Planning and Urban Growth in Nordic Countries

Thomas Hall

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781135829865
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architektur
• Subtopic: Stadtplanung & Landschaftsgestaltung

Planning and Urban Growth in Nordic Countries examines urban development and planning in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Emphasis is on the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, and the authors of each 'country-study' look at their own national developments against the background of those in other Nordic countries well as the rest of Europe and the USA.

1
THE NORTH—DOES IT EXIST?

Thomas Hall

In this book we have tried to describe the main lines in the planning history of Nordic towns. We should therefore perhaps start by discussing what is meant by ‘the North’ or ‘the Nordic countries’ today, and to indicate some of the chief events in the history of this part of the world.

The concept of ‘the North’ includes Denmark together with the Faröe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden (‘Scandinavia’ includes Denmark, Norway and Sweden only). With their 22.7 million inhabitants (1984), the Nordic countries have a fairly modest population, but they cover an area more than twice the size of any single West European country. Does ‘the North’ exist as a social, cultural and political unit, or is it simply an honorary title, an idea lacking any real substance? There is no clear-cut answer to this question. It is possible to identify parallel or similar features between the Nordic countries as well as differences, and to point out areas of effective collaboration and others in which contact is weak or even non-existent.

PARALLELS AND DIFFERENCES

Let us disregard Iceland and the Faröe Islands in the present context and limit ourselves to Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. In many respects the four countries look back on a shared history, albeit one frequently touched by armed conflict. They have similar political systems and a similar political culture, although Finland has a president who possesses real power, while Denmark, Norway and Sweden have retained their royal families as a political ornament. The languages, apart from Finnish, are also closely related. Swedish is still an official language in Finland and for a minority of the population it remains the mother tongue, but the proportion of Finns unable to speak any Swedish appears to be increasing rapidly.

Working through the Nordic Council, an advisory cooperative body elected by the Nordic parliaments, and the Nordic Council of Ministers, which is concerned with collaboration at government level, much has been achieved in harmonizing legislation and activities in many areas of society. Among the most important and spectacular results have been that Nordic citizens may live and work in any of the Nordic countries without special permits on the same conditions as the country’s own citizens and with rights to the same social benefits. To cope with more run-of-the-mill cooperative activities, over a hundred different units have been set up to cover most aspects of society. Examples in the area of planning and building are Nordplan (the Nordic Postgraduate Planning Institute), an institute located in Stockholm for the further education of planners, and the Nordic Institute for Regional Policy Research. Apart from the more official types of collaboration there is also a good deal of close co-operation between political groups, trade unions and other non-commercial organizations, while many Nordic firms operate in two or more of the four countries.

But there are also obvious differences between the Nordic countries. This even applies to their geography. Denmark is predominantly flat. Norway’s landscape, rising to an average height of about 500 metres, is dominated by fjords and mountains; the only fairly large areas of unbroken lowland are to be found around the Oslo and Trondheim fjords. Finland has a broad and fairly flat coastal plain, behind which lies a plateau covered in lakes to the south, and to the north a high mountain landscape. Sweden includes a variety of landscape types: along the border with Norway lie mountains which gradually give way to lower wooded regions towards the coast; to the south of this area there are both mountainous and wooded regions and plains, while the far south consists of a sedimentary plateau like Denmark’s. As a direct result of these geographical conditions, Denmark is densely built-up, while the other countries include extensive deserted areas, and except in certain regions are sparsely built; this situation causes major problems in regional policy.

On defence and foreign policy the Nordic countries have adopted different lines. After the Second World War attempts were made to establish a defensive Scandinavian pact, but with their recent memories of the defencelessness of the Nordic countries, Norway and Denmark decided to join NATO. For Finland a good stable relationship with the Soviet Union was and still is felt to be the overriding goal; in 1948 Finland had to agree to the so-called ‘pact of friendship and mutual military aid’. Sweden has maintained her traditional policy of nonalignment, which also has important implications for Finland and thus for the North as a whole. These diverse bloc affiliations were the main reason for the most notable setback to Nordic co-operation to date, namely the failure to establish an economic union in NORDEK in 1970. Negotiations about a customs union broke down as early as the 1950s, but it was possible in any case to abolish barriers to trade within the framework of the European free trade organizations, although Denmark—unlike Sweden and Norway—followed England into the European Community.

