a city marketing film presents tingbjerg as an idyllic ‘village within the city’, recalling positive receptions of Christiania.42 Once both represent- ed radical utopianism, reinventing ‘the good life’ and local communi- ty. as ideals of the social democratic welfare model, modernist urban planning, artistic avant-garde, and anarcho-socialist 1968 countercul- ture are exhausted, forgotten, disillusioned or absorbed by mainstream culture, most contemporaries distrust such 20th century utopianism. after the Cold War era’s confidence in master plans and narratives, uto- pias are continuously associated with authoritarianism and restriction, conceiving attempts to construct perfect societies or cities as something inherently repressive, even totalitarian.43 today, storytelling is crucial to initiate urban projects, but because planned and unplanned, official and unofficial narratives coexist, there is an ongoing struggle to decide who is ‘master’. People know more about the functions of narratives and there are numerous ways to construct and use them under a meta-nar- rative about improvement and growth.
sceptics criticise Christiania and tingbjerg as (out)dated utopias be- coming heterotopias44 in society’s margins — or even dystopias, nests
for crime, drugs, social destitution, conspiracy, asocial behaviour, etc. Both serve as ‘urban Others’ through which normal people can identi- fy themselves by observing ‘the freak’ or ‘the ghetto’ with every projec- tion possible. in this process, the new town and the Freetown are de- marcated as outside spaces or non-places where socio-economic prob- lems can be identified and contained although they concern society as a whole.45 Moreover, both can seem provokingly exclusive or sepa- rate from society due to their strong sense of local community around the neighbourhood, expressed by Christiania’s flag, fence and yearly birthday celebration, rap by tingbjerg kids, showing affection for their ‘hood’ or Babylonian tingbjerg dialect.46
Politically, the aging new town and the middle-aged Freetown are treated as special cases in need of special laws — treatment and adap- tion. The general election on 27 november 2001 confirmed that the wel- fare debate is still contested ground, affecting the urban spaces, fram- ing our lives. Both tingbjerg and Christiania became political fron- tiers in the ‘cultural struggle’, announced by then Prime Minister an- ders Fogh rasmussen, echoing 1968 counterculture, yet opposing it as he now saw its legacy becoming consensus culture. replacing the so- cial Democrats, the new (neo-)Liberal/Conservative government fused the Ministry of housing with the new Ministry of integration, immi- grants and Fugitives.
as in previous attempts to control Christiania through urban plan- ning and social engineering, contributions to an ideas competition for a master plan for the area (2003) were shelved. The police cleared Pusher street, while the parliament changed the 1989 Christiania Law in June 2004, again implying ‘normalisation’ (see håkan Thörn’s chapter in this book). Driving from pillar to post within a ramified bureaucracy for decades, Christiania is still soaring in a permanent state of exception, fostering lively public debates and, since 2006, a court case, Christian- ites versus the state. Christiania’s manifesto reads:
The aim of Christiania is to build a self-ruling society, where each indi- vidual can unfold freely while remaining responsible to the community as a whole. The society is to be economically self-sufficient, and the com- mon goal must always be to try to show that mental and physical pollu- tion can be prevented.47
although much seems lost in translation in current negotiations be- tween government bureaucrats and Christiania’s collectivists, values underpinning this programme resemble Fogh rasmussen’s 1993 neo- liberal manifesto From Social State to Minimal State: A Liberal Strategy. Both criticise the social democratic welfare state, defending the indi- vidual/user/inhabitant and his/her life world over general principles of egalitarianism and justice. still, Christiania becomes object for integra- tion like tingbjerg, similarly playing a key role in the cultural struggle, as announced in Fogh rasmussen’s above-mentioned book:
actually a cultural struggle is needed. Perhaps this sounds slightly dras- tic. and i don’t think about armed resistance. Yet, i use cultural strug- gle to underline the comprehensive character of the necessary position change. From the root we shall do away with collectivist norms, we have been drinking in with mother’s milk, as it were. it will be a struggle against inherited habitual notions and decrepit, alleged truths.48
Then in his new Year speech as Prime Minister (2002) he stated: We want to put Man before the system. The individual shall have more freedom to form his or her life. We want to do away with rigid systems, disempowerment and regimentation. We believe that human beings are best at choosing for themselves. We don’t need experts and arbiters of taste to decide on our behalves.49
The (neo-)Liberal-Conservatives came into power shortly after 9/11, joining the iraq and afghanistan Wars, tightening security, anti-ter- rorism and immigration laws, while waking up to global connectivity with the Cartoon Crisis.50 against this background the cultural strug-
gle became embedded in a new discourse of societal cohesiveness and Danishness, defining itself against societal fragmentation/segregation, globalisation and post-1968 culture/discourse. Located outside capi- talist market forces, tingbjerg’s public rental housing, accommodating many immigrants, and Christiania’s squatted enclave with collectivist ownerships and considerable autonomy, are treated as territories, lack- ing integration. as in the post-war period, urban planning becomes an instrument to (re)instate law, order and cohesion, now serving agendas of securitisation, zero tolerance, preservation, gentrification etc. — in our case normalisation and anti-ghettoisation.
