Travel Reference
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Christiania: Copenhagen's Embattled Commune
I was strolling through the commotion of downtown Copenhagen, past
chain restaurants dressed up to look old and under towering hotels that
seem to sport the name of a dif erent international chain each year. h en, as
if from another age, a man pedaled by me with his wife sitting in the utilitar-
ian bucket-like wagon of his three-wheeled “Christiania Bike.” You'd call the
couple “granola” in the US.
Looking as out of place here in Copenhagen as an Amish couple wander-
ing the canyons of Manhattan, they were residents of Christiania.
The Denmark I've described
seems to be a model of conformity,
where everyone obeys the laws so that
all can be safe, al uent, and comfort-
able. And yet, Denmark also hosts
Europe's most inspirational and thriv-
ing nonconformist hippie commune.
Perhaps being content and conformist
is easier for a society when its non-
conformist segment, rebelling against
all that buttoned-down conformity,
has a refuge.
In 1971, the original 700 Christi-
anians established squatters' rights in
an abandoned military barracks just
a 10-minute walk from the Danish parliament building. A generation later,
this “free city” still stands—an ultra-human communal mishmash of idealists,
hippies, potheads, non-materialists, and happy children (600 adults, 200 kids,
200 cats, 200 dogs, 17 horses, and a couple of parrots). Seeing seniors with
gray ponytails woodworking, tending their gardens, and serving as guard-
ians of the community's ideals, I'm reminded that 180 of the original gang
that took over the barracks four decades ago still call Christiania home. h
Copenhagen's Christiania—a squatters'
commune since 1971.
e
Christianians are i ghting a rising tide of materialism and conformity. h
ey
want to raise their children to be not cogs, but free spirits.
Everyone knows utopias are utopian—they can't work. But Christiania,
which has evolved with the challenges of making a utopia a viable reality, acts
like it didn't get the message. It's broken into 14 administrative neighbor-
hoods on land still owned by Denmark's Ministry of Defense. Locals build
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