Expert in urban development: An experiment in the big scale

There is good reason to, that the residents in Vollsmose are concerned about their housing future.

It takes Marie Stender, who is an anthropologist and researcher at the Danish building research institute at Aalborg University, where she is an expert in urban development and transformation of disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

- It is clearly a big issue in relation to ghettoplanen – where the hell do people move? In particular, because the disadvantaged areas often located near large cities, where there is pressure on the housing market in advance. So there is no room for them. Therefore, it will be quite exciting to see where they can get resettled people, says Marie Stender, who stresses that she has not yet researched in the district of Vollsmose.

Pushing the we just the problem on to the next area? I fear that this is what is going to happen. We can not bulldoze us out of the problems!, it sounds from the anthropologist and expert in urban development, Marie Stender. Photo: Ritzau Scanpix.

the District in the outskirts of Odense has for years been known as an area with high kriminalitetsrate and tension conflicts between bandegrupperinger that have a common past in the immigrant gang Black Army. As late as in the middle of this month ended a conflict between Vollsmoses criminal groupings in a car chase and multiple shootouts.

the Extra Leaf is come into possession of the municipality's proposals for demolitions in the housing area, with 9100 inhabitants is the country's largest ghetto. The 1000 homes that must be demolished, equivalent to more than every fourth home - and will mean that between 2500 and 3000 people waving erase the name on the mailbox out, when the demolitions - which begins in 2022 and is to be completed by 2030 - are carried out.

The red boxes in the graphic marks the buildings, according to Odense municipality's plan must be demolished. The hardest it goes seemingly beyond Bøgeparken, where virtually all the buildings disappear. Also butikstorvet Vollsmose Torv is according to the plan leveled with the ground, when nedrivningsprojektet end no later than 2030.

An analysis from 2013 - that is, long before the decision on the 'ghettoplanen' was taken - as the Danish Construction association has made shows that, if the danes boligvaner continues as it is now, as will the municipality of Odense in 2040 missing over 12,000 homes.

- the Problem can be seen both from the individual resident's perspective, but there is also the societal perspective - in the case of new ghetto areas in a different place? Pushes the we just the problem on to the next area? I fear that this is what is going to happen. We can not bulldoze us out of the problems!

Marie Stender has in his research looked the part of abroad to find examples, as the ghetto-plan can be compared. However, there is no place where there is so drastically to the work, as in Denmark and will cut the proportion of public housing units down to 40 percent in all the most disadvantaged areas at the same time.

- But it is an entirely new situation, which we have not been in before. We don't know what it's going to mean. This is the first time we take a group of people and say to them, that they must live in a completely different place. It is really an experiment in the big scale, and therefore it is important that we closely follow how it's going to go, and what it gets of importance.

Silence in housing associations: Number with the municipality of

Two housing associations stands for lejemålene in the district of Vollsmose; Civica, which manages six of the parks in the ghetto, and The non-Profit housing Association (FAB), which is responsible for three of the parks.

In the largest of the housing associations they do not want to comment on the future of their residents, so far, living in uncertainty.

- I will ask you to turn to Michael Bruhn Frederiksen, head of transformation and strategy at Odense municipality borgmesterforvaltning, writes Nanna Muusmann, which is responsible for boligstrategier in Civica and a member of the Vollsmoses board of directors, in an email to Ekstra Bladet, and equivalent subsequent to our request for an interview about her residents concerns.

- for the sake Of our residents we do not want to communicate on a level that is still in preparation. When we in may to produce the final draft of a development plan for the residents, we will also inform them about resettlement, sounds it also in an email from FAB's Hanne Rosenberg Christiansen.