December 18, 2008
Bike. Lane. Snowploughs.
Keeping the bike lanes clear is important. Not least for safety. But it is also a practical issue. 80% of Copenhageners continue to ride throughout the winter. That’s roughly 400,000 people. If this massive group is somehow restricted in getting to work or school, imagine the chaos. Those who don’t drive will have to take a bus or a train. 400,000 extra people all of a sudden standing at busstops and train stations throughout the region would be a logistical nightmare and a transport chaos.
Parents would be late getting their kids to kindergarten or school. There would be lost man hours because of people arriving late or not at all. The bike lanes are kept clear for the most basic, practical reasons.
They also put up little shields to keep the shrubbery from getting splashed with salt.
comments
Leave a Reply
Alright, but this is a bit of a fantasy. They don’t typically snowplough the bike lanes in Copenhagen. I would cycle in the tracks of whoever had blazed the trail early in the day on snowy days, those brave warriors. It’s true that they snowplough a lot of the common areas and particularly the housing co-op’s thoroughfares, but the bike lanes were always dodge with death areas on snowy days.
And if you’re willing to pay 40-60% tax, you too can have your shrubs protected with shields.
I miss living in Copenhagen. Proper winters, great summers and one of the World’s best capital cities to enjoy, all within walking or cycling distance.
Well I don’t know about the ‘great summers’ but sure, they do have a proper 8 month winter in Copenhagen. The bike mass is surely my favourite feature of that metro landscape.
Why, yes, I’d love to pay 40–60% tax in exchange for protected bike lanes and shrubs, health care, education, and a better quality of life in general for me and all my fellow citizens. That sounds fab.
Yes I thought so too, and increasingly value the Scandinavian social welfare system, the more I see of the American versions. But I think these things are easily idealised, especially when you live in such a dog-eat-dog system like New York. I am not so sure about the ‘better quality of life in general’ bit.
I could mention the ultra-right wing tendencies that are thriving there, the Bush-backing government that is increasingly eating away at those social welfare, healthcare and education systems, backed by a people who have only known financial contentment for generations and now seem to want to trade the commonwealth crown jewels for a bigger individual pile, the intensely stark race and immigration relations, the particular problems with rioting that have been such a feature of Copenhagen life over the past couple of years in particular.
But then I would be getting a bit serious. Godammit.
Ah, all the comforts of home! Only without the stark raving idiots.
Maybe, India. But if you lose your stark raving idiots, you tend to lose your glistening shining geniuses also.
What you end up with is a lot of middle, which suits some people perfectly, but it is what it is.
Pics or it didn’t happen.
This conversation is getting much too serious for two broads in their pajamas to be having, but that strikes me as the sort of assertion that we take as truth because it sounds tidy, when, in fact, there’s little evidence to back it up. Rather like, “If there’d been antidepressants in Van Gogh’s day, there’d have been no Van Gogh.” There’s no need to defend ignorance and stupidity; they get by just fine without our help.
I’m not talking in abstracts, I’m talking about my experience. I speak from my impressions of having lived in both places and looked around, and being the human that I am in each.
The US is a country of incredible diversity in terms of race, numbers, education, spirit and socialisation. Denmark is a homogenous country, a country of unified tradition, history, race, and rules. Everyone is highly educated. There seemed to me to be a very defined set of rules there, social rules, rules of tradition, rules by which to live and work. People do things in similar ways there, they are a lot alike.
Neither am I defending ignorance and stupidity, they simply exist as part of a huge spectrum of humanity in a country (the US) that has wild differentials in education and lack of it, and religions that vary in their voracity. And the fact is that this country is also full of the most incredibly wild creativity also. Rampantly so. The lid is off, so to speak. Denmark is a country where standing out, being different to the main, is not encouraged. Denmark has been built on consensus, agreement, sameness. The US has been built on difference, conflict, diversity.
To be honest, comparing the two countries is ridiculous, they are on such different scales and evolved with such different histories and contexts. I feel sometimes in New York like some kind of evangelist for the Scandinavian tax/social welfare system, there is so much that is humane about it.
Living in Copenhagen was interesting and peculiar, but I really longed for the kinds of wild madly creative friendly open humans that I find everywhere in New York, and also in Ireland.
I am no longer in my pyjamus, but I do need some breakfast.
Breakfast. I recommend huevos a la mexicana.
