Few countries talk about “ghettos” the way Denmark does. For more than a decade, the term has shaped national debates about migration, integration and who truly belongs.
What began as a policy tool to identify struggling neighbourhoods has evolved into a social experiment in how to manage so-called “parallel societies”. These are predominantly migrant communities considered by politicians to be functioning separately from mainstream Danish life.
In 2010 the then government created a “ghetto list”. This list ranks public housing areas with more than 1,000 residents where unemployment levels and crime rates are higher than average. These areas are also ranked on income and education levels, along with whether more than half of the residents come from non‑western countries.
