Case Studies   The Danish Neighbourhood Regeneration Programme. Kvarterløft in Copenhagen

What kinds of neighbourhoods are included in Kvarterløft?

While the traditional urban renewal was concentrated in central urban districts with a poor building stock of considerable age, the Kvarterløft areas are much more varied as regards the age of the building stock, and the localisation in the city structure and in the country.

The twelve projects were chosen on the national level in the former Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. In 1997 they were chosen after application by municipalities in the cross-ministerial Committee of Urban Affairs (Byudvalget). In the first round in 1997 the criteria were among others to have a variety of urban nieghbourhoods and problems represented, while in the 2001 round, the gravity of problems weighed heavier. Before the selection on national level, the larger municipalities would have had a selection round, choosing between several candidate neighbourhoods.

Seven projects started in 1997 (including the pilot project "Femkanten" started in 1995) and the remaining five in 2001. The projects include old city neighbourhoods with "traditional" problems (such as the Holmbladsgade project), but also residential or mixed niehgbourhoods from the beginning and middle of the 20’ieth century (such as Nordvest and Kongens Enghave), as well as relatively new, purely residential areas from the 1960’es and 70’es. In these neighbourhoods the problems are connected to social and ethnic segregation and to poor public spaces rather than poor housing stock. This is also mirrored in the distribution of money for the single purposes in each project.

The projects are evenly distributed between large and medium-sized towns all over Denmark, although there is a concentration of projects in Copenhagen, including the three ENTRUST cases.

1.1.1 Purpose   1.1.3 Organisation