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Farum has a population of about 17,000 with a surface area of 23 square kilometers.
Three village cores situated in a hilly countryside by a large lake have formed
a settlement consisting of single-family houses and two to three-storey residential
buildings, which more and more assumes the appearance of a small provincial
town. The buildings are grouped round a centre close to the light-rail terminus
where - close to each other - there are a one-storey shopping centre developed as a
pedestrian precinct, the town hall and a cultural centre.
A special feature of the settlement structure of Farum is the social focus provided
by four parallel rows of terrace-shaped blocks of flats which stretch for several kilometers
and include 1,700 flats housing about 5,000 people. They were built in
the 1970s as a model for modern community housing with rather generous flat
ground plans (up to 130 square meters, partly two-storey flats). The large proportion
of publicly funded housing in this development led to a disproportionately
high infix of underprivileged families and refugees resulting in social problems.
The existence of this housing development helps explain why the proportion of
foreigners in Farum, at 10 per cent, is considerably higher than the national average.
Apart from these specific social problems Farum has a favorable population structure,
because the average income-the basis for taxation - is relatively high. This is
why under the revenue sharing scheme among local governments in Denmark, Farum
has developed from a recipient to a donor municipality.
4. Local Government Reform in Farum
The starting point for administrative reform in Farum was the promise of local
politicians to lower local taxes and at the same time maintain or even raise the existing
standard of services.
The politicians did indeed keep their promise. In the period from 1984 to 1993,
local income tax rates were lowered from 21.3 per cent to 17.7 per cent and the
property tax from 19 per mile to 6.9 per mile.
At the same time long-term debts were reduced from Dkr 171 million to Dkr 96
million, while benefits and services offered in important areas were improved.
This result was promoted by the fact that, being a suburb of Copenhagen situated
in a beautiful countryside with good transport connections, Farum had favorable
conditions for growth and was attractive for people in higher income brackets.
This attraction was also actively increased by the local policy of tax reduction.
The result was that from 1988 to 1992 the income tax base in Farum rose from
Dkr 90,000 to Dkr 112,000 per capita, compared with an average national increase
from Dkr 68,000 to Dkr 79,000.
In addition to in improvement in local taxable capacity, which from 1985 to 1992
resulted in a rise of local tax revenues from Dkr 274 million to Dkr 377 million, a
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