Explaining the welfare city: publicness, citizenship and the expansion of public services in Nordic cities, c. 1850–1920

Abstract

This article addresses the expansion of urban public services in major Nordic cities, from 1850 to 1920. We argue that changes in political discourse were the driving force that prompted politicians to act on behalf of the urban public, significantly before the rise of the universal welfare state. The discursive changes are explored through three analytic concepts: publicness, urban citizenship and the welfare city. We start by presenting a short overview of the development of urban public services. Then we demonstrate how these concepts may be used in conjunction to explain the historical changes. Finally, the material effects are discussed in three case-studies, addressing freshwater pipes, public transport and municipal health care, respectively.

This article proposes new ways to explain a crucial subject in urban history: the expansion in the provision of public services in cities, from the mid-nineteenth century up to World War I. During this period, capital cities as well as provincial towns gradually abandoned the ideal of economic prudence that had guided local politics since the early modern era.¹ Municipal authorities started to engage in public projects: sanitary infrastructure, networks for gas and electricity, public transport and telecommunication systems. Eventually, the public projects for improving the daily life of urban residents came to include social services as well: public education, outdoor recreation, poor relief and modern health care. Before the ascendance of welfare states in the post-war period, urban authorities began addressing the problems of poverty and social exclusion, effectively transforming old hierarchical structures into what would become versions of the welfare city.²

The perspective is inspired by Simon Gunn et al. who have demonstrated the intricate connections between infrastructure systems, welfare and citizenship.³ Here, we take the argument one step further, analysing the driving forces propelling the expansion of the public sector in Nordic cites. We argue that this development must be explained by focusing on political discourse; that is, the conflicts and negotiations that made the shift in welfare policies possible. To understand the causes as well as the effects of this development, we must recognize the multiple actors and conflicting visions that were instrumental in promoting political change.

Our argument rests on four premises. First, cities acted as hotbeds for introducing and developing public welfare services that were later adopted and organized on the national level. Second, the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the era of the great wars is fundamentally important for understanding this process. Third, Nordic cities hold special relevance for understanding the general development of welfare cities. Although they were latecomers to industrialization, they would become burgeoning centres of modern welfare states after World War II. Fourth, welfare services must be understood as publicly organized systems for improving the life conditions of ordinary people. This means a broader definition of urban welfare, recognizing the importance of infrastructure systems along with social and recreational services.

The article will address the driving forces, the arguments and multiple agents involved in negotiating the quality and scope of urban public services in the period 1850–1920. We start with a short overview of the development of urban public services in Nordic cities. Then we discuss three key concepts: publicness, urban citizenship and the welfare city. We argue that the articulation of publicness, specifically the conflicting notions of the common good, promoted investments in public services that furthered the extension of citizenship rights. Therefore, an analysis of political discourse is necessary to explain the development of the welfare city. To support this claim, we present examples from three empirical studies, addressing the main arguments in political debates in Stockholm, Kristiania (present-day Oslo) and Copenhagen. In the case of Stockholm, the study has to be based on secondary sources while there are very few minutes preserved from the earliest part of the period. For Kristiania and Copenhagen, the city council minutes provide detailed evidence of the arguments wielded for or against municipal investments in public services.⁴

While we focus on the political arenas, we also recognize the influence of public opinion on the decision-making process. Newspapers and public meetings are other examples on arenas that influenced the politicians in the city councils. For the case-studies presented here, we concentrate on the municipal discussions to demonstrate how the discourse of publicness was articulated in matters concerning sanitary infrastructure, public tramways and municipal health care, respectively.

