Copenhagen is a laid-back and happy capital. Recent research has concluded Danes are the happiest population in the world. The Danish economic model, so called flexurity, a combination of free-market liberalism and luxurious welfare, is regarded with envy by most other European countries. Blessed with a vanishingly small unemployment rate of 2.8%, steady growth, the second highest per capita income in the EU and one of the fairest income distributions in the world, Copenhagen is the capital of social democracy as its best.
But happiness comes at a price. Danish effective tax rates are the second highest in the world, reaching 70%, and cars are taxed at 180%. One person in three is employed by the public sector. This year Copenhagen was rated the world’s best cycling city and it ranks as one of the cities with the best quality of life. Although the national government shifted to the right with a conservative liberal majority in 2001, Copenhagen has remained a bastion of social democracy with a strong labour heritage. Welfare is the emblem of social democracy and the public space of Copenhagen is its show-case.
Christiania, R.I.P
Christiania was Copenhagen’s world-famous hippy village. The independent Freetown Christiania was created in 1971 by a bunch of hippies who squatted an empty military base right in the centre of the city. Based on collective ownership, self-administration, and a relaxed approach to soft drugs, Christiania was a semi-utopian anti-capitalist experiment. But the peace and love euphoria has faded away and the Freetown has been colonised by a horde of tattooed skinheads and their pitbulls who rule the drugs underworld, which has not stopped the place being daily swamped by flocks of tourists. Today Christiania is Copenhagen’s second biggest tourist attraction after Tivoli.
But it is not easy to be a social experiment in an affluent society. In 2006 the rightwing government put an end to Christiania’s collectivist social experiment in order to facilitate the development of this valuable inner-city land. In return, Christianites were individually offered the ownership of their houses in one of the most expensive and central areas of Copenhagen in exchange for giving up their political ambition. Could you resist getting a house for free in Hyde Park?
The Ungdomhus, the barricades of the welfare system
In 2007 Copenhagen’s Ungdomhus, an active anarchist youth house squatted since the early eighties, was forcibly evacuated and torn down after being sold to a Christian group. The demolition of this well-known bastion of anarchism and anti-globalism gave rise to unprecedented riots in Copenhagen ending with 650 arrests and millions of kroners of damage to public space and shops in the area. After the demolition the rebellious youth kept demonstrating but in a festive mode, claiming their right to a public venue for alternative culture and to freedom of expression. They gradually regained the support of the population. A year after the riots, Copenhagen offered them a vacant building for free.
Freedom of expression is integral to Danish society; nobody has forgotten the Mohamed caricature furore. Meanwhile Copenhagen still has no real mosque. In the fight for freedom of expression in Copenhagen the Mohawk prevails over the Burka.
Nyhavn, a cappuccino at minus ten
The colourful cosy houses of Nyhavn, its endless cafés, its vibrant life and its outdoor bars have become Copenhagen’s most often portrayed public space. It is the emblem of Copenhagen’s lifestyle, a laid-back, relaxed and safe city and one of the most expensive in Europe. A pint of beer in Nyhavn costs five times what it costs in Berlin, and must come pretty close to being the most expensive in the EU. Nyhavn is the champion of urban renewal in Copenhagen. In the 80s the large car-park of Nyhavn was converted into a pedestrian area that was immediately invaded by cafés and terraces, full up all year round. On chilly but dry winter days, heaters, blankets and cushions are provided by the cafés and the terraces are astonishingly busy despite the freeze.
One can only wonder how long a nice polar fleece blanket could be left on a café chair in Paris, Barcelona or Napoli without being stolen.
Sankt Hans Torv, welfare as an ally
Sankt Hans Torv is a small local square in the Norrebro quarter. In the mid-nineties it was transformed from a busy traffic intersection into a high-grade public space. At the first glimpse of warming sunshine above the roofline in early April the square is besieged by people sitting to sun themselves in small groups on everything that has a horizontal surface, benches, walls or paving, and chatting around a pack of beer cans. It is the living fantasy of all European urban planners: a lively public space.
So why do Copenhagen’s public spaces work so well? Perhaps it is because the population is largely composed of students and retired people, people with a lot of free time. Young families have left for the larger houses of the suburbs. Will urban sprawl be the greatest ally of urban renewal?
Amagerstrand, Copa-copenhagen
Every one of the seven hundred kilometers of the Danish coast is preserved, conserved and worshipped as a nature reserve, though Copenhagen has no privileged contact with the sea other than through its industrial and historic trading harbour, from which the very name of the city derives.
Under the banner of Copenhagen’s new city culture and at the height of its economic growth in 2005, the city council spent thirty million euros building a two-kilometre-long artificial beach, free of any other commercial competition and directly accessible by the best metro in the world. Amagerstrand beachpark was an immediate success and became the Copacabana of the North.
Its formula for success was clean sand plus a landscaped promenade equally accessible for flip-flops, high heels or rollerblades. Informality and lifestyle-orientated leisure activities blossomed with the first sunshine: kite-surfing, kayaking, Tai Chi, diving, salsa dancing, beach volleyball, more than satisfying the locals’ taste for exotic lifestyles within anonymous social democracy.
With the coming of the Amagerstrand beachpark and its Copa-copenhagen lifestyle, Scandinavia’s socialist byword — don’t think that you are anyone (Jante’s law) — has been consigned to the past.
Kalvebod Brygge vs Islands Brygge
Kalvebod Brygge is one of Copenhagen’s worst nightmares. At the beginning of the nineties the redevelopment of derelict industrial waterfronts came into fashion worldwide (Barcelona, Baltimore and London Docklands). Copenhagen counted on privatisation to alleviate the miseries of a totally vacant waterfront facing bankruptcy. Kalvebod Brygge was sold to large corporate interests for the building of their headquarters. The public space was transformed by high-grade paving into high-grade company car parks. Today, despite its great sun exposure at lunch time, the waterfront remains empty. Ten years later on the other side of the waterfront, at the port wharfage known as Islands Brygge, the city’s public space movement had its revenge. The disused space was converted into a waterfront park with a tidal swimming pool, and became Copenhagen’s new success story, sending property prices skyrocketing. Today Kalvebod Brygge is the subject of a public space competition, but no doubt the corporate headquarters will hang on to their car-parks. But what can one do with the two-meters-wide waterside strip that still belongs to the city council?
Charles Bessard (Powerhouse Company)
