June 2 . Copenhagen – History of City Development & Harbor Cleaning Efforts

Historical Development of Copenhagen

This morning I took a water taxi (Photo, Right) across the harbor to meet the group at the Danish School of Architecture. The water taxi is actually part of the public transportation system and you can transfer onto it just like you would a train or a bus. The fare is also the same. Apparently the water taxi isn't the most popular mode here in Copenhagen, but it worked well for my purposes!

Jens Kvorning gave us a very interesting lecture on the history of Copenhagen. The main focus was on how the urban area developed over time from the medieval city behind walls, to the baroque city, then to the built city expanded outside of the fortifications, and finally to a working class city with industry (and breweries!).

Copenhagen was built around a “finger plan” with the city center being the palm and fingers extending outward represented by passenger train corridors. The fingers were the urbanized areas while the space in between the fingers were to be preserved for agriculture and open space so people in the metropolitan area could benefit from local food production, fresh air, and recreation opportunities nearby – as well as have access to the city center and jobs via the network of trains. When the automobile became more popular in the 1960’s, it was decided that it would be important for the fingers to have independent city centers (outer cities) so that the suburban districts could be independent from Copenhagen with a train infrastructure connecting these centers like a “web.” The connections were never realized but the metro Copenhagen area still fits relatively well into this plan. Currently, the outer city is still automobile oriented but the center city has a great share of people commuting by bicycle and walking to destinations. In the summer, approximately 60% of people commute by bicycle and in the winter that number drops to about 38%. I have been told by many people that it doesn’t get as cold in Copenhagen or snow as much as it does in Wisconsin otherwise I would certainly expect the number of cyclists in central Copenhagen to decrease by a lot more in the winter.

In the 70’s and 80’s when oil prices were on the rise, Copenhagen retrofitted many of its streets with wide bicycle lanes, taking lane area that was formerly used by cars. I need to ask more questions about what was happening in this period and how these changes came about, but the great infrastructure that was put in place back then is one thing that makes Copenhagen extremely bicycle friendly. To this day, they continue to add lane miles adjacent to roadways with new development. They have also started building independent corridors to add to the cycling network (Photo, Right) as well as this long bridge across the harbor specifically constructed for pedestrians and bicyclists (Photo, Below)


Most recently, Copenhagen has financed a large train system called the Metro, local to the more central region of Copenhagen to compliment its heavy train network that goes all over Denmark. The Metro is relatively new and has already undergone expansion. A new development area called Ørestad, which I will write about in a future post, financed a Metro extension. After the navy left the area in 2000 and the bridge to Malmö was built connecting Denmark with Sweden, the Copenhagen municipality sold off the land which had risen in value to private developers and used the money to run the Metro to the area (Photo, Right). Although there isn’t much there currently, it will be interesting to come back in 10 years and see how this area develops over time.

Cleaning the Harbor
Later in the afternoon we attended a lecture given by Jan Burgdorf at the Copenhagen municipality Center for Parks and Nature in an area called Islands Brugge. The topic was on the cleaning of the Copenhagen harbor. After the bicycle tour and water taxi ride, I had a pretty decent idea of what the area currently looked like. Jan told us what the municipalities efforts were to get the harbor (Photo, Right) to the point where it is today.

The harbor used to have numerous industrial companies located along the waterfront. There is still a car recycling facility but most of the noxious industries have since moved to an area called Gasoline Island on the other side of the island area between Copenhagen and Sweden and are now on the ocean side where any pollution created will be less concentrated instead of in the harbor.

The goal of the municipality was to create a place where people could swim and the harbor was attractive because of its proximity to redevelopment of the downtown area and numerous cultural and educational institutions that are now located downtown. The library has been expanded, a university area has been built and a large amount of private development has occurred as well. Swimming in the harbor was attractive to the municipality because it would attract all different social and economic classes to the waterfront with the hope to make that a more vibrant and interactive part of the city.

Several years later, after the industries had moved and soil remediation had occurred (although the extent of this remediation seemed questionable), several harbor baths and swimming areas were built along the harbor. Some of the areas along the waterfront were quite packed during the holiday weekend but the harbor bath closest to the hostel doesn’t open until next week. I hope to go and see this area when it opens. From my understanding, it has been most successful.

What was most interesting to me about this is how simple the original goal was. The municipality wanted to create a nice place for sunbathing and swimming. The first step was to make a list of all of the sources of pollution into the harbor. Although the situation is a bit different, it made me think of Madison, WI. The city is having big problems with its lakes becoming filled with nutrients from farm run-off and because of this, large algal blooms are taking place in the lake. Rather than taking a good look at what can be done about this problem, identifying the exact sources (though many) and coming up with a long range plan to alleviate the problem, the city has invested a lot of money in municipal swimming pools. I understand that eliminating the run-off altogether would not have immediate results, but is there a vision for reconnecting the public back with their most precious natural feature, the lakes?


At Night
After a long day of lectures, I wasn’t really excited about doing much. I went shopping with Jill, Virginia, and Jackie at a large department store called Magazine that has its own entrance off the Metro station! It was designer and high priced but there were sweet fashion bikes showcased everywhere. (Photo, Right) Bicycles, we cannot escape them! :)

Then after dinner, two words: Dead Tired.