of recreation, sport and leisure. Thelle’s chapter provides a historical perspective on how the city of Copenhagen expanded the scope of welfare services from basic infrastructure, via the promotion of health and sanitary practices, to an active engagement in the pastime and well-being of the modern citizen. While Thelle bases his argument on Charlotte Lemanski’s concept of infrastructural citizenship, he also shows that negotiations regarding urban welfare services came to extend far beyond infrastructure. This perspective is further explored by Henning Bro in his study of the summerhouse boom in Greater Copenhagen during the twentieth century. Bro convincingly demonstrates how the more affluent urban citizens ventured to establish their own holiday homes in the green outskirts of the Danish metropolis. This spatial extension of the welfare city eventually threatened to occupy most of the surrounding green and coastal areas. The process was at odds, however, with the ambitions of politicians at the national level, who wanted to dedicate open spaces in attractive areas for collective purposes: beach life, hiking and camping, as well as the protection of wildlife and forestry. In the end, the expansion of summerhouse villages was blocked by central and regional government agencies. The welfare city was denied the right to use the whole region of Zealand as a project area for the needs of its wealthier citizens.

The Nordic welfare city – types and dimensions 213 Urban welfare politics may have started with technological infrastructure but they soon came to incorporate a whole range of practices and institutions that were framed as targets for municipal organization. Christina Reimann demonstrates how modern theatre and public entertainment became a matter of political contestation in Gothenburg in the early twentieth century. In Sweden’s most important port city, commercial entrepreneurs competed for the public’s affection by providing light entertainment in small venues. These shows mainly attracted workers, sailors and people from the lower middle classes but did not satisfy the cultural ambitions of the leading bourgeoisie. They wanted Gothenburg to be a part of the international cultural scene and demanded that the city council intervened to create a proper venue for modern, serious theatre. After various collaborations with private entrepreneurs proved futile, the city council eventually decided to build their own city theatre in the public square of Götaplatsen. Providing urban citizens with improved conditions was essentially a municipal project, although it eventually came to involve a number of commercial actors and voluntary organizations that could provide financial resources or necessary expertise. As Mats Hallenberg’s chapter demonstrates, urban services were also a target for big business interests. While politicians in Stockholm and Kristiania generally agreed that the tramways were a vital public service, they differed regarding the best way to secure that benefit for the greater public. Social democrats and liberals argued that municipal operation was necessary to guarantee the extension of transport services connecting all parts of the city. Conservatives opposed this view, insisting that private companies would provide better services and cheaper fares for all citizens. The connectedness of the Nordic capital cities thus became a matter of negotiation between city councils, private companies, opinion-makers – and, of course, the urban public. Negotiations over how to expand and develop the welfare city eventually came to involve the state as well. Heiko Droste’s chapter shows that the state generally played a passive role in the initial expansion of the welfare city. Central governments provided organizational and (sometimes) financial support, but they had neither the means nor the ambition to control the direction of municipal expansion. This would change, however, in the post-war period, when socialdemocratic governments launched a succession of political reforms in order to create universal welfare services for all citizens of the nation. The Nordic welfare state thus superseded the welfare city, directing and regulating the scope and character of services that still had to be provided by municipal authorities. Droste identifies the post-war Swedish municipalities as a different type of welfare city: less autonomous, but still organizing vital public services that were increasingly required and financed by the emerging welfare state. His chapter also addresses the transformations of the twenty-first century. As public welfare institutions find themselves drained of both financial and political support, welfare services are increasingly allocated to private associations or philanthropic initiatives. This might lead to a third type of welfare city: one where the quality and scope of municipal services are actually diminishing, and

214  Magnus Linnarsson and Mats Hallenberg the task of improving the living conditions of urban citizens is referred to by various private and commercial agents. The general process and successive expansion of public services under municipal control from the mid-nineteenth century and onwards is well known from the works of Marjatta Hietala, Pierre-Yves Saunier and others.9 This book contributes to the discussion by qualifying the meaning and motives of this process from an actor-oriented perspective. Together, the chapters demonstrate that the development of the welfare city engaged a whole range of individuals and organizations: not only politicians and professionals but also commercial entrepreneurs, philanthropists, local activists and voices of public opinion. Importantly, the growing commitment from politicians and bureaucrats to improve the living conditions of the urban population had potentially emancipative effects: a growing number of city residents became part of the welfare city project, people from the working class as well as the urban poor. The ‘politics of inclusion’, however, often relied on patriarchal concerns and exclusive practices, as will be discussed further in the next section. In her classic work on urban public services, Marjatta Hietala identifies three distinct phases in the expansion. European cities first invested in basic infrastructure, then in institutions for education and instruction and, at a later stage, in cultural and recreational services.10 The chapters in this volume indicate that there was no strict chronology or progression of the welfare city in the Nordic context. Instead, the different types of services represented vital dimensions of the welfare city that may or may not be the subject of municipal intervention for the greater good and the well-being of the modern, urban citizen. Inclusion and exclusion: the scope of urban citizenship The expansion of municipal services described in the previous section has been analysed as the institutional base for more inclusive social policies. The Nordic welfare city came to provide physical infrastructure, social services as well as cultural and recreational activities for the majority of urban citizens, not just for the wealthy. Technological innovations such as freshwater systems, gas and electricity were transformed into public services that could also be claimed by marginalized citizens on the outskirts of the modern city. This process was, however, highly contested, and the rights to urban citizenship were far from equally distributed. Welfare cities might pursue inclusive policies, but these practices inevitably had exclusionary dimensions as well. Marjaana Niemi’s chapter demonstrates how Helsinki politicians placed the outskirts of the welfare city outside the scope of municipal intervention. These predominantly working-class suburbs were not objects of city planning, nor were they a natural target for the extension of public services. Rather, they were considered to exist on the outside of modernity, not worthy of the attention of the welfare city’s leaders. Niemi argues that Helsinki authorities saw a temporal

