Reports of riots in Stockholm suburbs probably brings to American minds images of single-family homes and SUVs burning. Though Stockholm has plenty of American-style suburbs, the riots were not in those areas.
Instead, they were in high-density housing projects that Sweden built in an effort to promote transit ridership, which planners today would call “transit-oriented developments.” Most Swedes, however, refused to live in these projects, so they became home to Sweden’s second-class citizenry, namely immigrant and often Muslim workers.
