‘It is beautiful now, but it is no longer ours’: Negotiations of belonging in disadvantaged housing areas

As part of the ‘Parallel Society Agreement’ (PSA) 15 Danish social housing areas are currently regenerated to reduce the share of social housing to 40% by way of demolition, densification, conversion of housing types etc. The regeneration plans developed by urban planners and housing organisation professionals are typically about ‘opening up’ the areas, establishing a ‘mixed city’ and increasing the sense of ‘security’ by stimulating urban life in the areas’ public spaces. Yet among residents in the areas such abstract notions of ‘openness’, ‘mixed city’ and ‘security’ are often experienced rather differently and end up having a range of other concrete effects in their everyday life. ‘Mixed city’ may for some imply demolitions and forced relocation, and for many residents the sense of ‘security’ is often more related to this insecure situation than to the risk of crime in public space. ‘Openness’ have in some places included increased traffic passing through the housing area, hence resulting in an area where residents feel that it is no longer safe to let their children run freely. Though some residents are happy about the transformations and truly hope for a more mixed community, to others the transformations also trigger essential aspects of belonging and make them feel that they are no longer welcome in the place they used to live. As one resident in Gellerupparken, Århus, says: ‘It is beautiful now, but it is no longer ours’. Based on architectural-anthropological fieldwork in the 15 areas included in the PSA regeneration scheme, this paper explores how the abstract ideas of the PSA regeneration transform into concrete social and material changes in the local everyday life and spark socio-material negotiations of belonging in the housing areas.