The Nordic welfare city – types and dimensions 215 divide separating the city centre and suburbs in the periphery. While the urban core was defined as permanent, modern and full of potential for future reform, places such as Hermanni and Fredriksberg were considered temporary and less worthy of attention. The neighbourhood was only relevant for council politics as an outside area that might become a target for the expansion of the ‘proper’ city. The suburbs on the urban fringe were initially not subject to council regulation or the provision of public services. For some of the inhabitants, this marginalization had distinct advantages. The less developed areas offered opportunities for those who could not afford to pay the rents demanded by landlords in the urban core. In places like these, people could build their own homes according to their own needs. Niemi argues that the fringes of the city in fact offered a promise of permanence for these people, a place to settle down and raise a family. Eventually, the lack of municipal services became an acute problem and the suburban dwellers began to voice their need for safe roads, electricity and schools for their children. After World War II, many of these suburbs acted collectively to gain incorporation into the municipality. Urban citizenship was, in this case, very much a bottom-up process. Political reform came late to Helsinki, as attempts to introduce universal suffrage and strengthen urban self-government were thwarted by reactionary Russian rule after 1905. The city council remained an arena for the elites, while tensions rose between the affluent burghers and the less fortunate inhabitants of the capital city. Finland was plunged into Civil War in 1917, and Kati Katajisto addresses the importance of municipal politics in bridging the gap between the two opposing sides when peace was restored and universal suffrage was introduced in 1918. Katajisto maintains that while national politics were still framed by the intolerant view of the conservative government towards the left-wing parties, the city council of Helsinki became an arena for negotiation and reconciliation between the two sides. The council debates served as a learning process for social democrats and leftwing representatives who were adapting to the process of organized democracy. The burghers reluctantly recognized the need for political compromise in order to tackle the mounting social problems of a divided city. The process included not only formal negotiations over finances and municipal government but also responses to demands for social inclusion from workers and other marginalized groups. Expanding the welfare city, offering schools and playgrounds for children and social aid to those most in need thus became the foundation of reconciliation. In this way, the Helsinki city council acted as a pioneer for political solutions that were only later adopted by the national government. While Katajisto offers a generally positive view on the development of the welfare city as a means of extending urban citizenship, Mikkel Høghøj’s contribution on slum clearances in Copenhagen in the 1940s provides a more complicated picture. These clearances could be seen as a further extension of the welfare system, getting rid of derelict slum quarters in order to make room for

216  Magnus Linnarsson and Mats Hallenberg better housing and modern sanitary services for the less fortunate. The process began as a top-down initiative, where local officials investigated the living standard of the inhabitants of the Borgergade-Adlergade district in order to make them comply with health regulations or face being evicted. However, the housing inspections also provided the tenants with a platform to voice their complaints over deficient services, demanding access to better housing. Høghøj argues that the negotiations between tenants and landlords must be analysed as acts of infrastructural citizenship. The inhabitants of the notorious slum district could assert themselves as citizens with specific socio-material rights, claiming to be part of the welfare city. Høghøj’s chapter demonstrates how the housing inspections were both an instrument for disciplinary measures and an arena for social negotiation and protest. The municipal housing inspection was generally positive towards requests from working-class families with a steady income. Those who were deemed not worthy of public help, on the other hand, were denied the opportunity to move to modern apartments. Social inclusion was a limited option for marginalized groups, even in the modern welfare city. The general shortage of modern department flats during and after World War II, meanwhile, meant that the plans to tear down the Borgergade district had to be postponed on several occasions. When the Borgergade quarters were at last torn down to be replaced by modern apartment blocks in the late 1950s, the new flats were reserved for those who could afford to pay the rent. The last inhabitants of the urban slum district had to look for affordable accommodation elsewhere. In the end, they could not achieve the full benefits of urban infrastructural citizenship. This urban citizenship could be negotiated directly not only by municipal officials and the inhabitants of the city but also through political confrontation in municipal and administrative institutions. Initially, the city councils were controlled by the urban elites, but from the late nineteenth century, local politicians became increasingly pressured by public opinion. Both Reimann and Hallenberg demonstrate how newspaper articles and public meetings came to infiltrate council debates. In Hallenberg’s case, public opinion was generally framed as the voice of the less affluent residents of the Swedish capital, or of their peers in Kristiania. They repeatedly called for social inclusion in the form of better and cheaper tramway services, connecting working-class suburbs with the city centre. In Reimann’s chapter on public theatres, it was instead the enlightened bourgeois press who demanded municipal support for establishing a modern theatre staging ‘serious’ productions. Taken together, both cases demonstrate how politicians not only became increasingly aware of public opinion but also acted on it in order to preserve their own positions. The successive introduction of universal suffrage inevitably boosted the role of partisan politics, which meant that urban citizenship was negotiated more frequently in council debates by politicians representing the collective interests of different groups in the city. This might increase the risk for organizational

The Nordic welfare city – types and dimensions 217 stalemates, as demonstrated by the prolonged debates on the municipalization of tramways in Stockholm and Kristiania. Political confrontation, however, could also produce effective compromises, as confirmed by Kati Katajisto’s chapter on Helsinki after the Finnish Civil War. The welfare city itself was not contested: politicians from all quarters generally agreed on the fundamental importance of providing better services for the greater public. Politicians from different sides, however, had competing visions of the character and scope of the services and citizenship that should make up the welfare city. Explaining the Nordic welfare city An important conclusion of this book is that the evolution of the welfare city was a process of several overlapping phases or dimensions. In contrast to Marjatta Hietala’s three phases of urban services, we suggest that this development should be interpreted as a succession of different types of welfare cities with specific characteristics. These types are not necessarily sequential in time, but are to some extent overlapping and entangled, depending on political and social contexts. They do, however, draw on a basic, common chronology.11 From the mid-nineteenth century, municipal elites invested considerable public means to create freshwater and wastewater systems in order to improve sanitary conditions for the working poor as well as for themselves. The patriarchal welfare city introduced basic infrastructural services from above in order to preserve social order and the hegemony of the urban oligarchy. These measures, however, were generally framed in a disciplinary discourse, which insisted that the dangerous masses must be subjected to reform by their social betters. Political decisions were made by the traditional elite, who acted on behalf of the poor. The latter had no voice of their own, and the political ambition of the emerging welfare city was to maintain the status quo within the boundaries of the old order. The patriarchal city eventually had to deal with the demands and needs of a rapidly increasing population. The growth of cities and towns as a result of industrialization exposed the deficiencies of the patriarchal order. As industrialization and urbanization proceeded, technological innovations encouraged commercial entrepreneurs to develop infrastructural systems further, improving everyday life through gas heating, electric lights and new means of urban transport. In the economic welfare city, these new types of public services were provided by business firms operating with the consent of the city council. The guiding principle for the economic welfare city was that all profit-generating enterprises should be handled by private businesses. Indeed, elite politicians were themselves often businessmen or stakeholders in urban enterprises, thus combining personal gain and the public good. Consequently, public services were expanded, but they were nevertheless mainly distributed to social elites and those who could pay for them. Towards the turn of the century, rapid urban growth and a growing division between the municipal elites and the urban poor prompted politicians to

