From physical improvement to holistic renewal: the Danish experience

Urban and neighbourhood renewal in Denmark first became of public
interest and the subject of legislation in the early twentieth century.
Concern was based on health, fire and sanitation issues with the focus
on the condition of individual dwellings. It was not until the early
1940s that the first urban quarter in Copenhagen was renewed through
demolition and rebuilding. Based on legislation from 1939, with
revisions in 1959 and 1969, the slum clearance approach was strongly
criticised for disrupting local life and destroying cultural assets. It was
not until 1983 that more sensitive policies were adopted, when new
legislation opened the way for urban and housing renewal programmes
which established the rights of residents and provided subsidies for
improvement work. At the same time, large non-profit social housing
estates, built in the 1960s and 1970s, came under scrutiny. Initially,
these modernist-style estates were labelled ‘neighbourhoods with
construction problems’ which needed attention to their flat roofs
and crumbling concrete but it was not long before the housing
management and life opportunities of residents were also being
questioned. A neighbourhood renewal approach was then developed
which combined a focus on the social integration of immigrants and
their children with local involvement, resident participation and the
physical improvement of housing and its environment.
During the first decade of the twenty-first century, local and areabased
initiatives became the established approach to creating ‘inclusive
neighbourhoods’ and changing the social mix. The open stigmatisation
of deprived neighbourhoods as ‘ghettos’ by the government and
political leaders worked against the combined efforts of municipalities,
residents and housing organisations to create positive solutions. At the same time, housing renewal programmes began to include rural
as well as urban areas and now almost the entire housing and building
stock in Denmark is considered a potential target for refurbishment
and energy efficiency measures.
The challenge for housing renewal is to achieve a balance between
the preservation of the built heritage, sustainability, innovation, job
creation and demolition. Since 2007, the financial and economic
crisis and the accompanying reduction in private investment have
impeded progress. Population loss and the economic recession
prevalent in western and southern Denmark have reduced regional
housing demand. These situations have become major concerns for the
municipalities affected, and proposals for demolishing empty houses
in villages and rural areas are under active consideration. Both larger
and smaller social housing estates in areas losing population are difficult
to let, and the housing organisations that own them would like to be
able to demolish housing or change its use without having to bear the
cost of outstanding loans.
This chapter considers how a market consisting of regulated private
rented housing, non-profit social housing with regulated cost rents,
a free market owner-occupied housing sector, and private rented
housing built since 1991 can be renewed. A case study of Bispehaven
in the western part of the city of Aarhus illustrates the challenges faced
in renewing large scale social housing estates over the past 30 years.