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After the old city ramparts fell in 1851 and construction on areas outside the former defences took off on a massive scale, the Vesterbro area was quickly bought up by entrepreneurs, who crammed in as many housing blocks with minuscule flats as possible. Overcrowded and mismanaged for decades, it was not until the mid-1960s that the area's deplorable state was recognized by the city council. Wise from their experiences at Nørrebro a few years earlier - when local residents had clashed with police after historic buildings were torn down to make way for concrete housing blocks - it was decided to renovate rather than rebuild, and a long-term project to renew derelict areas of the city by the year 2010 was initiated. Large sections of Vesterbro have already been restored, though sadly the rapid gentrification that's followed has meant that many of Vesterbro's original inhabitants - and much of the area's immigrant community - have had to leave, unable to afford the hiked-up rents. Vesterbro is crossed by the roughly parallel streets of Vesterbrogade, Istedgade and Sønder Boulevard , which run from Central Station at the eastern end of the district to the Carlsberg Brewery at the west. Vesterbrogade, the northernmost of the three, is the district's main artery and one of the city's main shopping streets, more affordable than Strøget, with speciality outlets selling everything from clothes to designer kitchenware, and with some of the best nightlife in the city and a broad range of bars and restaurants. The area around Istedgade by Central Station is the only part of the city where you might feel unsafe - this is home to what's left of the city's red-light district, and drunks, drug-dealers and junkies still roam the streets amidst numerous porn shops. Paradoxically, a constant police presence probably makes this one of the safest areas in the city but, that said, the sense of destitution can sometimes be a bit overwhelming. In the same insalubrious area are the city's two so-called "hotel streets" - Colbjørnsensgade and Helgolandsgade . In a desperate attempt to avoid the district becoming a working-class stronghold, the city council decreed that all houses in these two streets were to have a minimum of four rooms. Their attempt had an unexpected outcome: shortly after they were built, many of the buildings were converted into the hotels which still exist here today.
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