218  Magnus Linnarsson and Mats Hallenberg introduce limited social reform. Pressure from popular movements and the rising tide of popular opinion also contributed to a shift in policy. In the social welfare city, city councils acted to extend infrastructural and social services in order to improve the standard of living of the urban population at large. This was sometimes done by negotiating new arrangements with private enterprises, but in many cases, politicians took over operations and placed them under municipal control. Municipalization became the preferred means to guarantee that public services were more evenly distributed. This process was accelerated by political reform, as social democrats and liberals gained hold of council seats, eventually weakening the capacity of urban elites to rule cities according to their own needs. The social city thus articulated lines of political division reminiscent of modern political ideologies. Although the major part of this book is restricted to the period 1850–1940, the chapters by Mikkel Høghøj and Heiko Droste suggest an approach for further analysis of welfare cities. Høghøj’s investigation of slum clearances and housing inspections describes how the expansion of the welfare city after World War II was increasingly directed by demands formulated by the (Nordic) welfare state. National legislation was clearly influenced by urban policies, but state intervention also informed the practices and decisions of local authorities. Heiko Droste paints a more pessimistic picture, stating that local governments became increasingly circumscribed by state regulations and eventually lost much of their political agency. In the universal welfare city, city councils and urban administrators provided more welfare services for urban citizens than ever before. They did this on commission, however, as central governments demanded that national citizenship must supersede urban belonging and local rights. Droste also hints at a new type of welfare city emerging by the end of the twentieth century, what we might call the neoliberal welfare city. As both state and municipal authorities struggled to keep up with demands for more effective welfare services, they welcomed private entrepreneurs to take over public services and reorganize them according to business logics. Droste discusses the prevalence of private welfare solutions in present-day Sweden and claims that the increasing reliance on various philanthropic and civil organizations in providing basic welfare services must be understood as a return to the economic and social welfare city of the early 1900s. While this argument clearly has merit, there is an important difference to be noted. In the period covered by this book, municipal services were expanded to include a larger number of urban citizens both with and without the cooperation of civil organizations and private enterprises. In the twenty-first century, public services are distributed more unevenly, favouring active and affluent citizens above those less equipped to navigate the diverse landscape of opportunities and rights. Urban citizenship is, in effect, becoming less universal and more localized as welfare services are reformulated as acts of personal preference. Our proposed model of five types of welfare cities draws on results presented by other scholars. Geographers Simon Marvin and Stephen Graham have pointed

The Nordic welfare city – types and dimensions 219 out the importance of urban technological networks that from the late nineteenth century were merged into communication grids, first on the municipal level and then on regional and national levels. This network of infrastructural services formed the basis for the expansion of welfare services in the twentieth-century welfare states. Marvin and Graham also point to the dismantling of public governance from the 1970s, when neo-liberal policies effectively challenged the universal welfare systems and achieved a ‘splintering’ of urban services into a number of private business operations.12 Chris Otter suggests a similar tripartite schema for the expansion of welfare services in Europe, based on the expansion of water supply and waste removal: a liberal model, favouring private supply of infrastructural services, was superseded by a social model that favoured collective provision over private interests. This model reached its pinnacle after 1945 but was supplanted by a neo-liberal model from the 1970s that introduced multiple forms of privatization of infrastructural services.13 The model we have presented earlier covers the whole period from c. 1850 to the present, addressing municipal organization as well as political regimes. Importantly, we make a distinction between the patriarchal welfare city of the old elites and the expansion of urban services during the heyday of the economic (or liberal) welfare city of the late nineteenth century. Our model also points to the emergence of municipal public services in the early 1900s that preceded the expansion of the Nordic welfare states of the mid-twentieth century. Finally, we do recognize the decisive impact of neoliberal policies on the provision and organization of welfare services and infrastructure networks in the new millennium. Simon Gunn has highlighted the transformative role of infrastructural systems on urban politics. Following an actor-network perspective, he argues that cities must be studied as networks and assemblages of different kinds of power where human perceptions are closely linked to material conditions. Historical change comes about through contingency, as the attempts by politicians to shape and control infrastructural systems often produce unintended consequences.14 This book has tried to take this approach one step further, addressing cultural and recreational services as well as water, sanitation and transport. We also contend that it was not material infrastructure by itself, but rather the ongoing contestation and negotiation over a plethora of various welfare services that eventually contributed to a widening and strengthening of urban citizenship. The types of welfare cities suggested earlier thus represent different outcomes from the ongoing struggle over material and cultural networks, involving paupers as well as politicians and professional experts. The future of the welfare city What will happen to urban citizenship and the welfare city in the future? The perspectives outlined earlier offer both hope and fear. We might see the ­re-­emergence of civil society as a positive trend, emphasizing local needs rather

220  Magnus Linnarsson and Mats Hallenberg than universal claims. Even more so, there is a vision that local engagement might be rejuvenated to improve the character of services provided for all kinds of citizens. On the other hand, the tendency of local politicians to concentrate their efforts on better-off citizens, leaving a growing number of local residents outside the scope of public welfare services, comes with a risk. Urban citizenship may once again be defined according to social status and what part of the city you live in. Citizenship would then be qualified according to spatial as well as social divides. Migration, violence and xenophobia offer formidable challenges for the welfare cities of tomorrow. In some of the Nordic countries, national governments have advocated more repressive measures in order to deal with the effects of criminality and social conflict. If this line of reasoning is fully pursued in urban politics, the effect might well be a post-modern version of the patriarchal welfare city where the elites combine digital surveillance and physical violence in order to discipline the urban poor. So far, these issues have mostly been addressed by national governments, which makes it hard to predict how or whether local politicians will follow. The editors of this book believe that the welfare city still holds a promise to stand firm against particular demands and develop its capacity to integrate various groups of city residents into the larger community of urban citizens. Municipal self-identification can be transformed into a positive force when faced with external pressure. As David Moss has demonstrated for the case of Berlin, popular mobilization and environmental activism may show the way to urban reform and a re-vitalization of public services.15 It remains to be seen what type of welfare city politicians and citizens of Nordic cities will imagine and build in the future. Notes 1 Søren Kolstrup, Velfærdsstatens rødder: fra kommunesocialisme til folkepension (København: Selskabet til Forskning i Arbejderbevægelsens Historie, 1996), 455; Pierre-Yves Saunier, “Global City. Take 2: A View From Urban History,” in Another Global City: Historical Explorations into the Transnational Municipal Moment, 1850–2000, ed. Pierre-Yves Saunier and Shane Ewen (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 10. 2 The classic example is Gøsta Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Cambridge: Polity, 1990). See also Niels Finn Christiansen et al., eds., The Nordic Model of Welfare: A Historical Reappraisal (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2006). 3 Robert J. Morris and Richard H. Trainor, eds., Urban Governance: Britain and beyond since 1750 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000); Mikael Hård and Marcus Stippak, “Progressive Dreams: The German City in Britain and the United States,” in Urban Machinery: Inside Modern European Cities, ed. Mikael Hård and Thomas J. Misa (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008); Friedrich Lenger, European Cities in the Modern Era, 1850–1914 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), chap. 2.

