ABSTRACT
While the urban regeneration initiatives served to institutionalise a pitiful discourse of the distressed neighbourhood, they also produced counter-symbols of hope and pride to combat the neighbourhood reputation. This chapter focuses on the ambivalent representations brought about by newcomers who, from around the 2000s, challenge the dominant depictions of the North West as a dilapidated district. As the Danish capital resurges in tandem with population growth and a ‘new creative service economy’, the media and urban planners increasingly classify the North West as the new, upcoming, hip place. However, at the same time, political discourses of ghettoisation and vulnerable urban areas contribute to the spatialisation of the categories of perception and appreciation of place and people. The categorisations of ‘problem immigrants’ that emerged in the 1990 intensify during the 2000s and become ratified in official politics and incorporated in the common sense of the urban, hence contributing to the racialisation and dangerification of the territory. In this context, the Local Council of Bispebjerg (North West) strive to unify the antagonisms by evoking the category of a diverse, inclusive, and tolerant area.