A trajectory of public services

When tracing the origins of public services, the city presents a natural point of departure. As pointed out by Ben Ansell and Johannes Lindvall, the proliferation of public services from the nineteenth century onwards was a general phenomenon that started in major cities before spreading to provincial areas. In the early modern period, most public services were provided locally, through religious institutions, communal organization or by personal initiative.⁵ Public services like policing, fire watch or street cleaning were allocated to individual citizens, or to smaller collectives like guilds and city quarters. An alternative to personal obligation was contracting, whereby a local entrepreneur would agree to provide the vital service in exchange for monetary compensation.⁶

The disastrous impact of cholera pandemics in the early nineteenth century marked a turning point for welfare policies, forcing local politicians to engage in the implementation of large-scale systems for freshwater provision and for latrine disposal. Basic sanitary infrastructure became a municipal prerogative, signalling systematic public intervention in the private sphere of city households.⁷ During the long nineteenth century, the distinction between the private and the public spheres had to be renegotiated between politicians and urban residents. The prophylactic perception of health attributed infectious diseases to unhealthy environments which could be improved by public intervention. This attitude resonated well with the industrialists’ ambition to maintain a healthy workforce.⁸

A decisive step towards an active municipal welfare policy in the Nordic countries was the establishment of city councils from the middle of the nineteenth century. This centralization of decision-making was facilitated by municipal reform acts, designed by national governments to allocate economic and political responsibility to communal bodies.⁹ Council members were typically representatives of the traditional urban elites, such as merchants, manufacturers or government officials. Over time, they were joined by emerging professional groups, such as lawyers, medical doctors and civil engineers. Consequently, the city council became the most important political arena for competition and negotiation between status groups, even before the rise of partisan politics.¹⁰

While sanitary infrastructure was framed as a municipal concern from the beginning, the introduction of critical services such as city gas, tramways and telephone lines were implemented by private companies running operations for profit.¹¹ Like in many European cities, there was an agreed-upon principle among local representatives not to meddle in profit-making business operations. Politicians ventured to keep taxes low and protect public interest by moderating the impact of modern services on urban space.¹²

The pressure from public opinion, along with a growing frustration with company logics, prompted politicians to advocate further municipal intervention. The late nineteenth century saw the ascendence of ‘municipal socialism’, where municipal bodies claimed monopoly control over the provision of basic urban services. This required the formation of specialized municipal boards to manage operations, turning city administration into business ventures in the process.¹³ Pierre-Yves Saunier has argued that the early twentieth century witnessed a series of ‘municipal experiments’ in welfare provision. Urban governments became engaged in networks and organizations to facilitate intra-city co-operation. Politicians and administrators in Nordic cities took an active part in this, following developments in Western and Central Europe closely.¹⁴

The shift from private to public has been described as a struggle between the state and market operators.¹⁵ We propose an alternative perspective, focusing on how and why the expansion of public services became the core of municipal government. Decisions promoting welfare services were first implemented in an urban context, decades before they were adopted by central governments. From a Nordic perspective, three different types of welfare city can be identified. The first type was driven by patriarchal elites, the second by industrialists promoting economic growth, and a third type saw the rise of popular movements demanding effective public services for all urban citizens. These types constituted overlapping forms of the welfare city, varying according to the political and social context.

Publicness and the political sphere

To analyse the relationship between political discourse and the development of public services, we use the theory of publicness, as formulated by Janet Newman and John Clarke. They define publicness as the combination of ideas, people, and practices that have been made public, through a process that makes matters of collective concern visible. The organization of public services affects the perception of the common good in any given society, which in turn is expressed in the political discourse.¹⁶

Newman and Clarke focus on the aftermath of neoliberal reform in the early 2000s, as a formative moment when new combinations of publicness were articulated and tested.¹⁷ From an urban history perspective, we argue that the period 1850–1920 represents another formative moment when the established discourses of publicness and citizenship were challenged and eventually replaced by new combinations. The ideological foundations of the old municipal regime – privilege, economy and social exclusion – were gradually undermined by the effects of industrialization and urbanization. At the same time, political reforms and modern technology opened opportunities to be exploited by new generations of politicians.¹⁸ Accordingly, conflicts over the organization of public services became the propellers of historical change, articulating notions of citizenship and also directing the expansion of the welfare city.