The Nordic welfare city – types and dimensions 221 4 Tom Hulme, “Putting the City Back into Citizenship: Civics Education and Local Government in Britain, 1918–45,” Twentieth Century British History 26, no. 1 (2015): 26–51; Simon Gunn et al., “Cities, Infrastructure and the Making of Modern Citizenship: The View from North-West Europe since c. 1870,” Urban History (March 25, 2022): 1–19. 5 One example is Torbjörn Nilsson, ed., Stockholm blir välfärdsstad: kommunalpolitik i huvudstaden efter 1945 (Stockholm: Stockholmia, 2011). The concept is also implicitly discussed in Juhani Lehto, “Different Cities in Different Welfare States,” in Cities in Contemporary Europe, ed. Arnaldo Bagnasco and Patrick Le Galès (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 112–30. 6 Niels Albertsen and Bülent Diken, “Welfare and the City,” Nordic Journal of Architectural Research 17, no. 2 (2004): 7–22. 7 See Ben W. Ansell and Johannes Lindvall, Inward Conquest: The Political Origins of Modern Public Services (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 15–16. 8 Marten Prak, Citizens without Nations: Urban Citizenship in Europe and the World, c. 1000–1789 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 5–8. 9 Marjatta Hietala, Services and Urbanization at the Turn of the Century: The Diffusion of Innovations (Helsinki: SHS, 1987). Pierre-Yves Saunier, “Global City. Take 2: A View From Urban History,” in Another Global City: Historical Explorations into the Transnational Municipal Moment, 1850–2000, ed. Pierre-Yves Saunier and Shane Ewen (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). 10 Hietala, Services and Urbanization, 179, 401–3. 11 The inspiration for this model also comes from Rolf Torstendahl, “Technology in the Development of Society 1850–1980. Four Phases of Industrial Capitalism in Western Europe,” History and Technology 1, no. 2 (1984); Hossein Sheiban, Den ekonomiska staden: stadsplanering i Stockholm under senare hälften av 1800-talet (Arkiv: Lund, 2002). 12 Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition (London: Routledge, 2001), 41–42. 13 Chris Otter, “Locating Matter. The Place of Materiality in Urban History,” in Material Powers: Cultural Studies, History and the Material Turn, ed. Tony Bennett and Patrick Joyce (London: Routledge, 2010), 46–51. 14 Simon Gunn, “Heterodoxies. New Approaches to Power and Agency in the Modern City,” in New Approaches to Governance and Rule in Urban Europe, ed. Simon Gunn and Tom Hulme (New York: Routledge, 2020), 259–64, 270–71. 15 Timothy Moss, Remaking Berlin: A History of the City Through Infrastructure, ­1920–2020 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2020).

Index

Note: Numbers in italic indicate a figure and numbers in bold indicate a map on the corresponding page. Åhrén, Uno 194 Alhambra 62, 62, 66 – 7 Arbeiderpartiet 44, 47, 51, 53 – 4 Arbetareföreningen 64, 69 – 70 Arbetarinstitutet (workers’ institute) 68 austerity 4, 6, 40, 45, 50, 55 Austria 17 autonomy 24, 85, 118, 126, 130, 138, 198, 200, 205n28 bacteria 25 – 6 bathing halls 11, 28 – 31, 30, 212 Belgium 9 Berlin 7, 57, 65, 70 – 1, 124n60, 139, 220; Freie Volksbühne 70 – 1; Großes Schauspielhaus 71; Metropoltheater 65 bourgeoisie 102, 127 – 8, 131, 135 – 8, 168, 171, 213 Britain 2, 5 – 9, 17, 92; see also British Isles; England; Great Britain British Isles 1, 17 capitalism 4, 56; democratic 37, 56 – 7; industrial 168; laissez-faire 8; market-oriented 45 Carrara, Italy 29 Castberg, Johan 44 children 18, 31 – 2, 51, 54, 91 – 2, 96, 103, 108, 119, 130 – 1, 137, 155, 157, 170, 200, 215 cholera 6, 24, 26, 40 – 2, 49, 56, 212; miasma theory 25, 41 citizenship 2, 18 – 23, 32, 83 – 4, 146 – 8, 153, 157, 159 – 60, 201, 210 – 11, 217,

220; formal 204n7; graded 204n7; infrastructured 11, 22; national 218; rights 194; social 18, 188 – 9, 201; welfare 11, 22, 146, 148, 150; see also infrastructural citizenship; urban citizenship city councils 5, 7, 12, 17, 20, 23 – 4, 29, 32, 45, 60 – 1, 63, 68, 71 – 3, 75 – 6, 95, 102 – 7, 109 – 10, 112 – 14, 116, 117 – 21, 126 – 8, 131 – 3, 137, 140, 152, 159, 187, 209, 211, 213, 215 – 18 civil society 189, 200 – 2, 208n71 common good (bonum commune) 37 – 40, 42, 46, 61, 187, 200, 202 – 3, 212; as patriotism 40 communalism 37 – 9; peasant 55 communal reform 127 – 8 communes 37 – 42, 44 – 57, 109, 115, 143n61, 167, 184 – 5n10; rural 37, 41, 51 – 2; socialist 52 – 6; urban 41, 56 communism 110 competence 25, 28, 39, 42, 44, 50, 55, 108, 126 conservation planning 172 – 3, 176 – 7, 178, 183 consumers 20, 22; ‘sovereign’ 22, 32; urban 91; ‘weak’ 22 Copenhagen 7, 11 – 12, 17 – 32, 38, 102, 139, 145 – 60, 164, 167 – 8, 171, 182, 184 – 5n10, 212, 215; 1973 Regional Plan 179 – 80; bathing halls 11, 28 – 31, 30, 212; Borgergade-Adelgade quarter 146 – 7, 150 – 5, 151, 153, 156, 157, 159 – 60; Capital Metropolis

