Christiania is located in the middle of Copenhagen, Denmark. It was established by a group of hippies in 1971 from what was once a military area. The neighborhood has around 850 residents and takes up around 85 acres of land. The relationship between Christiania and the Denmark government has gone through many different trials. There was a law that was established in 1989 called the Christiania Law. The law made Christiania a “free state”, it also gave land that was part of Christiania from the city council to the state, the land that they state got is now governed by the state. The trade of cannabis has occurred since the start of Christiania until 2004 when authorities stop tolerating it. Since then there has been many raids business and home and has caused bad relations between the residents and the authorities. The town is known to the residents as staden or the town and fristaden or the free town. The majority of the residents are artist and hippies. Some rules that the residents have established are no sealing, violence, knives, bulletproof vests, and hard drugs. They also have their own flag that is red with three yellow discs representing the dots in the “I”s in “Christiania”.
Brittany Bruer, June of 2009
Christiania was established as an "alternative lifestyle" type place and although being declared a so called "free state" they were, and are even more so now, subject to many laws of the danish government. They are also host to the "safest cafe in danmark" because since the year 2000 they have had many police officers raiding they city and even the cafe.
ReplyDelete-Nick
While doing some research about Christiania, I stumbled upon their website, which at the bottom, it states, "Tænk Globalt - handl lokalt," which means think globally, shop locally. This is interesting because Scandinavians tend to worry about world affairs and what is happening around them. Even the "hippies" in the "free state" are worried about global issues. Along with this, they also realize the importance of shopping locally to stimulate the local economy.
ReplyDeleteErin Josephson