Newman and Clarke specify the articulation of publicness as being composed of three discursive chains of equal importance. The first defines the scope and character of the political community, the citizen, the people, and the nation, which together form the public. The second chain constructs the notion of public service, based on the organization responsible; that is, the state and the public sector. The third discursive chain links public awareness to the values of political rights and freedom. This reinforces the idea of independent public actors, ready to defend the public against corruption and other forms of self-interest.¹⁹ From an urban history perspective, the discursive chains have to be remodelled to apply to the local context: we see the first one as defining urban community and belonging, while the second constitutes the character and scope of public service provision. The third discursive chain addresses the rights to the city, in both its material as well as social forms.²⁰

The discursive chains help us understand and explain what defines and constitutes publicness, why some services were considered vital to the public and who had a say in discussions about their organization. They also provide the missing link between official political discourse and urban citizenship. Political conflicts over the organization of public services articulated ideals of community, equity and social inclusion. Local politicians were wary of public opinion and often referred to newspaper writings, public meetings and petitions from various interest groups. The council debates therefore provide ample evidence of the construction of publicness and the transformation of the welfare city.

Urban citizenship

Studies of citizenship have often focused on national politics in the modern period, in particular the struggle over political representation, suffrage and codified individual rights.²¹ Maarten Prak has, however, advocated a long-term approach to urban citizenship, based on citizen practices that exist ‘outside the rules covering formal citizenship’.²² Urban citizenship, from this perspective, was created from below rather than imposed from above. We follow this approach by focusing on political contestation involving multiple agents operating both inside and outside municipal institutions. Therefore, we use the term urban citizenship to describe how the extension of public services transformed the social scope of urban communities.

In urban history, there has been a material turn in recent years, analysing how the political struggle for material rights helped shape modern infrastructure systems for water, energy and transport flows. All these services were introduced and extended through a process of negotiation and conflict over material rights.²³ Charlotte Lemanski has suggested the term ‘infrastructural citizenship’ to describe how the less privileged urban residents demanded access to the modern utilities that were mainly reserved for the elite. Citizenship practices, then, were ultimately about securing the right to the good life and the modern conveniences increasingly on offer.²⁴

Infrastructure for freshwater and sewage, as well as the distribution of energy and transport services, extended the social and spatial reach of urban policy, providing modern facilities to a greater number of urban dwellers.²⁵ While we acknowledge the importance of urban infrastructure, we consider material rights to be intimately entwined with demands for social inclusion, and they should not be analytically separated from other forms of public goods.

The nineteenth-century expansion of urban public services bridges early modern and modern policies. New services opened opportunities for bargaining and negotiating the right to the city, and these came to involve a larger share of urban residents. This meant a change in the nature of politics, as Ansell and Lindvall have pointed out. Municipal governments became providers of public goods rather than mere administrators of financial obligations.²⁶ As a result, those who wanted access to the new public services demanded a say in their management. They became urban citizens.

The welfare city

Contemporary research on Nordic cities has applied the concept ‘welfare city’ for the transformation of urban spaces that occurred in the post-war period. Niels Albertsen and Bülent Diken argue that urban ways of living were profoundly changed under the influence of the welfare state. National programmes for public housing, health care and education helped reshape the built environment of cities, while a new class of welfare state employees became an influental group in urban politics.²⁷ Other scholars have used the concept to analyse and criticize the impact of neoliberal reforms on urban planning and architecture.²⁸

Such perspectives tend to reduce (post-war) urban development to a mere function of state policy. We aim to historicize the development of the welfare city by studying the process from the mid-nineteenth century, demonstrating how modern welfare services were introduced and developed by municipal initiative, long before the advent of the welfare state. The focus on the state as the principal agent is misleading, while it disregards the local setting and the interest groups that played a decisive role in the expansion of public services. The welfare city was shaped by social conflict between municipal authorities and urban residents, but also by ideological conflict within the ruling elite.²⁹

Magnus Linnarsson has defined the welfare city as ‘the political vision of municipal authorities to expand and improve public services’.³⁰ In this article, we argue that the concept must include material as well as ideological aspects. The welfare city was not based on a specific ideological programme; it was the product of practices and negotiations that constituted the core of urban politics. Political contestation propelled the growth of urban services, and the services themselves came to shape the physical and spatial structure of major cities.

