This senior capstone thesis was executed in the Danish national capital, which has consistently been ranked among the best cities in the world for urban design and livability.  A product largely of grassroots civic activism and community centered planning, the city of Copenhagen in modern years has become a hallmark of Scandinavian design, which is known for its use of relatively simple, direct, and innovative solutions to design challenges.  The municipality suffered from many of the aspects of urban blight and socio-geographical fragmentation that became characteristic of cities following World War II, but from the late twentieth century and into the twenty-first, Copenhagen has experienced a significant degree of urban renewal that has made it one of the most livable and attractive cities on Earth.  Inclusive planning policies have specifically targeted, via a six-factor analysis, six areas of the city that have been qualified as ‘disadvantaged’ for development and reintegration with average city wide conditions.  This thesis examines three site-specific strategies for how Danish authorities have begun to sustainably reincorporate historically disadvantaged neighborhoods with surrounding communities. 

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          1.  The first policy examined is the reconceptualization of social housing that has been prominent in the Tingbjerg-Husum ‘ghetto'. Reconceptualization in this sense entails recently passed legislation that requires twenty percent of all newly constructed housing complexes to be reserved for affordable low-income residences so as to create mixed-income communities.  The Tingbjerg housing project in this disadvantaged area is also a prime example of design approaches that can be taken to address the economic isolation of pre-existing, centralized, government housing complexes.  Shops can be implemented on ground level to reintroduce street life and community space while portions of such complexes can be renovated and improved to draw more income and investment to the area. 

          2.  The second policy explored is the intense proliferation of green space and public infrastructure that has been encouraged in the Nørrebro 

‘ghetto’.  Provision of urban parks and other quality public spaces has made Nørrebro one of the most multicultural and diverse areas of the city and established a vibrant community livelihood. 

          3.  The final policy discussed is the use of harm reduction strategies in the Vesterbro-Knogens Enghave ‘ghetto’ designed to combat the

harmful use of drugs, especially the open use of drugs in public spaces.  Many sanitary disposal containers have been placed throughout the neighborhood for safely discarding dirty needles and paraphernalia, and two permanent supervised drug consumption facilities have been established near the open drug scene to bring drug use off the streets and into a sanitary controlled environment with medical attention on hand.  Since the recent introduction of these measures, the Danish Ministry of Health and Prevention has determined that narcotics related trash left in streets has decreased by 70-80%, and that overall numbers of drug related death have also fallen significantly. 

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          These three sustainable strategies of integrated social housing, area renewal of community space, and harm reduction have already shown tremendous promise in their ability to improve the living and working conditions of the city’s disadvantaged areas, and can be implemented elsewhere to create socially and economically cohesive cities such as Copenhagen.