Million Programme 1965
In 1965 the Riksdag adopted the Million Programme — a plan to build one million dwellings in Sweden over ten years. By 1974 roughly one million homes had been built; Olof Palme oversaw the project as Minister of Communications. It became, relative to population, the largest housing programme in the world at its time and the third corner of post-war Folkhemmet alongside 1947 welfare reforms and 1959 ATP.
In 1965 the Riksdag adopted the Million Programme (Miljonprogrammet) — a commitment to build one million dwellings in Sweden over ten years. The programme produced large-scale demolition of older neighbourhoods and the construction of high-density housing belts on urban peripheries; by 1974, roughly one million homes had been built. Olof Palme oversaw the project as Minister of Communications. The official slogan was “a good home for everyone.”
Relative to population, it was the largest housing programme in the world at its time. It is the third corner of post-war Folkhemmet, alongside the 1947 welfare reforms and the 1959 ATP single-vote victory — the moment when universal entitlement was translated into physical infrastructure.
The Million Programme also produced one of the most contested architectural legacies in modern Sweden. The suburb belts (förorter) it built around Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö would by the 2010s become a primary topographical reference for migration, integration, and gang-crime debates — a reframing that says less about the buildings than about the politics that grew up around them sixty years on.