We suggest a history of the welfare city, before the rise of the welfare state, as a series of distinct but overlapping types.³¹ The patriarchal welfare city would be the first type, where urban dignitaries took action to maintain social order and defend their privileged position. Patriarchal concern was framed in a health discourse, with reformers stressing the need for improving the moral as well as the social conditions of the inferior classes. Arguments advocating soundness, diligence and moral hygiene underpinned a disciplinary programme for improving living conditions in the urban environment. This discourse helped dismantle the ideals of laissez-faire politics, promoting municipal intervention in what had hitherto been considered the private sphere.³²

The economic welfare city represents a second type, where the new economic elite of bankers and industrial entrepreneurs demanded municipal investments in gas, electricity and communication networks.³³ As companies prospered, local politicians came to assert that the financial surplus from urban services must be treated as a municipal asset. Arguments for supporting free enterprise were countered by claims for a stake in company profits. These conflicts eventually spawned the wave of ‘municipal socialism’ by the turn of the century, where a number of private operations were taken over by urban authorities and transformed into municipal boards.³⁴

Further contestation stimulated the development of the social welfare city, characterized by a systematic policy from above to order the life of urban residents, and by demands from below for material equity and social inclusion.³⁵ The rise of popular movements and the extension of suffrage rights made politicians more sensitive to the plight of urban residents. Supported by a growing cadre of professional experts, city councils ventured to organize daily life in the urban commune. The growth of municipal administration meant a larger number of communal employees, so the city had to tackle the task of being a model employer.³⁶ The development served to promote further municipal intervention in areas like health care, public recreation and social housing.

The three types of the welfare city, however, do not cover the full complexity of political and historical change. Rather, the different types should be analysed as competing models that intersected to produce a variety of outcomes. In fact, the convergence of arguments from three competing types holds the key to explaining the rapid expansion in the provision of urban public services in the period 1850–1920. The question that begs an answer, however, is what were the decisive factors that propelled the rise of the welfare city? In the following section, we will present three examples of how the development may be explained, by studying the configurations of publicness, the extension of citizenship rights and the contesting visions of the welfare city.

Freshwater and sanitation services in the patriarchal city of Stockholm³⁷

The first proposal for a municipal drinking water system in Stockholm was presented in 1851.³⁸ At the time, the Swedish Medical Society had launched a campaign for modern water supply, motivated by an investigation into the high mortality rate in Swedish cities. The medical doctors were inspired by the sanitary reforms in Great Britain, and by a committee set up in Copenhagen with the same purpose.³⁹ Their arguments were taken up by Wilhelm Leijonancker, who was later commissioned to design the water supply system. Leijonancker was an officer in the Royal Corps of Civil Engineers (Kungliga Väg- och vattenbyggnadskåren), founded in 1851. As Sweden did not take part in any wars, the Corps was almost entirely dedicated to civil engineering.⁴⁰

Despite internal opposition, the parishes, magistrates and burghers decided to pay half the cost of a study trip to England and Germany for Leijonancker. The other half was covered by the Stockholm Fire Insurance Office (Brandkontoret). In June 1853, Leijonancker delivered his plan for a public water system, using underground pipes and steam driven pumps to distribute freshwater from central water works.⁴¹ Leijonancker strongly advised against allowing private companies to build and operate the water system, as had often been the case in England. The committee that had been established to evaluate the plan agreed that the water pipeline must be built, owned and operated by the municipality. The principle that freshwater should not be sold for profit would become the dominant view in Sweden. The subsequent sewage systems also came under public ownership in most provincial municipalities across the country.⁴²