Index  223 Council (Capital Council) 167, 177 – 83, 184, 184n8, 185n25; Christian Tryde, Hygienic Surveys 25 – 6, 27; City Water Authority 23; Fredriksberg area sewer systems 96; Health Police 153 – 5, 157 – 8; Lynetteholmen 17; ‘morality scandal’ of 1906 – 1911 20 – 1; Municipality 152, 154, 157; Rysensteen bathing hall 29; Sjaellandsgade bathing hall 30; slum clearance in 145 – 60, 215, 218; summer home boom 165, 169 – 77; summer houses in open land of 164 – 84; swimming halls 31 – 2; urban metabolism of 22 – 8; water and citizenship in 17 – 32; wet space of 18, 28 – 31; see also Copenhagen Commune; Frederiksberg Commune Copenhagen Commune 184 – 5n10 Danish Camping Club/Union 175, 177, 180 Danish welfare state 10, 167, 184; central government’s benchmarks 178 – 9; and leisure, culture, and outdoor recreation 170 – 1; and outdoor recreation 174 – 5; planning strategy 177 – 8 Deci, Edward L. 126 de-industrialization 199 democracy 126, 135, 190, 195; communal 126, 136, 139; cultural 175; industrialized 191; local 196, 203; organized 215; social 23; Swedish 197, 202; urban municipal 126 – 8; see also democratization; municipal democracy democratization 125, 137 – 9, 170, 188 Denmark 5, 10, 21, 29, 32, 57, 139, 143n67, 145 – 50, 159 – 60, 165, 171 – 2, 174, 176, 178 – 9, 182, 185n25; 1917 Nature Conservation Act 171; 1935 Green Report 172; 1937 Nature Conservation Act 164 – 5, 171 – 2, 176; 1938 Town Planning Act 164; citizenship, welfare, and the urban in 18 – 21; Interior Ministry 149, 151; Ministry of Commerce 152; Ministry of Culture 174 – 5; Ministry of Housing 152, 179 – 80, 185n30; municipalities 150; Parliament 31, 145, 167; Regional Planning Committee 172; urban citizenship in 21 – 3; see also Copenhagen; Danish welfare

state; Frederikssund; Helsingør; Hillerød; Isefjorden; Jutland; Kattegat; Køge Bay; North Zealand; Øresund; Roskilde; Roskilde Fjord ‘double provision’ model 21 economic liberalism 40 economy 21, 56, 61, 72, 169; cooperative 52; industrialized 6, 191; market 40, 56; see also moral economy education 3 – 4, 8, 38, 44 – 5, 47, 55, 60, 64, 68 – 71, 77, 83, 93 – 5, 129 – 30, 178, 185n25, 194 – 5, 210, 214 electricity 4, 6, 43, 49 – 52, 83, 87, 91, 97, 102, 104, 106, 114, 139, 147 – 8, 150 – 1, 160, 187, 214 – 15 electrification 7 – 8, 106, 109 – 10, 111 Engdahl, Axel 67, 68 England 7, 52, 117, 120; see also London Entente powers 138 entertainment 3 – 4, 44, 60, 63 – 70, 73, 174, 210, 213 etatism 110 Europe 1 – 2, 4 – 7, 9 – 10, 24, 43, 52, 57, 63, 65 – 6, 71, 74, 86, 102, 104, 110, 139, 146, 149, 191, 197 – 8, 201, 214, 219; Central 17; early modern 21; Eastern 64; northwestern 165; southern 32; see also Northern Europe; Scandinavia; Western Europe European Union (EU) 198, 200 Finland 5, 57, 83 – 6, 92, 125 – 40, 215; Chamber of Finance 132 – 3; National Coalition Party 129; National Progress Party 129; Parliament 127 – 9, 132, 135, 138; Social Democratic Party (SDP) 127, 129 – 30, 132 – 3; Socialist Worker’s Party 130, 133 – 4; Supreme Administrative Court 134; Swedish Party 129 – 30, 132, 134; White Civil Guard (White Guard) 131 – 5; see also Finnish Civil War; Helsinki Finnish Civil War 12, 125, 127 – 9, 131 – 2, 135, 137 – 40, 215, 217; Reds 125, 128, 131, 135, 138; Whites 125, 127 folk pension 193 Folkteater 62, 67 – 8, 71, 73 Folkteatern 62, 64, 67 – 8, 67, 70, 73, 77 France 2, 25, 52, 56, 71; see also Paris Frederiksberg Commune 184 – 5n10

224 Index Frederiksborg (Frederiksberg) Castle 168 Frederikssund 175, 182 free enterprise 45, 103 free trade 45 freshwater 6 – 7, 8, 212, 214, 217 gas supply/systems 6, 8, 52, 83, 86 – 7, 94, 97, 104, 106, 114, 139, 150, 214, 217 gender 20 – 1, 31, 66, 157 general publicum 119 Germany 2, 9, 17, 25, 46, 56, 64, 71, 74, 117, 120, 138 – 9; see also Berlin; Hamburg; Weimar republic Glasgow, Scotland 6 – 7, 9 globalization 22 Gluck 74 Gothenburg 11, 60 – 78, 108, 110, 211, 213; Axel Engdahl at Folkteatern Lorensberg 67, 68; Götaplatsen 62 – 3, 62, 65, 70, 73, 75 – 6, 77, 213; Kungsportsavenyn 66 – 7, 73, 76; performance stages of 60 – 78; theatre 63 – 76; theatre locations 62; as welfare city 60 – 78; see also Alhambra; Folkteater; Folkteatern; Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra; Lilla Teater; Lorensberg garden; Lorensbergsteatern; Nya Teatern; Stora Teatern; Stadsteater Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra 61 governance 28, 60, 66, 95, 145, 148; city 128; communal 130, 135, 137 – 8; local 127; municipal 127 – 8; plutocratic communal 127; plutocratic municipal 139; public 61, 219; self- 138; urban 5, 24, 55, 60 – 1, 78, 159 government: city 38, 40, 48, 87; local 6, 9 – 10, 38 – 9, 41, 43, 47, 50, 55, 105, 218; municipal 6, 9, 11, 23, 46, 54, 146, 198, 215; national 1, 4, 12 – 13, 47, 215, 220; Norwegian 44, 48, 50; regional 212; self- 105; state 40, 43; Swedish 189, 191, 194, 196, 201; urban 4 – 5, 9 – 10, 210 Great Britain 46, 56, 166; see also Britain; England green belts 62, 172, 177 Hamburg 6, 26 health care 3 – 4, 8, 38, 40, 56, 83, 95, 187, 191 – 2, 195 – 7, 201, 204n17, 210 health nurses 155 – 6, 159

