Urban Inequality in Finland: Land, Housing and the Nordic Welfare State

Investigates the structural dynamics of urban inequality from a political economy perspective

-Discusses how a descriptive methodology in Finnish mainstream segregation research has contributed to territorial stigmatisation
-Analyses the changing and contradictory means and goals of land and housing policies in Finland
- Illustrates how state and municipal land policies have adopted entrepreneurial, rent-maximising features which restrict attempts to deter urban inequality
-Shows how the role of social housing is retrenching, and housing is treated increasingly as a financial asset contributing to urban inequalities

Coupling a political economic analysis of policy transformations with a critical sociology of urban inequality, the book contributes to an understanding of the structural dynamics of urban inequality in the Nordic welfare state context. It shows how the state and municipalities have allowed an entrepreneurial and profit-oriented logic to penetrate these policies. From regulators of capitalist urbanisation, public bodies have increasingly become its institutional scaffolding. This brings with it a host of urban social problems linked to uneven development such segregation, gentrification, and housing displacement.

The book also presents a novel critique of descriptive mainstream research, policy and media narratives regarding urban inequality in Finland. It suggests that a lack of explanation regarding the structural dynamics of urban inequality has contributed to the disrepute of working-class neighbourhoods, and their territorial stigmatisation.