Denmark’s housing minister, Sophie Hæstorp Andersen, said that the reduction in the number of housing areas included on a government's list of socially marginalised areas is a vindication of the government's policies. .
“We haven’t fulfilled our goals yet but the new results make it crystal clear that our efforts are working,” she said in a statement. "This is also seen in what I think is the best news this year – the fact that no new areas are on the lists."
The number of housing areas classed as “parallel societies” was reduced from 12 to eight in this list, which is reviewed and updated every year on December 1st.
Housing areas are judged according to list of criteria, which includes the number of residents from “non-Western” countries, the crime rate, employment rate and average income, with the classification then used to decide which areas should subject to the special rules applied under the parallel societies law (formerly known as the “ghetto law”).
That can mean harsher punishments for certain crimes, forced redevelopment of housing and requirements for small children to attend daycare among other rules.
The four areas removed from the list this year are Vejleåparken in Ishøj, near Copenhagen, Motalavej in the Zealand town of Slagelse, Nørager in the South Jutland town of Sønderborg and Skovgårdsparken in Aarhus.
In these four areas, the number of people who are neither in employment or education is now under 40 percent, meaning they do not fulfil this condition for inclusion on the list.
Their average income was, meanwhile, over 55 percent of the average for the regions in which they are located, meaning they could not be included in the list due to income data.
The national organisation for social housing associations, BL, put the progress down to various stakeholders in the field.
“This is not the result of desk work or list-making exercises but a strong, real-world effort,” the organisation's director, Bent Madsen, said in a statement. “Youth jobs, employment initiatives, homework help, and much more have all played a role."
The Danish government’s policies on what it terms parallel societies revolve around a law which was initially termed the "ghetto law" when it was passed in 2018.
Under the law, underprivileged areas with a high “non-Western” population must implement redevelopment plans if they fulfil a number of social criteria. The redevelopments can mean some residents are forced to move from subsidised rental housing.
The government says the law promotes integration while critics say it is discriminatory.
The law has been brought before the EU Court of Justice because some residents in marginalised areas believe it constitutes discrimination based on ethnicity.
READ ALSO: Denmark urged by Council of Europe to rethink 'parallel societies' policy
To qualify as ‘parallel societies’, housing areas must have a population of more than 1,000 people, of which more than half are of “non-Western” origin, and must fulfil two of four criteria. For areas with fewer than 50 percent 'non-Western' populations, the term 'vulnerable area' (usdat område) is used instead. The December 2024 update showed the number of 'vulnerable areas' had fallen from 19 to 12, with no new additions.
The four criteria are: more than 40 percent of residents are unemployed; more than 60 percent of 39-50 year-olds do not have an upper secondary education; crime rates three times higher than the national average; residents have a gross income 55 percent lower than the regional average.
The terms ‘parallel society’ and ‘vulnerable housing areas’ (udsatte boligområder) are now used instead of ‘ghetto’ in the government’s official descriptions, after the latter word was scrapped in 2019 because it was considered to be derogatory towards marginalised areas.
Another term, ‘redevelopment area’ (omdannelsesområde) replaced ‘hard ghetto’, used for areas which have been on the parallel societies list for five consecutive years.
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