What the troubling use of the term ‘ghettos’ reveals about Denmark’s attitude towards immigration
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.
Over the years, these areas have become shorthand for failed integration. Danish politicians use the list as a roadmap for intervention: tearing down apartment blocks, forcing long-term tenants to relocate. The goal, they say, is to “mix” populations and prevent segregation.
While the government replaced the official term “ghettoområder” (ghetto areas) with “parallelsamfundsområder” (parallel-society areas) in 2021 to reduce stigma, the criteria and policies affecting these neighbourhoods have largely stayed the same.
The first ghetto
For anyone outside Denmark, this language of “the ghetto” or “parallel societies” can sound unsettling. In most European countries, the word still evokes a dark past. From medieval Jewish quarters, to the Nazi-era ghettos where Jews were confined before being deported to death camps – the word ghetto has such a complex history.
Modern housing estates were once a point of pride in the Danish welfare model – clean, affordable and surrounded by green space. So why use such a charged term to describe them?
As part of my research, I look at the historical development of the ghetto in Denmark and Danish culture, and how this has changed over the years.
Indeed, it was back in 1692 when the idea of the ghetto first emerged in Denmark. This was after police constable Claus Rasch proposed confining the city’s Jewish population – of which there were very few – to a designated district. In a long letter to King Christian V, he suggested that all Jews be moved to the Christianshavn area.
There, he argued, they could continue their businesses, but their daily lives should be closely regulated so they would not disturb their Christian neighbours or cause “a scandal”.
The Jewish quarter Rasch imagined strongly resembled the ghettos across Europe that had existed for more than 150 years. Such ghettos were established specifically to enforce a clear boundary between Christians and Jews. And their creation was driven by prejudice and fear.
Read more: Think twice before copying Denmark’s asylum policies
The answer from the king was a firm no. But a little more than two centuries later, in 1908, Danish newspapers began writing about a ghetto in a squalid part of Copenhagen. This ghetto had, the press reported, been established by Russian Jews in the slum then existing in the streets just east of Kongens Have, in the inner city of the capital.
Inhabitants of this ghetto included Jewish immigrants who had fled the Russian empire due to religious and political persecution, along with others who wanted to find jobs and a better life. Emigration to North America was the final goal. A life in the slums of Copenhagen was only seen as a stop on the way.
Danish newspapers wrote with a mix of curiosity and excitement about the new “exotic” residents, who looked different and spoke Yiddish and Russian. Though these articles didn’t encourage people to visit the ghetto for a Sunday outing. Quite the opposite. The area was poor and considered to be full of people with bad morals. Crime, drunkenness and suspicious political ideas were all part of its reputation. In other words, the ghetto was seen as dangerous.
Building division
Today’s “ghetto” or parallel society policies are built on that same instinct: that certain groups must be managed or dispersed to preserve cohesion.
Officially, the Danish government says it wants to break down parallel societies and promote integration. But in practice, the strategy has meant displacement. Families who have lived in the same neighbourhoods for decades are being moved, sometimes against their will, to prevent “concentrations” of non-western residents.
In 2024, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that Denmark’s housing policy – used to reshape these districts – amounted to racial discrimination. And at the end of last year, the ECJ said the legislation may be unlawful.
As Britain’s Labour government looks to Denmark for inspiration on asylum and migration reform, it’s worth paying attention to this parallel story. Denmark’s housing and asylum systems are two sides of the same coin: both built on the idea that tighter control creates cohesion.
But the Danish experience suggests something different – that in trying to dismantle “parallel societies”, the country may be building new divisions of its own.
This article was commissioned as part of a partnership between Videnskab.dk and The Conversation. You can read the article in Danish here.
Garbi Schmidt has received funding from the Carlsberg Research Foundation