Case Studies   The Danish Neighbourhood Regeneration Programme. Kvarterløft in Copenhagen

Working together
Working together in the municipality of Copenhagen and with the local administration

The regeneration programme in Kongens Enghave is a local programme. It was set up by the municipality of Copenhagen and delegated to the Local Council of Kongens Enghave. The project had to work together with both the local political and administrational level – as well as the political and administrational level of the city of Copenhagen.

One of the key issues of the Kvarterløft project in Kongens Enghave has been the close integration of the Local Council into the project. This has been one of the strong aspects of the project. In the future many of the projects will be dealt with centrally (in the Municipality of Copenhagen), but the strategy will still the same: To implement the projects and the ownership in the departments responsible for the daily running of the neighbourhood.

One of the problems many government programmes face is the fact that they have a limited life span. You have money for a period of time, a lot of activities – and what happens when the money is gone? The neighbourhood goes back to square one because the development has not been sustainable – and therefore there are no lasting changes.

It has therefore been important for the project in Kongens Enghave to create a close integration with the local council. The Kvarterløft secretariat worked on making the council and the local administration responsible for the running of activities in order to make sure that the ownership for that particular activity was secured in the administration.

In general it has been complicated to implement the many projects that were suggested by the local neighbourhoods. The structure of the municipality in Copenhagen – with 7 different departments with different political leaders from different political parties – has not made it easier.

The municipality of Copenhagen is an old municipality and the new methods of working – with new ways of involving residents and a new planning process - have not always been easy to tackle. But the people working with the projects are all in a learning phase, and the next generation of Kvarterløft that have started in 2001 will surely benefit from the experiences of the first generation.

3.5.2 To secure anchoring     3.6.2 New methods of working together