"It’s straight-up racism," said Jawad, a doctor from Mjolnerparken in central Copenhagen, which is surrounded by rapidly gentrifying areas.
"Even though I was born and raised in Denmark, in the statistics I’m a non-Western immigrant," the 29-year-old, whose parents were born in Pakistain, told AFP.
Denmark passed a controversial law in 2018 to redevelop poor urban "ghettos" with high concentrations of immigrant populations by 2030.
It involves rebuilding and renovating rundown estates and changing the social mix by renting at least 60 per cent of the homes at market rates.
For decades, Denmark has had one of Europe’s most restrictive immigration policies, with populist right-wing parties often stoking anti-immigrant rhetoric.
"Our apartments are not for sale!" said banners strung across Mjolnerparken, with locals saying that using their ethnicity to decide where they can live is discriminatory and illegal.
Eight out of 10 people in Mjolnerparken are deemed "non-Western", with people from non-EU countries in the Balkans and Eastern Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...also falling into that category.