Denmark evicts ‘ghetto’ residents to integrate them. Will it help?

Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, the third-largest city in Denmark, and a museum complex dedicated to him sits near the city center.

Across town to the northeast lies the country’s largest ghetto – an official term used to designate disadvantaged areas with a majority of “non-Western” residents.

And today, in a turn that could come from one of Mr. Andersen’s fairy tales, the residents of the neighborhood of Vollsmose face the prospect of having their public housing demolished and being sent to live elsewhere – all in the name of a 2018 law that aims to take apart “parallel societies.”

The Danish welfare system is one of the most generous in the world, built upon high taxes and a duty-bound concept. It doesn’t work when a society has low “social cohesion,” say economists. On the surface, the  laws purport

“People in these areas have been left behind”Protecting the Danish social compact“We have no plans to leave”