Place-Making or Place-Taking? Transformation of Danish Disadvantaged Housing Estates

Several Danish social housing estates are currently being transformed according to the Parallel Society Act. This legislation has introduced what is, in a Danish context, a new approach to regeneration, involving tenure mix, evictions, and targeted demolition to transform and open up disadvantaged housing estates. Based on recurrent field studies in the estates that are being regenerated, this article investigates how current transformations change the flow through the estates, and how the ongoing place-making is perceived by residents. Existing research mainly applies either a social science approach to social-mix policies or an urban design approach to study place-making and transformations of large housing estates. This article bridges the gap between these two approaches by exploring the relationship between current physical transformations and local social life. The empirical focus is on Bispehaven and Gellerupparken near Aarhus, where regeneration projects have changed the infrastructure and flow. This study shows that more – and new groups of – external users are now passing through the estates. Though residents and external users blend more in the estate’s public spaces, this is not a guarantee of positive social exchange between the groups. The increasing flow is intended to provide a sense of security and ‘eyes on the street’, but the traffic passing through the estate is perceived – especially among residents with children – as a considerable threat, making it difficult to let children run freely. Even though many residents may be in favour of a more mixed neighbourhood, they also feel that their place has been taken away from them; place-making is experienced as place-taking. In combination with the involuntary relocation of some residents, the place-making processes thus also become a matter of who has the right to the place.