There were dissenting voices, however. Some of the more peripheral parishes strongly opposed the municipal project. They did not want to pay for a public service that was primarily designed for wealthy people residing in the city centre. The opposition came from the less well-off among the burghers, small craftsmen, traders and small property owners. Nevertheless, after some complicated rounds of discussions in the committee, those in favour of a water system won by 42 votes to 16.⁴³ Work began in February 1858, and from November 1861 the public could obtain water from six public taps and the expansion of the system began. Popular subscription to the water supply network was slow at first, but large groups of customers were connected in the following years.⁴⁴

Plans for the Stockholm pipeline network were launched 10 years before the 1862 Municipal Government Act, which delegated the provision of public services to local communes. The system for freshwater supply also predated the 1874 Health Care Charter by more than a decade. The introduction of this new public service was a local initiative from the beginning, planned and implemented in co-operation with various communal bodies. The sanitary movement had already gained momentum, and the regulations may be seen as a codification of the new approach to public responsibility.

Leijonancker’s arguments for a piped water system in the plan from 1853 included a number of motives: first, compassion for the poor who lived far from water sources and on the upper floors of houses; second, the provision of modern conveniences for the better-off citizens; third, improving sanitary conditions in the city also promoted better street cleaning; fourth, increasing the health standards and preventing cholera; fifth, offering a steady supply for water-consuming industries; sixth, facilitating effective firefighting; and seventh, opening opportunities for bathhouses and laundry facilities.⁴⁵

Leijonancker’s final argument addressed social as well as economic interests:

It might be objected that a higher mortality rate among the poorer class is not exactly a serious misfortune, a claim that could be defended if there were only people unable to work who died. But the tables show that it is the men between 25 and 40 years of age, from whom the proletarian class is largely recruited, who die and leave their families in poverty.⁴⁶

An effective system for freshwater supply would not only strengthen the health of the workforce, it would also relieve the city from having to care for the destitute families of deceased workers.

The establishment of an infrastructural system for freshwater supply meant that urban citizenship was extended to a larger group of residents, not least to the urban poor. The reform targeted those who suffered most from the prevailing conditions, albeit under strong resistance from some of the burghers. The articulation of publicness was quite strong, in the sense that the water system became a municipal monopoly to be owned and managed by the city. In other kinds of infrastructure, like the public gas works, the level of public involvement was less conspicuous. Although city gas was regarded as a municipal area of responsibility in many ways, the city council was reluctant to take its full ownership.⁴⁷ Clearly, freshwater was considered a public good to a greater extent than gas, which made municipal ownership of the waterworks less controversial.

The municipal system for water supply therefore extended the scope of urban citizenship, while also establishing a strong discursive chain linking material rights to the municipal provision of public services. In the original plan, arguments for patriarchal discipline resonated with business logic and genuine concerns for the working poor. The patriarchal elite successfully courted the support of the economic elites and the more well-off citizens in addressing the sanitary question. It was this configuration of publicness that made piped water the starting point of the emerging welfare city.

Public transport in the economic city of Kristiania

The provision of tramways in Kristiania (present-day Oslo) was initially a business operation run by a private company. Rapid urbanization encouraged further investments in public transport, and there were several hopefuls who proposed new business ventures.⁴⁸ In 1892, a newly formed consortium proposed a tramway connecting the city centre with the recreational area of Holmenkollen. The directors suggested that the municipality should buy stakes in the company, providing financial security for the project. The investment would give the municipality a direct say in business operations, and effective means to guarantee transport connections for the future.⁴⁹

Several councillors supported the idea, arguing that a tramway would make it possible for working men and their families to enjoy fresh air and healthy recreation. Effective transport was declared a matter of public interest, providing equal access to the great outdoors.⁵⁰ There were also economic arguments for a joint venture. One councillor claimed that municipal support was necessary for stimulating private investment, and that the city would benefit from taking over operations when the concession period had expired.⁵¹ Municipal intervention, then, was motivated by financial as well as by humanitarian considerations.

