Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

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> "The law mandates that in neighborhoods where at least half of the population is of non-Western origin or descent, and where at least two of the following characteristics exist — low income, low education, high unemployment or a high percentage of residents who have had criminal convictions — the share of social housing needs to be reduced to no more than 40 percent by 2030"

A lot of countries have had problems with putting all the social housing in one place and then ignoring it while conditions worsen. Especially in big badly designed tower blocks.

But there's no need to tie it to immigration status, and there's especially no need to tie it to ethnicity! If there really is a crime problem in a place, then let that speak for itself. And of course the creation and suppression of ghettoes has a terrible history in Europe.

(Interestingly, Denmark managed to evacuate 90% of Danish Jews to neutral Sweden during WW2, far higher than other occupied countries)

Yes, the fact that the main criterion for demolition is the proportion of residents of "non-Western origin" (i.e. non-white people) is what I find disturbing. If they wanted to make it about, say, proportion of native Danish speakers, I would think that would have a similar effect without blatantly discriminating on race.

It probably meant "cultural origin", not race, i.e. people coming from countries with different (or undeveloped) value systems and ethics.

The article just says, "non-Western origin or descent," which is a bit ambiguous. I don't know the details, but the use of the word "descent" is concerning: it's an immutable characteristic passed from parents to children, regardless of whether we call it "race" or "cultural origin."

It's based on citizenship. The Danish national statistics agency has an official set of Western countries used when e.g. comparing Denmark to other Western countries. They also define 1st and 2nd generation immigrants

The Danish politicians just reuse these bureaucratic definitions (1st and 2nd gen from non-Western countries).

Yeah, that's also racism.

I suspect it could effectively mean "newcomers". There are.l presumably existing neighbourhoods where there are old-time Danes living with high unemployment etc. and it might be unrealistic to apply this criterion to them.

Not that it makes it nicer or anything.

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