Copenhagen’s Christiania in Jeopardy

Travel Blog  •  Jim Benning  •  07.23.07 | 12:37 PM ET

imageLike many visitors to Copenhagen, I wandered around the hippie experiment in utopia called Christiania a number of years ago. I bought the local newspaper, strolled “Pusher Street” and passed off-the-grid homes, struck that such a place existed in a major European city. But Christiania’s future is now in doubt. “The current conservative government is feeling the pressure from developers to ‘normalize’ Christiania,” writes Rick Steves in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle.

He continues: “There is a take-it-or-leave-it ‘final solution’ on the table for leaders of the commune to deal with. The verdict is that land (which no one wanted 35 years ago but is now in huge demand) needs to be developed. Much of it will be opened to market forces, and 1,600 outsiders will be allowed to move in. This will drastically change Europe’s last and only surviving attempt at a socialist utopia dating from flower-power days.”

Now, I don’t always agree with Steves, but when it comes to Christiania, I’m with him.

He writes, “Giving alternative-type people a place to be alternative is a kind of alternative beauty that deserves a place.”

Related on World Hum:
* Kurt Andersen on Denmark’s ‘Touristic Outliers’
* Americans, Finns, Danes Have Most Freedom to Travel Visa-Free

Photo by brooklyn via Flickr (Creative Commons).

Tags: Europe, Denmark


1 Comment for Copenhagen’s Christiania in Jeopardy

gordy scotville 10.11.08 | 6:12 PM ET

I would like to wish the best for Freelandia , Christiania and Denmark ! You’re the Countries having the best in Sovereign Democratic Mandated Principles in : Self Determinaion Building in Peaceful Means and being in Spirit : Of Diginity and Human Rights With : Democratic Principles ! You’re countries happen to be as peaceful as Andora and Switzerland and Leitchenstein ! It is based on the very priciples on the very mandates of the : EU Nations , too ! I wish the best and a very prosperous future , too !

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