There were dissenting voices, however, who insisted that the project should be left to private investors. Some representatives argued that the municipality had more pressing matters than public transport to invest in.⁵² A conservative member stated that a tramway to Holmenkollen would not be in the public interest while most residents could not afford the fare, even if prices were kept low. The tramway would only serve the wealthy, and the municipality could not be held responsible for providing public transport to the outer areas.⁵³ In the end, the adherents of municipal investment won out, with the Kristiania council agreeing to support the business proposal.

The debate demonstrates the conflict between social and economic motives. The proponents of municipal investment advocated an extended urban citizenship which also included the working poor. Furthermore, the debate reflected a view that the rights to the city should include the means to escape the polluted centre and benefit from outdoor recreation. In terms of publicness, the proponents of the proposal linked municipal intervention with material rights and urban citizenship. Their opponents denied these connections, drawing a sharp line between private enterprise and municipal administration: business operations should be left to private companies, and the municipality should restrict its efforts to matters concerning the public good, such as hospitals or asylums.

Municipal investment, however, opened up for further political intervention. In 1897, the Kristiania council began planning a municipal tramway line, connecting the working-class suburbs in the north with the city centre.⁵⁴ The decision was seen, by its proponents, as establishing a new principle: all tramway lines must be owned and operated by the municipality. Their opponents protested that financial prudence demanded further municipal commitments to be postponed until the economic situation had improved. The pro-municipalization faction eventually won the day, and the municipal tramway line to Sagene opened for traffic in 1899.⁵⁵

The new company, however, soon faced financial difficulties and this was exploited by conservative politicians who distrusted municipal administration. The conflict came to a head in 1905, when the concession of the first private tramway company (Kristiania Sporveissellskab, KSS) was set to expire.⁵⁶ The proposal from the tramway committee signalled a change of policy: the KSS was offered a new concession covering the next 20 years, stating that the company would also take over the operations of the ailing municipal tramway. In return, the Kristiania municipality would receive a yearly compensation from the company corresponding to 8 per cent of gross passenger revenue.⁵⁷ The benefits of the economic welfare city must be secured, not through effective municipal operation, but by communal shares in the profits of private enterprise.

The following discussion posed the conservative majority against the social democratic opposition. The conservatives maintained that while private management meant effective business, public administration must inevitably fall prey to external interest groups. Indeed, private enterprise was deemed more effective in addressing the ‘social question’; business know-how would guarantee reasonable fares and equal access to the city.⁵⁸ Some conservative members even accused the social democratic press of conspiring against the majority and opposing every attempt at positive reform.⁵⁹ The social democrats argued to the contrary, claiming that a private monopoly would favour company profit over effective services. Their main argument, however, was an economic one. Urban growth would guarantee increasing revenue from the tramway system, so a municipal operation would be profitable in the long run.⁶⁰ The decision of the city council followed the conservatives’ line of reasoning. Two private companies would run public transport in Kristiania until 1925, when a municipally owned company took over operations.⁶¹

The tramway debates in the Kristiania council clearly demonstrate the overlaps between competing visions of the welfare city. The discursive chains linking citizenship and material rights to municipal control of the tramway system were challenged and eventually dismantled by a strong conservative reaction. In the economic city of Kristiania, publicness would be promoted by private companies providing effective public services (supposedly) at a lower cost. This indicates that the transformation of the economic welfare city into a social one was not a teleological process. A stable configuration of publicness, promoting municipal operation of public transport services, would not gain primacy until the inter-war period.

Health and morals in the social city of Copenhagen

The responsibility for health care in Copenhagen had formally rested with the city since the eighteenth century, but in practice the municipality had had little opportunity to provide more comprehensive health care for its inhabitants.⁶² The opening of the Municipal Hospital, Kommunehospitalet, in 1863 was an important step for improving municipal health care in Copenhagen. It was now clear that Copenhagen’s politicians would intervene to manage and control the capital’s health care. But the new hospital was too small from the start. Immediately, there were calls to expand health services and build more hospitals.

