Description
The Copenhagen district of Vesterbro has for the past fifteen years been the focus of Denmark's most ambitious urban renewal project. This has resulted in a gentrification process, where middle class inhabitants are replacing the socio-economically and ethnically marginalised groups that used to characterise the district. But Vesterbro's streets remain the centre of the trade and use of illicit drugs in Copenhagen. This has led to an ongoing process of exclusion, which in parallel with the gentrification of the housing of Vesterbro is pushing the drug-users into an ever-diminishing part of the public space of the district, providing some inhabitants a greater sense of security but at the same time adding to the misery of the most vulnerable group in Danish society. Focusing on the heated debate on the location of a 'health-room' for drug-users in Vesterbro, the paper examines the politics of the conflicting geographies of the drug-users and the new inhabitants in the district. It is argued that while this conflict is a constant of life in Vesterbro's streets, its politics is particularly fought out between the new inhabitants themselves, pitching security-seeking 'suburbanites' against 'urbanites' arguing for a more just and inclusive city. But the analysis of the health-room debate also suggests that public spaces of gentrifying areas like| Period | 15 Apr 2008 |
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| Event title | Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Boston, United StatesShow on map |