Copenhagen residents feeling safer

While fewer city residents overall reported feeling unsafe at night, almost a third of Nørrebro residents say they are wary of venturing outdoors after the sun has set

Copenhageners fell increasingly safe in their city, according to this year’s edition of an annual safety report compiled by the city council.

The report, which calculates the city’s safety index by combining police crime data together with a questionnaire given to 8,000 residents, suggested that the city was safer in 2013 than in 2012.

A drop in reported crime contributed significantly to this year's dip, but the average city resident also reported feeling safer now than when the annual report was first published in 2009.

In 2013, only 17.5 percent reported feeling unsafe when outdoors at night, compared to 22 percent of respondents in 2009. Mayor Frank Jensen (Socialdemokraterne) said that the change is a cautious step in the right direction,

“Even though we should be pleased with the increasing sense of safety, now is not the time to relax,” Jensen told Politiken newspaper. “As we all know, we’ve had an uneasy spring due to the gang problems and a wave of street robberies that were not included in the safety index.”

The index revealed that residents feel significantly more unsafe in some districts of the city such as inner and outer Nørrebro where 27.5 and 33.6 percent of residents reported feeling unsafe when outdoors at night and in the evening.

Inner city residents reported feeling unsafe at night due to the busy nightlife, while in Christianshavn, police efforts against the drug trade in Christiania were a cause of anxiety for residents.

By identifying where residents feel most unsafe city officials say that they are able to target efforts where they are most needed.

“It’s important that we focus on areas that are not doing so well,” deputy mayor for employment and integration, Anna Mee Allerslev (Radikale) told Politiken. “We don’t want a polarised city with some unsafe and insecure areas and other areas that are doing just fine. We can’t be self-satisfied because if we look at Nørrebro for example, 50,000 people live there which is equivalent to a medium to large council.”




  • Chinese wind turbine companies sign pact to end race-to-the-bottom price war

    Chinese wind turbine companies sign pact to end race-to-the-bottom price war

    China’s 12 leading wind turbine makers have signed a pact to end a domestic price war that has seen turbines sold at below cost price in a race to corner the market and which has compromised quality and earnings in the sector.

  • Watch Novo Nordisk’s billion-kroner musical TV ad for Wegovy

    Watch Novo Nordisk’s billion-kroner musical TV ad for Wegovy

    Novo Nordisk’s TV commercial for the slimming drug Wegovy has been shown roughly 32,000 times and reached 8.8 billion US viewers since June.

  • Retention is the new attraction

    Retention is the new attraction

    Many people every year choose to move to Denmark and Denmark in turn spends a lot of money to attract and retain this international talent. Are they staying though? If they leave, do they go home or elsewhere? Looking at raw figures, we can see that Denmark is gradually becoming more international but not everyone is staying. 

  • Defence Minister: Great international interest in Danish military technology

    Defence Minister: Great international interest in Danish military technology

    Denmark’s Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen attended the Association of the Unites States Army’s annual expo in Washington DC from 14 to 16 October, together with some 20 Danish leading defence companies, where he says Danish drone technology attracted significant attention.

  • Doctors request opioids in smaller packs as over-prescription wakes abuse concerns

    Doctors request opioids in smaller packs as over-prescription wakes abuse concerns

    Doctors, pharmacies and politicians have voiced concern that the pharmaceutical industry’s inability to supply opioid prescriptions in smaller packets, and the resulting over-prescription of addictive morphine pills, could spur levels of opioid abuse in Denmark.

  • Housing in Copenhagen – it runs in the family

    Housing in Copenhagen – it runs in the family

    Residents of cooperative housing associations in Copenhagen and in Frederiksberg distribute vacant housing to their own family members to a large extent. More than one in six residents have either parents, siblings, adult children or other close family living in the same cooperative housing association.


  • Come and join us at Citizens Days!

    Come and join us at Citizens Days!

    On Friday 27 and Saturday 28 of September, The Copenhagen Post will be at International Citizen Days in Øksnehallen on Vesterbro, Copenhagen. Admission is free and thousands of internationals are expected to attend

  • Diversifying the Nordics: How a Nigerian economist became a beacon for inclusivity in Scandinavia

    Diversifying the Nordics: How a Nigerian economist became a beacon for inclusivity in Scandinavia

    Chisom Udeze, the founder of Diversify – a global organization that works at the intersection of inclusion, democracy, freedom, climate sustainability, justice, and belonging – shares how struggling to find a community in Norway motivated her to build a Nordic-wide professional network. We also hear from Dr. Poornima Luthra, Associate Professor at CBS, about how to address bias in the workplace.

  • Lolland Municipality launches support package for accompanying spouses

    Lolland Municipality launches support package for accompanying spouses

    Lolland Municipality, home to Denmark’s largest infrastructure project – the Fehmarnbelt tunnel connection to Germany – has launched a new jobseeker support package for the accompanying partners of international employees in the area. The job-to-partner package offers free tailored sessions on finding a job and starting a personal business.