Prostitution was widespread in Copenhagen in the second half of the nineteenth century. Apart from the moral criticism, it was also seen as a major health problem. As in other European countries, the spread of venereal diseases such as gonorrhoea and syphilis was linked to prostitutes.⁶³ In Denmark, the ‘Act on Measures to Counteract the Spread of the Venereal Disease’ was passed in 1874.⁶⁴ The law required prostituted women to register with the police and undergo regular medical checks, sometimes against their will. This system was heavily criticized by the newly founded Danish Women’s Association, as well as by liberal and social democratic politicians. The criticism focused on the requirement for women to undergo what were perceived as inhumane controls, effectively punishing them while the men were effectively let off. The law was abolished in 1906 and replaced by a new law that followed medical recommendations to limit the spread of venereal disease.⁶⁵

The question of how to deal with prostitutes in need of medical care was a debated issue in Copenhagen in the late nineteenth century. It is also a good example of the challenges faced by the city’s leaders when it came to questions of urban citizenship and the city’s responsibility for its residents. The problem was discussed in 1883 by the Copenhagen City Council, the Borgerrepræsentationen. Until then, women in need of hospitalization had been admitted to the Municipal Hospital. In the public debate on the persistent lack of beds, it was proposed that a new hospital be built exclusively for venereal patients. It would have 200 beds, and by bringing all the prostitutes together in one hospital, care would be more efficient.⁶⁶ The result of the discussions was the construction of the Vestre Hospital, later renamed Rudolph Bergh Hospital.

The debate over the Vestre Hospital revealed differing views on prostitutes and their rights to the city. Urban citizenship was contested, as councillor Keller argued that the hospital should only allow for public prostitutes who had registered with the police. He made a clear distinction regarding so-called clandestine prostitution, arguing that ‘the admission of those belonging to the clandestine prostitution to the new hospital is absolutely reprehensible’.⁶⁷ Keller believed that there was a moral difference between different prostitutes. According to him, those who were not registered should be referred to another hospital, as those admitted to the Vestre Hospital would be stigmatized in the eyes of society, ‘there, it would be almost impossible…to return to a decent life’.⁶⁸

In Keller’s view, the new hospital would be more of an institution than a hospital. It should, therefore, only attend to registered prostitutes who, in his opinion, were already beyond the reach of a decent life. Accordingly, the question of urban citizenship was linked to morality, as he made a distinction between different prostitutes, excluding some from access to municipal health care on the same terms as others.

A more inclusive perspective on the prostitutes was taken by councillor Kayser, who argued that it was unreasonable to build a hospital only for those women who had registered with the police. While the hospital would be expensive to build, it should be available to all women in need, whether they were engaged in public or clandestine prostitution.⁶⁹ Councillor Larsen took a similarly inclusive approach, criticizing Keller for his view of prostitutes and for branding the women admitted to the hospital as prostitutes for life. According to Larsen, the hospital should be characterized by compassion towards the hospitalized.⁷⁰

Kayser and Larsen based their arguments on the fact that there were regulations that required the city’s health service to accept anyone who was sick, whoever they were. This inclusive principle overcame the moral arguments of the issue. It was the city’s responsibility to care for all its residents. Kayser’s position demonstrates how publicness was articulated and configured in new ways. From this perspective, the city constituted the political community and the politicians must provide public services to all residents, regardless of status. Municipal responsibility for providing health care took precedence over moral issues. The conservative politicians agreed on an inclusive policy towards the lower classes, albeit to maintain the hierarchical gender structure.

The conflicting views on medical care for prostitutes illustrate the emerging social welfare city of the late nineteenth century. The argument for including all women in the right to public health care links social inclusion to urban citizenship. New configurations of publicness promoted a systematic policy for organizing the social life of urban residents, as the social welfare city superseded the old patriarchal model. The example has a clear gender dimension, as the prostitutes were all women. Their social inclusion was motivated by concerns for the reproductive health of the well-established, male citizen; in other words, to ensure men had access to healthy prostitutes. However, the issue of gender does not seem to have played an explicit role in the political debate, a subject which should be further explored in future studies.

