ABSTRACT
Chapter 9 focuses on the shared categories of perception and evaluation, that is, the main divisions drawn by contemporary residents when they symbolically construct the neighbourhood. Exploring North West residents’ perception and appreciation of their neighbourhood reveals that the majority of the interviewees construct a neighbourhood much like the public tale of a working-class dream gone bad but now slowly recovering as the ‘new hip’ place in town. In most of the interviews, but especially among the elderly and those with a longer history with and in the neighbourhood, the reproduction of this tale involves an ambivalent attitude: praising the old values of the neighbourhood, accepting and reinforcing the blemish, and expressing hopes and fears of future betterment. Four main principles of vision and division structure the resident’s perception of their place: the golden past versus the stigmatised present, the immigrants versus the Danes, the welfare clients versus the ordinary citizens, and the future hipsters and creatives versus the old residents.