I don’t think we’re disagreeing, exactly, but I think we mean different things when we say “stark raving idiots.” You seem to be attributing that to cultural difference, whereas I attribute it to generations of poor education, which in recent years has come to seem less and less accidental.
[Straightening tinfoil hat:] I think that certain elements of the right wing in this country have been deliberately undermining public education and supporting so-called Christian fundamentalism (which is not about the fundamentals of Christianity at all) for decades, precisely so that they can have a more easily manipulable population. And I think that those certain elements have not even begun to get an inkling of what an uncontrollable monster they have created.
So when I characterize people who reject evolution as stark raving idiots, I’m not saying that I think their religion or culture is at fault; I’m saying that they’ve been taught to be stupid. And people who’ve been educated in such a way as to make them stupid are not going to suddenly turn around and come up with a cure for cancer, or be the next Benjamin Franklin, Rachel Carson, Thurgood Marshall, Andrew Bird, Maxine Hong Kingston, or whoever smacks of genius to you. They not only are out of the genius running but also are a huge drain on the country’s—not to mention the world’s—resources. America’s genius keeps sprouting up through the mud in spite of that kind of “diversity,” not because of it.
With challenging, effective, genuine education for all, of course there would still be people here who are bigots, or who are eager “to trade the commonwealth crown jewels for a bigger individual pile,” but it would be much harder for them to gain influence on a national scale.
This is a wonderful conversation.
I would simply like to point out that it’s not a good idea to say ¿Tienes huevos? in Mexico. To a man, at least. Even in a diner.
Not that I’ve done this or anything. I don’t like eggs.
Carry on, please.
I am making some food godammit. Won’t you people let me eat?
Are you making huevos a la mexicana?
Under normal circumstances, yes. But it being 5.12 pm when I am having my breakfast, it will be some kind of spinachy lovely fresh pasta with vegetables from Chinatown. American diversity. I have more to say on this subject.
This phrase often passes between me and Danny. “Those crafty Danes.”
Usually in reference to Danny’s Grandmother’s coffee table that will lift and expand to a dining table that will seat eight.
So it’s snowing, I’m leaving for the weekend, we were in the studio til 2 in the morning last night, but I’ve somehow written this to continue our conversation. I keep having more ideas. Maybe this comment thread is really a book.
Well of course it’s because, at least in good measure, of lack of education, godammit! Ignorance is also bred, it’s in socialisation, it’s in the kind of culture that people are being fed that keeps them that way, these people who deny the dinosaurs whose bones I took pictures of in the American Museum of Natural History a few days ago.
Now, whether or not “America’s genius keeps sprouting up through the mud in spite of that kind of “diversity,” not because of it” is a moot point. Diversity is diversity, you don’t have to like all of it. Plurality, at least in my experience, is inspiring. Intelligence is hardy. And ignorance is fostered not only in impoverished education systems, but also in culture, in religion, on the street, in the churches, on television.
So the interesting thing about the idea that education is what stops people from being bigoted is to look at countries where there is a very high level of education and see if the people are emancipated socially also. And when I say that the right wing is really climbing in Danish life, I’m not pissing around. Denmark is insulated by its homogeneity, by its social welfare system, by the readily available systems of comfort so easily available to all. And there are kinds of ignorance bred in that hothouse also, that are not ameliorated by a masters degree. Intellect is not king of all, and the tension between the races in Denmark is intense.
It’s a small country and it guards its systems heavily. Denmark has some of the tightest immigration policies in Europe, there’s currently a party in coalition with the main party in government, the leader of which I have heard that Jorge Haider of Austria wouldn’t speak to because he thought she was too extreme. Integration is sparse, and first and second generation dark skinned Danes are often considered Arabic, rather than Danish. Acceptance is long in coming.
So it’s interesting to examine whether they can continue to operate these systems because they’re such a small sheltered highly guarded country (Sweden and Norway are large, sheltered countries. Sweden has much less freaky immigration laws). America is a completely extremely different sort of entity. Now, for the past seven years, under Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who has had an enthusiastic mandate in the country though there are plenty of unashamed socialists still fighting against this mandate, Denmark has been becoming a less socialist place in practical terms: budgets for healthcare and education, arts and the environment are being slashed. And Danish soldiers and Danish money have been sent off to Iraq.
I have more to say but Ross is pacing, it is snowing and we have a five hour drive ahead of us. Have a lovely weekend!