Conclusion

This article has demonstrated the relevance of the concepts of publicness, urban citizenship and the welfare city for explaining the expansion of public services in Nordic capital cities between 1850 and 1920. The empirical cases reveal the introduction and development of three forms of public services in Stockholm, Kristiania and Copenhagen in the nineteenth century. Although the examples are very different, they display a number of common features. The expansion of public services was achieved through political contestation, where conflicting visions on citizenship, the provision of public services and rights to the welfare city clashed. These conflicts produced new discourses and promoted novel practices, eventually leading up to a stronger configuration of publicness.

The analysis of freshwater supply in Stockholm addresses the beginning of the patriarchal welfare city. The new system of freshwater pipes was introduced as a joint project by parishes and other local institutions in the Swedish capital from the 1850s. The further development of the system was undertaken during the following period, when the city council was dominated by a new, industrial elite. The study demonstrates the successive overlapping of arguments promoting municipal intervention. The new policy was partly motivated by patriarchal concerns for the moral status of the working poor. But the proponents also claimed that the pipes would help employers by sustaining a healthier workforce. Social and economic arguments resonated to legitimize municipal intervention into the most private sphere: the individual household.

Public tramways in Kristiania were introduced by private companies, operating by municipal concession. In the economic welfare city, political representatives generally adhered to the doctrine that local government should encourage private enterprise. However, the council debates from the Norwegian capital display the political ambition to appropriate the surplus from public services to boost municipal finances. In the tramway debates, calls for equal access to public goods resonated with financial arguments for a municipal takeover. These were countered by conservative politicians, who claimed that economic as well as social concerns would be better addressed by the sound business management of private companies. The eventual outcome demonstrates the resilience of the economic welfare city: the discursive chains supporting an inclusive transport system under public control were contested and dismantled in favour of private enterprise.

The third empirical case concerns the provision of medical health care for women with venereal diseases, at the municipal Vestre hospital in Copenhagen. In 1883, the city council debated on whether to reserve treatment for registered prostitutes or to provide services for all women in need. Politicians who wanted restricted access appealed to patriarchal concerns for morality and order. Mixing different categories of prostitutes would mean that all of them risked being socially stigmatized. However, there were also councillors who advocated a more inclusive policy. They claimed that since the city had financed the hospital, it must not discriminate between individuals needing help. The health services that provided for unfortunate women also served to strengthen the hierarchical gender structure. The discussion about the treatment of prostitutes was based on an unequal power relationship, where the issue of access to healthy prostitutes influenced perceptions of who should receive care at the municipal hospital. The council decision favoured the inclusive approach, with the discursive chains of citizenship, public service and equal access underpinning the notion of the social welfare city.

Our three empirical case-studies demonstrate how political conflicts over the provision of public services promoted the extension of urban citizenship. The process of expanding welfare services was initiated in the city, by local politicians and professionals acting under pressure from public opinion. Newspaper articles and public meetings fuelled the council debates with fresh arguments. In official political discourse new configurations of publicness were created, articulating inclusive visions of the urban public and the common good. Modern services and equal access to the city were framed as collective rights, and securing these rights would be the main objective for municipal intervention. This policy, however, could take different forms: municipal operation of infrastructural services, financial support to philanthropical organizations or as joint ventures with private business firms.

Most important, the emerging welfare city was promoted by the convergence and resonance of particular political arguments. While urban historians have pointed to the transformative role of modern infrastructure, we argue that the driving forces for this development can be found in political discourse. Our case-studies cover the Scandinavian capital cities, but the results may well hold relevance for other European cities. The welfare city was not a project initiated or controlled by the state. Local politicians and officials addressing patriarchal concerns for the urban poor found themselves debating public interest with representatives aiming to promote economic growth, or those advocating social reform and equal rights to the city. The result was a successive expansion of welfare services, propelled by a stronger configuration of publicness with discursive chains addressing all aspects of urban life.