Helsingør 169, 175 Helsinki 11 – 12, 83 – 97, 88, 102, 126 – 7, 129, 137, 139, 150, 214 – 15, 217; Hermanni and Fredriksberg (Pasila) and 11, 92 – 7, 215; infrastructure networks and uneven urban citizenship within 86 – 9; inner city and rural–urban fringe in 85 – 6; Kallio neighbourhood 84, 88, 89 – 94, 97; municipal services and modern citizenship in 83 – 97; pauper board 127; Sörnäinen 89 – 91, 94; Toukola 92, 94 – 5, 97; White Guard of 131 – 4 High Middle Ages 191, 202 Hillerød 168, 175 holiday homes 12, 172, 174, 180 – 1, 184, 184n4, 212; see also holiday villages holiday villages 12, 164 – 84; alternative leisure settlements 177, 180 – 1; conservation planning 172 – 3, 176 – 7; containment of sprawl 179 – 80; development of 169 – 70; growing pains 174 homosexuality 20 housing: construction 53, 185n30; developments 96; impoverished 146 – 7, 160; inspections 12, 147, 154 – 5, 159, 216, 218; municipal 53, 145, 147, 150, 154 – 5, 156, 157 – 8, 216; stock 145, 149, 150, 152, 154; urban 145, 149 – 50, 154 – 5; welfare 146; see also housing conditions housing conditions 107, 145, 157, 159, 195, 209 Høyre 43, 45, 47, 49, 53 – 4, 106, 112, 115 humanitarian organizations 43 hygienic movement 28 imagined community 21 immigrants 201 – 2; rights of 201 – 2 inclusion 12, 19, 23, 30, 83, 92, 97, 125 – 7, 129 – 37, 140, 148, 153, 211, 214 – 17; politics of 214; social 4, 102, 105, 108 – 10, 115, 118, 120, 146, 215 – 16; urban 147 industrialization 2, 4, 12, 56, 86, 169, 175, 189 – 90, 193, 204 – 5n18, 217 infant mortality 156 infrastructural citizenship 12, 103, 121, 136, 145 – 60, 212, 216; hygiene and morality as markers of 157 – 9

Index  225 infrastructures 1, 18 – 19, 22, 24, 32, 41, 146 – 9, 157, 187 – 9, 192 – 3; city 188; cultural 11, 60 – 1, 63, 66, 68, 70, 74, 76 – 78; dysfunctional 154 – 7, 159; municipal 9, 84, 96; networked 147; public 7, 61, 71, 78, 148, 188; regional 192; urban 6 – 7, 86 – 7, 147 – 8 infrastructuring 61, 78 integrationism 190, 203 Isefjorden 181 – 2 Jaabæk, Søren 45 Jutland 21 Karlstrup Strand 170 Kattegat 168, 169, 170, 171, 173 – 4, 176, 178, 180 – 3; Dronning Mølle 178 Kjerrström, Claes 88, 88 Koch, Robert 25 Køge Bay 169 – 72, 170, 174 – 7, 181, 183 Kristiania 11, 40 – 2, 48 – 9, 53 – 7, 102 – 21, 123n42, 211, 213, 216 – 17; council 105 – 6, 112 – 18; municipal organization and private enterprise in 102 – 21; tramway debate in 112 – 18; tramway lines 116 labour market 21, 193, 197 labour movement 47 – 8, 145, 175, 177, 180 labour unions 23, 31 laissez-faire 6, 8, 24, 46 Lemanski, Charlotte 22, 147 – 8, 212 liberalism 40, 46 – 7; ‘patriotic’ 58n3 Lilla Teater 62, 65 London 7, 23, 57, 66, 89, 117; Empire Theatre 66 Lorensberg garden 65 – 8, 73 Lorensbergsteatern 62, 63, 65, 71 – 6 Lutheran: nation-state 199, 201; society 194; state church 194 magistrate 5, 24, 39, 112, 187 Mannerheim, Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil 138 marital status 21 market economy 40, 56 Maslow, Abraham 126; hierarchy of needs 126 Mehr, Hjalmar 188 – 9, 194 metabolic expansion 26, 212

metropolis 164 – 9, 171 – 2, 174 – 84, 184n8, 184 – 5n10, 185n25, 212 Middle Ages 191; see also High Middle Ages middle-class 21, 29, 31, 39, 47 – 8, 85 – 7, 90 – 2, 97, 170, 171, 213 migration 43, 220 missionary organizations 43 Moderate Venstre 45, 54 modernist theatre 71 – 2, 74 modernity 9, 11, 45, 60, 102, 103, 110, 145, 193, 199, 214 Møller, A.P. 168 Möller, Gustav 196 moral economy 37, 39 municipal administration/bureaucracy/ management 3, 9, 104, 107 – 8, 114, 118 – 20, 192, 198, 201, 209 municipal autonomy 205n28 municipal board 39, 42, 44 – 5, 51, 53 – 4, 105, 154, 157 municipal council 12, 39, 42, 48, 125, 128 – 9, 131, 140, 166 municipal democracy 12, 125, 129, 140; urban 126 – 8 municipal intervention 8, 214; and reforms in nineteenth century 5 – 10 municipalities: city 185n25; Danish 150; European 63; large 198; parish 185n25; rural 42, 56, 95, 177, 188, 191 – 3, 195 – 6, 203; small-town 42; Swedish 213; urban 42, 56, 174 municipalization 5, 10 – 11, 37 – 57, 104, 106, 108 – 12, 120, 217 – 18; from above 43 – 4; cholera epidemics and 40 – 2; savings banks and 42 – 3; urban, in Norway 1890 – 1920 48 – 52; as winning projects 55 – 7 municipal public services 219; see also specific public services municipal self-government 5, 39 – 40, 190, 197 – 9, 202 – 3 municipal socialism 9 – 10, 23, 52 – 3, 56, 104, 115, 117 – 18, 120, 195 municipal socialist movement 9 Napoleonic wars 85 nation-state 12, 83 – 4, 166, 190 – 2, 194, 197, 199, 202 – 3; industrialized 199, 201; Lutheran 199, 201 negotiated welfare city 125 – 40; Finnish road to 137 – 9

