What is this tour about?

Hipsters, workers and families with young children. They are all here. In addition, you’ll find people with different ethnic background, pensioners, homeless and socially marginalised people. Trendy cafés and restaurants thrive side by side with drop-in centres and traditional pubs. The demography of Vesterbro is diverse and has changed immensely over the years. Once a green pasture for cattle providing Copenhagen with meat, the area transformed radically when the City Walls were torn down in 1857. Real estate speculators were quick to exploit the lack of regulations and devoured the area. Building blocks with double backyards and cramped apartments were built and populated with poor people, who immigrated to Copenhagen from the rural areas looking for jobs and survival. From 1860 to 1880, the number of people living in Vesterbro rose from 7,000 to 25,000.

Vesterbro developed into a working-class area, and its vicinity to the Central Station drew people from far away. Even today, Vesterbro has the biggest concentration of hotels in Copenhagen. In the 1960s and 1970s, a new immigration wave took place in Vesterbro, when guest workers from Turkey and Pakistan were invited at a time when Vesterbro had become a worn-down area. As an urban renewal took place, back buildings were cleared and apartments were renovated, resulting in many families with children leaving the area. Rents increased, pushing many of the long-time residents out, attracting others with higher incomes. Vesterbro is today a popular place to wine, dine, hang out – and not least live. Even for families with children, who have returned to the neighbourhood. Though Vesterbro has changed over the years, it certainly still comes with an edge.

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