Territorial stigmatization and housing commodification under racial neoliberalism: The case of Denmark's ‘ghettos’

Abstract

The relation between racialization and neoliberalism is relatively unexplored in urban geography, especially in the context of social democratic welfare regimes. This article aims to bridge this gap by applying the concept of racial neoliberalism, here referring to a co-constitutive relation between racialization and neoliberalism, to Denmark. Conceiving the country's so-called ‘ghetto’ politics as an expression of racial neoliberalism, the article retraces the development of this politics over the first two decades of the 21st century. I argue that territorial stigmatization and commodification of marginalized non-profit housing areas have been two co-constitutive expressions of racial neoliberalism that have intensified during this historical period. Examining three key policy moments through various grey literature, the article demonstrates how stigmatization has served to justify commodification, while the failure of the latter has been followed by intensified and bureaucratized stigmatization leading to new commodification efforts until culminating in the infamous 2018 ‘Ghetto Law’.