Denmark plans to limit 'non-western' residents in disadvantaged areas
www.theguardian.com
Interior ministry’s proposed limit of 30% part of bill to crack down further on poor neighbourhoods

This law would limit neighbourhoods to 30% "non-western" immigrants, which definitely means non-white. And then apparently they also have proposed laws for doubling the punishment for crimes committed in predetermined ghettos that are made up of mostly immigrants. Is this what "Scandinavian Socialism" means?

  • Kaputnik [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Here's an article about it if you're interested. But yeah it's disgusting and they say this is part of their plan to be "ghetto free". The proposed crimes for double punishment are, you guessed it, property crimes. Because it couldn't be more obvious what the law cares about. And yeah there's no opposition in the government for measures like these because the Social Democrats support them.

    • TillieNeuen [she/her]
      ·
      4 years ago

      People in the US thinking, "we create a two-tier system by things like over policing certain areas and cash bail. Imagine what we could do with a formal designation of Double Punishment Areas?"

      • CTHlurker [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Seems like a monkeys paw type situation, where a Bernie supporter prayed for Modern Danish Social Democracy, and instead of free healthcare you just get our Racist party, or our Mega-racist party.

      • Kaputnik [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        What if we did segregation but we said it was good this time

    • Poison_Ivy [comrade/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      If you don't want ghettos maybe they should fix the neighborhoods to be nicer so that they're not ghettos anymore instead of penalizing indicators of poverty

      • Barabas [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        You can partly thank the EU for that. Public housing has to be run at a profit in order to provide a "level competition" with private actors. So if an area becomes known as shit it will just continue to deteriorate unless an investor comes in and wants to gentrify the area.

        • SoyViking [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          That is not exactly true for Denmark. Social housing is run based on a break-even principle where nobody is supposed to profit. The buildings are owned and maintained by housing associations where tenants are members. The housing associations are governed by a board elected indirectly by tenants.

          This system works to a large extent. Because there is no profits and because a housing association maintaining tens of thousands of units can be run more effectively than a private landlord operating tens of units rent in social housing is significantly lower than in private housing.

          What prevents the building of affordable housing is two other factors. One is how municipalities are reluctant to assign lots to social housing, especially if it is cheap, as they would rather have more housing built for middle and upper income households who generates more tax revenue.

          But the real roadblock to more cheap housing in Denmark is the funding of new construction. Social housing is funded by government-guaranteed 30 year mortgages. The cost of paying those is part of the rent tenants pay. This means that unless the law is changed to allow longer running mortgages, or unless some of the funding is changed to a direct subsidy, newly constructed or newly renovated social housing can never be affordable to low-income households.

          • Barabas [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            Profit was a bit of a misnomer, but the problem is that they have to balance the books. My axe to grind with the EU is mostly from a Swedish perspective. We have a shitload of our low income housing stock from the million programme (which there is a need for a new wave of imo). The problem is that they're approaching 50 years old, and a lot of it is in dire need of replumbing, renovated balconies etc. These buildings weren't run with that in mind over the horizon, so there is no saved up capital to finance it, so when renovations happen rents often have to be raised by 50% or more to finance it forcing out low income earners. This includes tenants associations and housing cooperatives. Fortunately I live in a housing cooperative which has been able to tackle the major renovations without too much of an issue, but it is a major problem.

            There is no real political will to build affordable housing anymore, and private actors sure as shit won't build it. At least market rents haven't been put in place (yet), though they're currently working on putting it in for new builds (thank you very much succdems).

        • Poison_Ivy [comrade/them]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Is this the case in Vienna? I know they have a fairly successful public housing program.

          • Barabas [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            You could offer the same perks to all developers, which is the Vienna solution. The main thing is that private and public actors have to play by the same rules in a mixed market.

            • Poison_Ivy [comrade/them]
              ·
              4 years ago

              Well here in the USA any of these fucking programs would be an improvement from

              "Let's just build a ton of luxury condos and hope that the price reductions trickle down to the poors"

      • SoyViking [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        If you don't want "ghettos" you should build cheap housing in more than a few areas. Build some nice affordable social housing in the neighbourhoods where the rich live.