New housing report – Copenhagen could become a rich person’s ghetto

Copenhagen Municipality’s new Housing Report 2024 warns that the capital is on its way to becoming a “rich person’s ghetto” unless far more affordable housing is built.

Since 2006, the number of families in Copenhagen has grown by 90,000, but housing has only been built for around 60 percent of this growth. A typical 60 sq.m. apartment now costs 3 million kroner, which requires an annual income of at least 740,000 kroner – almost double the average income.

“If we do not build more cooperative housing, public houinsing and privately owned apartments, then I am seriously concerned that in the future there will be no housing that is affordable for everyone,” says Lord Mayor Lars Weiss (S).

Technical and Environmental Mayor Line Barfod (EL) points out that Copenhagen must build in new ways with community housing, so that it is not only expensive projects from major developers.

With projections of 120,000 more residents towards 2060, there is a need for 81,000 new homes. But only 1 percent of new construction over the past 10 years has been cooperative housing, while privately owned housing prices have risen 86 percent.

The Lord Mayor sees co-housing communities as part of the solution to maintain diversity in the city.

The translation was written by an AI system, though the original text was authored by a human. Read the original article here