Nørremarken has around 6500 inhabitants. It is divided into three main areas; Nørremarken North consist of social housing. This area has experienced growth in the share of ethnic minority groups and today they comprise half of the residents. The area has a lot of children, many social problems and a high share of unemployed residents.

'The City in Balance' consists of three general focus areas:

The visions for this plan are still quite general and the municipality is trying to make the plan more concrete in order to implement it as soon as possible. The residents of Nørremarken heard about the new visions for this district at the public meeting on 11th of April 2005.

The visions are to create a completely new image for the district. Nørremarken should be a modern and interesting district with challenges and development potential for the modern man of our multiethnic society. The district plan should make more people interested in living there or investing in new business etc.

The efforts are development projects around the cultural institutions, development of social and housing tools and the establishment of a cultural arena that connects institutions, housing estate and public space. By improving the cultural institutions of the area it will be improved overall. The effort is coordinated broadly and it includes cultural, social, institutional and even physical changes of the area.

Hence, one of the initiatives of the City in Balance is to make sure there is connection between the many efforts and create an overview. This is to assure the many resources of the area are used properly.

The City in Balance is a pilot project used to develop new methods to the cross-sectional cooperation with the purpose of making Nørremarken a district with room for differences, development and coexistence.

The City in Balance is an integrated area-based programme for Nørremarken. The programme is inspired by the so-called 'Appreciative Inquiry' method in which the starting point is to reveal the resources of the area and then to base the development of the area on these local resources. The project workgroup 'ABCD- Resource investigation' (ABCD= Asset Based Community Development) carried out a comprehensive survey of the residents and associations from fall 2005 to spring 2006.

The 'Education for bearers of cultural values' was completed for 25 representatives of associations, institutions etc. The next 'cultural education programme' will be carried out in January 2007 for volunteers, residents etc. The first cultural education created many new projects of citizen participation in Nørremarken. The ABCD-project started a lot of activities involving residents and more project will come.

This project benefits the local area and its residents and associations.

The house 'Fin' -Ind' (translation: Find in) on Nørremarken is the project-house of City in Balance. New projects are gathered in a small house community that makes it easier to coordinate, develop and consult each other. More and more residents are regularly visiting this house.

The economy of project comes from two main sources: First, from the municipality of Vejle, partly through the normal budget for maintenance and development and partly extraordinary grants. Second, the Ministry of Social Affairs granted 13,4 million Danish kroner for the project through the so-called 'Ghettoisation-pool'. Besides this, the municipality is applying for funding through other funds and pools for specific projects.

Municipality of Vejle
Denmark
Steen Søgaard (Project Manager), tel. 0045 76811960/29285848

01/01/2005

case

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration

Community development