intended to eradicate all ghettoes in Denmark by 2030. And the Danish state decides whether areas are deemed ghettoes not just by their crime, unemployment or education rates, but on the proportion of residents who are deemed “non-western” – meaning recent, first-, or second-generation migrants.
A real estate investor, NREP, has already bought 260 of the flats on the estate. Once people like Aslam have been removed, the company plans to increase the rent on their former homes by. Residents will be rehoused, but they will have no control over location or cost. Their children will need to move schools; their communities will be broken up. “What have I and my family done? Why do we have to be removed? My kids and my family have done nothing wrong,” Aslam says.