Håkan Olof Forsell

I am a researcher in urban history and urban studies. I have written about urban property rights, housing policy, urban planning and segregation during the 20th century until today.

My latest book "Söder - dreams and transformations in a Swedish neighborhood" will be published in May 2025 by Weyler förlag.

In the book, I use the Stockholm city district of Södermalm to deepen the picture of urbanity in Sweden and Europe. How certain neighborhoods have changed, been loaded with economic and cultural investments and have become symbols of a polarized social climate. Södermalm has related "neighborhood cousins" in other cities, which have gone through similar developments and which are compared with in the book: Vesterbro in Copenhagen, Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin or

Žižkov

in Prague, for example.

But above all, it is a book about a popular neighborhood that has fallen into the maelstrom of national urban and housing policy and global financial urbanism during the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century.

https://www.weylerforlag.se/bocker/soder-drommar-och-forvandlingar-i-en-svensk-stadsdel/

Between 2017 and 2021 I was Dag-Hammarskjöld Foundation Professor at the Northern Europe Institute, Humboldt University, Berlin. The professorship was funded by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. My assignment was to work with research and teaching in cultural and social history subjects and to promote academic exchange between Germany and Sweden.

Together with the architecture journalist Dan Hallemar, I made the podcast "Staden" (The City) between 2013-2024. The podcast Staden received the Sveriges Tidskrifter award for the best digital trade journal of the year in 2019 and the large Industriminnespriset in 2020. The project has taken a break in 2025, but the website is a living place where all 160 episodes can be heard: Website: stadenpodcast.se