Conscious Choice: Letter from Denmark

December 1999 | Citizen at Large

Letter from Denmark

by Jay Walljasper

"Oh, that must have been wonderful."

"I’ve heard it’s a wonderful place."

"I was there fifteen years and thought it was just wonderful."

The same response kept popping up from friends and colleagues whenever I mentioned my recent visit to Copenhagen. There seemed to be wide consensus about Denmark’s largest city, an enthusiasm that may be traced in part to an old Hollywood movie about Hans Christian Andersen in which Danny Kaye sang of "Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen."

And, Copenhagen is wonderful—a bustling, cosmopolitan city of 1.5 million full of scenic canals, tidy parks, lively squares, relaxed taverns and coffeehouses, well-preserved old buildings, safe streets, cheerful people, and the enchanting 150-year-old Tivoli Gardens amusement park.

Yet it is no fairy-tale land. Copenhagen faces many of the same problems that bedevil American cities: crime, drugs, traffic, and suburban flight. Its richness and vitality stem not from any happily-ever-after magic but from creative responses to difficult urban conditions.

Efforts to ensure Copenhagen’s continued vitality encompass an impressive nationally funded urban renewal campaign. Misguided slum clearance plans and social engineering schemes of the past have been scrapped, and the emphasis now is on maintaining the community fabric and architectural integrity of urban neighborhoods. Buildings are rehabbed, even if it’s more expensive than constructing new ones, and playgrounds and green spaces are developed in what were once courtyards and parking lots.

Making Copenhagen’s inner city a lively meeting place is also a high priority. The historical center of the city teems with cafés, shops, and well-populated public squares, and the once rundown Norrebro neighborhood is a center for young people and artistic endeavor.

The roots of this urban renaissance go back to 1962, when cars were banned from a network of downtown streets—an idea as daring then in Northern Europe as it is now in the United States and Canada. Jan Gehl, head of the urban design department at the University of Copenhagen, remembers the uproar: "’We are Danes, not Italians. A public space will never be used. It is contrary to Scandinavian tradition. Danes will never leave their cars and their homes. The city is bound to die out if you take any cars out,’ said the newspaper headlines. Nevertheless, it became a great success almost right away."

Through the years Copenhagen expanded its pedestrian zone, public transit system, and bikeways (50 percent of downtown commuters now travel by bike), at the same time gradually eliminating downtown parking spaces. The result has been a business and retail boom unaccompanied by any rise in downtown traffic levels over the past two decades (that’s "unique among the cities of the world," says Gehl). Recreational and social use of the city center has tripled since 1968, says Gehl, who notes that the area is just as busy in the evenings and on Sundays as it is on workdays.

"A good city is like a good party," Gehl says. "People don’t want to leave early. They want to stay." He adds that a good city is also a safe city, pointing out that people on the streets keep Copenhagen’s crime levels low.

Aalborg, a city of 150,000 near the northern tip of Denmark’s Jutland peninsula, has also set about to strengthen itself through promoting public space, historical preservation, and ecological improvements. During an extensive public participation process, Aalborg’s citizens expressed a wish to eliminate private cars from the center city, build more bikeways, and expand the public transit system, including bus-only lanes on the streets and perhaps light rail. A local fjord, once a shipyard, has been cleaned up and will be made into a park with swimming beaches.

"People don’t want to live outside the city anymore," says Jan Ipland, Aalborg’s city architect. "It’s now hard to sell houses out there."

Aalborg’s troubled Greenland Square neighborhood, on the eastern edge of town, is undergoing a process of community renewal. Erik Büchert, an urban planner working in the neighborhood, said the effort was launched as part of the physical renovation of a 1960s-era high-rise apartment that dominates the area. Under the plan, residents were brought together to talk about what their community needed. "People have to make the solutions themselves," Büchert says. "You can’t tell them how to solve their problems."

After much discussion, the citizens of Greenland Square decided to create a local newspaper, a senior citizens center, a community information center, a cooperative secondhand store, a fitness and bodybuilding club, a hobby and fix-it workshop, and a series of neighborhood-wide celebrations during Carnival season, in the spring, and on the summer solstice and at Christmas. "This area hasn’t any history, no neighborhood loyalty." Büchert explains. "You have to have traditions to create a local community."

The neighborhood still has problems, but the growing sense of community minimizes them. While troublemakers and drug dealers once ruled the streets and everyone else stayed isolated inside their apartments, now there’s a range of public activities and institutions that give the neighborhood a whole new feel.

"We can’t say all problems are solved," Büchert says, "because there is still much unemployment, which we can’t control. But it is a better, safer place to live now."

Returning from Denmark, I felt new hope for cities, a sense that urban decay was not an inevitable result of the tides of human history. Modern culture has made choices that undermined our cities, and now the time is right for choosing to restore them.

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