Gentrification-Gentle or Traumatic? Urban Renewal Policies and Socioeconomic Transformations in Copenhagen

This article contrasts the intentions and outcomes of the publicly instigated and supported urban renewal of Copenhagen's Inner Vesterbro district. Apart from physically upgrading the decaying buildings, the municipality's aim was to include the inhabitants in the urban renewal process and, seemingly, to prevent the dislocation of people from the neighbourhood. However, due to ambiguous policies, the workings of the property market and the lack of sufficient deflecting mechanisms, middle-class inhabitants are now replacing the high concentration of socioeconomically vulnerable people that characterised Vesterbro before the urban renewal. This process may appear 'gentle', but it is nonetheless an example of how state and market interact to produce gentrification with 'traumatic' consequences for individuals and the city as a socially just space.This article contrasts the intentions and outcomes of the publicly instigated and supported urban renewal of Copenhagen's Inner Vesterbro district. Apart from physically upgrading the decaying buildings, the municipality's aim was to include the inhabitants in the urban renewal process and, seemingly, to prevent the dislocation of people from the neighbourhood. However, due to ambiguous policies, the workings of the property market and the lack of suffi cient defl ecting mechanisms, middle-class inhabitants are now replacing the high concentration of socioeconomically vulnerable people that characterised Vesterbro before the urban renewal. This process may appear ‘gentle', but it is nonetheless an example of how state and market interact to produce gentrification with ‘traumatic' consequences for individuals and the city as a socially just space.