226 Index neoliberalism 22, 218 – 19 New Public Management 189, 201 Nordic welfare city 1 – 13, 84, 145; explaining 217 – 19; future of 219 – 20; origins and transformations of 211 – 14; types and dimensions of 209 – 20 North America 165 – 6 North Atlantic world 43, 46, 57 Northern Europe 84, 191 North Zealand 168 – 9, 183 Norway 5, 11, 37 – 57, 143n67, 166, 184, 211; Bergen 41, 50; cholera epidemics 40 – 2; cities 11, 37 – 57, 212; common good as patriotism 40; Fredrikstad 39, 44, 51; government 44, 48, 50; municipal self-government in 39 – 40; municipalization from above 43 – 4; Oslo 37, 53, 57, 102; and savings banks 42 – 3; socialist communes in 52 – 5; Stavanger 45, 50 – 1; tradition of communalism in 38 – 9; Trondheim 45, 49 – 50; urban municipalization 48 – 52; see also Kristiania Nya Teatern 62, 63 – 4, 68 – 71, 69, 76 – 7 open recreation 183 Øresund 25, 169, 171 – 2, 181 outdoor life 3, 170, 180, 210 ownership 42, 48, 78, 93, 126; collective 11, 37; communal 38; cooperative 37; municipal 42, 48 – 9, 54, 56; private 49, 187; public 9, 39, 52, 183 Paris 7, 9; Folies-Bergères 65; World Fair 89 parliamentarism 46 parsimony 3, 6, 40, 45, 50, 55, 210 party system 48, 56 Pasteur, Louis 25 patrimonial structures 39 patronage 45 – 6, 76, 126 peasants/peasantry 37, 39 – 40, 44, 125, 138 Petersen, Sophus 63, 73 – 4 philanthropic organizations 43, 51 politics: communal 129 – 37; of inclusion 214; local 2, 12, 106, 112, 129; material 22; municipal 105, 130, 187, 195, 199 – 200, 202 – 3, 215; national 1 – 2, 12, 202, 215; partisan 216; practical 117, 192; social 43, 160;

social democratic 22; Swedish 190; urban 1 – 4, 6, 11, 209 – 10, 219 – 20 poverty 18 – 19, 21, 43 – 6, 49, 55, 125, 127 – 8, 131, 146, 149 – 50, 193, 195; see also poverty gardens; poverty laws; poverty relief poverty gardens 18 – 19, 29 poverty laws 18, 127 poverty relief 18, 21, 40, 49, 115 Primdahl, Jørgen 165, 183 private companies 6, 87, 97, 102, 104, 106 – 10, 112 – 15, 117 – 20, 180, 187, 213 private enterprises 7, 32, 38, 42, 50, 54, 56, 60, 218; in Stockholm and Kristiania 102 – 21, 111 private entrepreneurs 12, 42, 50, 53, 55, 213, 218 private management 11, 108, 113 – 15, 119, 211 privatization 31, 42, 54, 219 privileged 85; rural life of 167 – 9 professionalism 44 – 7, 137, 139 Prussia 143n67 public interest 8, 10, 23, 119, 172, 183, 187, 190 – 1 publicness 37 – 8, 43, 45, 47, 50, 53, 55 – 7 public relief 39 public schools 29, 39 public services 1 – 13, 18, 24, 32, 38, 52, 87, 104 – 12, 209 – 15, 217 – 20 reconciliation 12, 125, 128 – 37, 139 – 40, 215 Reinhardt, Max 71, 74 relatedness 126 rights 11, 18 – 20, 83, 120, 155, 171, 180, 192, 218; to better housing 155; citizen 103; citizenship 194; city 197; civil 21; formal 19; garden 19; graded participation 187; of immigrants 201 – 2; informal 19; to infrastructural citizenship 159; legal 126, 134; local 218; ownership 126; participation 192, 201; political 21, 127, 138, 211; pre-emption 180; property 171; representation 192; restricted participation 188; social 21, 196, 211; socio-material 155, 216; to social citizenship 201 – 2; suffrage 126; town 189, 194, 204 – 5n18; to urban

Index  227 citizenship 214; voting 21, 105, 128, 197; women’s 65, 128 Roskilde 167, 175 Roskilde Fjord 173 – 6, 180 – 2 rural life: of privileged 167 – 9 Russia 127 – 8, 135, 138 – 9; February Revolution 127 – 8; October Revolution 138 Russian Empire 85, 138 – 9 Russo-Japanese War of 1904 – 1905 138 Ryan, Richard M. 126 Saarinen, Eliel 96 sanitation/sanitary services 7, 10, 19, 47, 92, 95, 97, 105 – 6, 114, 187, 216, 219 Scandinavia 139, 184 Scandinavian countries 1, 139, 164 self-determination theory (SDT) 126 self-government: communal 57; local 38 – 9, 46, 55, 105, 192, 198, 202; municipal 5, 39 – 40, 190, 197 – 9, 202 – 3; popular 47; urban 215 self-made man 44 – 7 Sen, Amartya 126, 128, 130 Shakespeare 74 slum clearance 145 – 54, 159 – 60, 215, 218 social class 37, 47, 66, 73, 182 social democratic model 1 social democrats 12, 22 – 3, 47, 53 – 4, 61, 63, 104, 106, 110, 113 – 16, 117, 119 – 21, 123n40, 127 – 30, 132, 175, 205n22, 212 – 13, 215, 218 social engineers 190 – 1, 193 – 5 socialism 52; urban 53; see also municipal socialism socialist commune 52 – 6 social radicalism 50 social reform(s) 1, 6, 8, 10, 47, 160, 195, 209, 218 social responsibility 1 social status 21, 64 – 5, 220 solidarity 37, 39, 40, 44 – 7 Sonderentwicklung 56, 37 – 8 Spain 9; Civil War 9 Stadsteater 62 – 4, 62, 70 – 2, 76 standard of living 45, 151, 218 Stauning 171 Stein, Karl vom und zum 143n67 Stockholm 7, 8, 11, 72, 74, 102 – 21, 139, 165, 189, 194 – 5, 200 – 1, 211, 213, 217; Council 105 – 10, 121;