normalisation
Protecting patrimony via the Financial Law (2004), a national ‘cultural canon’ and instituting a national ‘value commission’ (2011), the cultural struggle’s promotion of a certain narrative of Danish culture and values, included facts on the ground. resisting ‘red hired guns’, ‘circle pedago- gy’, ‘arbiters of taste’, ‘cultural radicalism’, windmills, etc., the fulcrum of debates on whether to clear or preserve Christiania shifted from so- cial concerns to urban planning. Yet, as when Eiler rasmussen wrote Around Christiania, the apple of discord in current normalisation ef- forts concerns demolition of architecture, new construction and own- erships: additional housing, openness towards the market and new seg- ments, change of allotment rights, official registration at individual ad- dresses replacing co-habitation of Bådsmandsstræde 43, street naming, and the clearance of self-builder houses on the embankment.
The latter mobilised the cultural struggle’s competing fractions in discussions of patrimony, heritage and cultural history. The govern- ment’s manager of the normalisation process, the Palaces and Prop- erties agency (slots- og ejendomsstyrelsen) under the Ministry of Fi- nance, wanted to clear self-builder villas, erected without permission, to restore the listed sea-and-land fortifications.51 Christianites and sup-
porters defended the houses, incarnating Christiania’s history and ar- chitectural tradition. Explaining the preservation of 11 military build- ings rather than 58 recommended by the Ministry of Culture’s special Building inspection, or listing the entire area as a cultural environment, symbolising the history of alternative living with self-builder houses, hippies and Pusher street, the heritage agency of Denmark’s former director remarked:
it is primarily the heritage agency of Denmark’s task to list historical buildings more than 50 years old. Meanwhile, it is Copenhagen Munici- pality’s role to deal with newer buildings worthy of preservation. hence, it is the municipality’s task to designate Christiania as a complete cultur- al environment.52
Once more it was complicated to categorise and place the responsibil- ity for Christiania, too young to become protected heritage according to current law although many see it as a cultural institution of Copen- hagen/Denmark. together with hash dealing the government used the assumed 16 per cent increase in the built-up environment as an argu- ment for normalisation, judging Christianites incapable of self-man- agement. 130 cases of illegal construction motivated the majority of votes for changing the Christiania Law (2004). When the cases were put forward, October 2010, the Palaces and Properties agency gave 92 per- missions, 15 cases were dropped due to registration errors, 9 were ter- minated because the object had been removed, one is pending, where- as orders — or warnings about orders — have been issued in 13 cases. regarding building cases, the Christiania Law is therefore founded on 90 per cent fictitious illegalities, as it were.53
since then, the Palace and Properties agency has raised new build- ing cases. at the time of writing (February 2011) Christiania has decid- ed to buy The Peace ark (Fredens ark) for one symbolic Danish kro- ne, while losing its court case against the state (see rené Karpantschof’s chapter in this book). reflecting the flux in Danish politics, the social
Democrats and the socialist Party in 2004 voted to change the Chris- tiania Law, and now even demand more law and order, while the 1968 rebel attitude has become part of the consumer society.54 after the tri- al, members of the (neo-liberal) corporate world defended Christiania, echoing the ‘Think different’ of apple’s hippie founder, steve Jobs, and richard Florida’s mantra of the creative class/city, stressing the impor- tance of innovation and identity in urban/global competition. in the service/knowledge economy Copenhagen’s ‘freak’ adds more value to the city than say the hyper-discount markets, currently launched as economical magnets. after tivoli and the Little Mermaid, Christiania is Denmark’s biggest tourist attraction, making Wonderful Copenha- gen’s director warn against normalisation:
Christiania is incredibly important for Copenhagen’s brand internation- ally. if Denmark is to keep its brand as a cool, tolerant and broad metrop- olis it is crucial that Christiania can still call itself a Freetown.55
Listing commercial advantages, the advertising bureau Mensch launched a pro-Christiania campaign under the headline ‘Danish trade and industry can still learn something from Christiania’:
it is easy to tear down. to demand adaption and normalisation. it is more difficult to jump out of normality. to think the unthinkable. say the unut- terable. But curiously it is the ability of Danish trade and industry to think differently that is our most important competitive factor.56
Jens arnfred of the architectural firm Vandkunsten remarks: ‘With Christiania’s disappearance yet another of our national symbols of tol- erance and diversity crumbles’.57 hence, cultural history with the nar- ratives and structures we choose to tell, preserve (remember) or de- molish (forget) is the wildcard in plans because cities develop differ- ently than intended.