horse-drawn tramway car 103; municipal organization and private enterprise in 102 – 21; Norrström 8; St. Paul’s church 200, 200; trams at Slussen lock 107; tramway debate in 106 – 12; tramway lines of Northern company after electrification 111; see also Stockholm City Mission; Stockholm exhibition 1930; Vällingby Stockholm City Mission (Stockholms stadsmission) 200 – 1; St. Paul’s Church 200, 200 Stockholm exhibition 1930 194 Stora Teatern 62 – 4, 62, 71, 75 suburban belts 174, 177 suffrage 104 – 6, 126 – 8, 188; communal 126, 128; equal 125, 127 – 8; local 119; municipal 127 – 8, 138 – 40; rights 126; universal 48, 51, 125, 127 – 8, 138, 215 – 16 summer homes 164 – 6, 169 – 77, 180, 182 Sweden 5, 10 – 12, 57, 63, 66, 71 – 2, 74, 85, 105, 138 – 9, 144n67, 165 – 6, 187 – 203, 207n48, 213, 218; 1862 municipal reform 191 – 3; 1974 constitution (regeringsformen) 197; Christianization of 202; government 189, 191, 194, 196, 201; implementation of welfare after World War II 195 – 7; modernization in inter-war period 193 – 5; municipalities 213; municipal self-government today 198 – 9; municipality amalgamation processes 197; Statens Offentliga Utredningar (SOU) 191; Swedish Crown/monarchy 202 – 3; welfare cities of 187 – 203; see also Gothenburg; Stockholm swimming halls 31 – 2 theatre entertainment: private business of 65 – 8 Tisvildeleje, Northern Zealand 173, 182 trade unions 47, 71, 175 tramway cars 102; horse-drawn 103 tramways 4, 11 – 12, 43, 52, 78, 102 – 21, 211, 213, 217; AB Sockholms Spårvägar 110; electric 102, 112, 117; German 116, 117, 120; Kristiania Elektriske Sporvei (KES) 112, 116, 117, 123n34; Kristiania Sporveier 118;

228 Index Kristiania Sporveisselskab (KSS) 112 – 13, 115 – 16, 116, 117 – 18; Stockholms Nya Spårvägs AB (Northern company) 106; Stockholms Södra Spårvägars AB (Southern company) 106; see also tramway cars transport systems 120; see also tramways Tryde, Christian 25 – 6, 27 Turkey 21 unemployment 46, 127 unions see labour unions; trade unions upper class 51, 87, 164, 168 – 9, 171 – 2, 174 urban built environments 2, 146 urban centres 7, 70, 102, 188 – 9, 193 – 5 urban citizenship 18, 20 – 3, 28, 77 – 8, 86 – 9, 103, 110, 115, 118 – 19, 121, 210 – 11, 214 – 20 urban community 84, 87, 92 – 7, 105, 115, 209, 211; services 1 – 13 urban governance 5, 24, 55, 60 – 1, 78, 159 urban housing 145, 149 – 50, 154 – 5 urbanity 2, 52, 188 – 9, 193, 201, 204n11 urbanization 4, 6, 9, 43, 103, 139, 187, 191, 193, 217 urban life 2, 44, 64 – 5, 91, 139, 147, 159, 210 urban materiality 148, 161n9 urban municipal democracy: from designated welfare to negotiated welfare 126 – 8 urban political arena/domain 3, 211 urban politics 1 – 4, 6, 11, 209 – 10, 219 – 20 urban poverty 146, 149 – 50 urban squirearchy 6 urban welfare 3, 5, 11, 22, 28, 32, 60 – 1, 120 – 1, 145, 159, 196, 212 – 13 USA 52, 56 Vällingby 195 Venstre 43 – 4, 47, 50, 53 – 5, 106, 112 – 13, 116, 118, 121 violence 92, 131, 220 wastewater systems 149, 166, 217 Weber, Max 21 Weimar republic 124n60

welfare 129 – 37; concept of 3 – 5 welfare citizens 19 – 20, 170, 181, 211 welfare citizenship 11, 22, 146, 148, 150 welfare city(ies) 4, 10, 17 – 18, 20, 22, 26, 28, 32, 37, 60, 84, 102, 104 – 5, 110, 113 – 14, 118, 121, 146 – 9, 159, 164, 167, 169, 181 – 3, 204n17, 214, 217 – 20; and concept of welfare 3 – 5; economic 217 – 18; in Finland 125 – 40; negotiated 125 – 40; neoliberal 218; patriarchal 217, 219 – 20; social 218; theatre and making of 60 – 78; types of 12, 187 – 203; universal 218; see also Nordic welfare city welfare policies 84, 107, 181 welfare services 2, 11, 23, 83, 102 – 3, 120, 160, 189 – 90, 201, 210, 212 – 13, 218 – 20 welfare state 1 – 3, 5, 7, 10, 13, 18, 37, 84, 121, 127, 146, 160, 164, 167, 170 – 2, 174 – 5, 177, 179 – 80, 183 – 4, 185n25, 188 – 91, 194 – 5, 197, 199 – 200, 202, 209 – 11, 213, 218 – 19; Danish 10, 167, 184; Nordic 195, 213, 218 – 19; social-democratic 188, 195; Swedish 13, 188, 190, 197, 199, 202 welfare systems 1 – 3, 19, 170, 174, 179, 191, 209 – 10, 215, 219 Westermark, G.E. 106 – 7 Western Europe 1, 64, 105, 138 – 9, 164 – 6 wet rooms 28 women 21, 29, 43, 48, 51, 54, 65 – 6, 103, 119, 126, 128, 137 – 8, 188, 195 workers 4, 21, 23, 61, 64, 68 – 71, 74, 76, 87, 103 – 4, 107 – 8, 113 – 15, 119, 125 – 8, 130 – 1, 136, 150, 168 – 9, 174, 182, 191, 193 – 4, 199, 212 – 13, 215 working class 19, 24, 29, 43 – 4, 47 – 8, 53, 61, 64, 68, 74, 83 – 5, 87 – 90, 92, 94, 97, 112, 126 – 7, 129, 131, 145, 150, 157, 170, 214, 216 World War I 10, 138 – 9, 166, 188, 190, 193 World War II 12, 21, 23, 152, 160, 188 – 90, 215 – 16, 218 xenophobia 220 Yugoslavia 21