Relations between the European Community and those Nordic countries, which so far have remained outside, have long been in the melting-pot, and a solution can presumably be expected in the early 1990s. Perhaps as a result of perestroika even Finland will be able to join in the European cooperation to an extent that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.

The similarity between the Nordic languages is another area where more might have been expected, in this case in facilitating the exchange of information and cultural contacts between the countries. In fact, however, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are too similar to be taught as ‘foreign’ languages in school, but are still sufficiently dissimilar to make reading more arduous. In any sizeable bookshop in the Nordic countries you will generally find shelf after shelf of books in English, and at least one of literature in German and French. But you will probably find very little in the other Nordic languages. If any of the literature of the other Nordic countries is included at all, it will probably be in translation. Similarly foreign programmes on television or at the cinema are predominantly non-Nordic. A plan for distributing the domestic television output in each other’s countries has met with powerful opposition, particularly in Sweden. You can generally find newspapers from the other Nordic countries at any major outlet, but they are expensive. And the coverage in the media of developments in the other Nordic countries is pretty scant; only major events get a mention. In the Stockholm daily newspapers, for exam-ple, British domestic policy receives far more attention than current policies in the neighbouring Nordic countries.

This relative lack of interest in the other Nordic countries is not restricted to the mass media. Most artists, researchers and various professional experts are likely to have better contacts outside the North than with their Nordic colleagues, and many university courses give Nordic material short shrift. This probably has something to do with the other Nordic countries being neither ‘home’ nor ‘abroad’. To anyone seeking contact beyond their own borders, the countries outside the North probably offer more of a contrast to conditions at home and are thus more interesting than the nextdoor neighbours in the North.

Finally it should be remembered that southernmost Denmark and northernmost Norway are about as far from one another as Denmark is from North Africa. Such great distances are naturally also accompanied by variations in living patterns: for example, Denmark is more ‘continental’ in atmosphere than the rest of the North. There is thus something of a paradox in the idea of ‘the North’. Both success and failure have marked the various attempts at unity: in many areas the Nordic countries have collaborated closely, in others their plans for cooperation have never got beyond the blue-print stage. We can perhaps conclude that the keen interest in the idea of the North, which leading politicians of various shades have evinced, has resulted in a collaborative apparatus whose actual content does not always correspond to intentions.

Is it possible, then, to speak of a Nordic urban planning tradition? We shall address this question in the concluding remarks. Without anticipating this discussion, we would nevertheless suggest here that no other group of states in Europe lends itself as well as this one to a common study in a single context.

UNIONS AND WARS

The history of each country is touched upon in the respective chapters. But something should perhaps also be said about the history of the North and the Nordic concept. Over the centuries that succeeded the end of the Viking age, the countries now known as Denmark, Norway and Sweden emerged as loosely organized states. The oldest and most advanced was the Danish kingdom which included large parts of present-day Sweden. Norway included Iceland and Greenland as well as Bohuslän, the present Swedish county north of Göteborg. Sweden’s interest was turned towards the east, and during the thirteenth century Finland came under Swedish dominion. Fighting naturally occurred now and then among the three kingdoms, but there does not seem to have been any really deep or permanent conflict between them.

The idea of co-operation in the North seems to be almost as old as the Nordic kingdoms themselves, and it was even fairly easy to achieve in various personal unions, since the social structure, the language, the religion and the legal systems of the three countries were very similar. During the period when the Nordic kingdoms were establishing themselves, several unions occurred in various combinations but none of them lasted very long. This had more to do with the generally insecure position of the kings than with any fundamental opposition to the idea of union. Nevertheless a union was established in 1380 between Denmark and Norway, which was to persist until the beginning of the nineteenth century and which made Norway at least a de facto vassal of Denmark. In 1397 the three countries were united in the ‘Union of Kalmar’, by agreeing on a common regent in what remains one of the most controversial and fascinating events of the Middle Ages in the North. The fifteenth century was dominated by conflict between the Danish-Norwegian kings who periodically ruled Sweden and various Swedish constellations which saw their interests threatened by the aspirations of the union kings. Mediaeval union ambitions came to a dramatic end in the ‘Stockholm Bloodbath’ of 1520. The Danish King Kristian II captured Stockholm and then had about eighty of his leading opponents beheaded at the time of his coronation, to which they had been invited with an amnesty in prospect. The result of course was to rally the populace to the Swedish cause; within a couple of years Kristian had been expelled and an independent Swedish kingdom established. It was three hundred years before the idea of a pan-Nordic union was raised again.

The sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are a dark period in the history of internal relations in the North. The two powers, Denmark-Norway and Sweden (with Finland), were ruthless opponents in war and diplomacy, neither of them hesitating to collaborate with its neighbour’s enemies elsewhere. During these wars the border provinces suffered widespread devastation. At the beginning of the period Denmark was the stronger, but during the seventeenth century the emphasis shifted and Denmark-Norway lost the coastal counties bordering on Sweden. In the end the boundaries between the three countries had acquired their definitive form. The frequent wars served to buttress negative attitudes between Denmark and Sweden—attitudes which continued to affect historiography into modern times and which persisted in the school books of both countries for a very long time.

The Napoleonic wars had dramatic consequences in the North: the two powers which had existed since the Middle Ages were split into four. As a result of the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, Alexander I was given a free hand in the North and Sweden was compelled to cede Finland to the Tsar, under whom it became an autonomous dukedom. The loss of Finland was one of the main reasons why in 1810 Sweden chose the French marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte as heir to the Swedish throne (he was subsequently known in Sweden as Karl Johan). But Berna dotte recognized the political and military impossibility of reconquering Finland. Instead he succeeded in getting the allied enemies of France to agree to the incorporation of Norway with Sweden; in 1814 Denmark was forced to agree to this, but was allowed to retain Iceland and Greenland. In this way these two countries were separated from Norway. Norway, on the other hand, was not prepared to accept the settlement and in 1814 proclaimed itself a constitutional monarchy on—for the times—liberal lines (the Eidsvoll Constitution). This triggered a Swedish attack in what proved to be the last war between any of the Nordic states. An agreement was reached before much fighting had taken place, however, whereby Norway accepted Karl-Johan as their king in return for recognition of their new constitution.

During the nineteenth century the prevailing nationalistic and liberal currents affected relations between the Nordic countries in several ways. During the second half of the century resentment in Norway at the enforced union with Sweden was growing, although the country was autonomous in every way except as regards foreign policy. After various ‘episodes’ in which both the countries were driven by pride and prestige, the union was dissolved in 1905 to the relief of both parties. In Finland nationalism revealed itself in opposition to the policy of Russification which was periodically launched from St Petersburg, and in attempts to break with the cultural heritage from Sweden, the former mother country, and to discover a Finnish identity.

Although Norway and Finland were inclined to emphasize their distinctive historical and cultural character and particular political interests, ‘Scandinavianism’ showed another face: it stressed the common elements in the history and cultural development of the Scandinavian countries, often invoking the Union of Kalmar and calling for political collaboration with a view to establishing a united Scandinavian state. Scandinavianism was strongest in Denmark. In Sweden it was supported with great enthusiasm in university circles, but even other groups were influenced sporadically by Scandinavian ideas. Norway was far less interested, while in Finland any pan-Nordic movement was precluded on political grounds.

The acid test of Scandinavianism came with the Danish-German conflict regarding Schleswig and Holstein. The Danes counted on military support from Sweden-Norway. During the 1848–49 war some Swedish-Norwegian troops were sent to help the Danes, but they took no part in the actual fighting. Their task was limited to the defence of Denmark proper. In 1863 Denmark adopted the so-called November Constitution, which in practice meant making Schleswig part of Denmark, and this time the expected Swedish-Norwegian help was not forthcoming. After a series of military setbacks the Danes were forced to cede Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg to Prussia, and Scandinavianism had lost its credibility. Nonetheless it had evidently helped to dispel a good deal of the suspicion which had been accumulating for so many centuries, and towards the end of the nineteenth century the foundations were laid for the more recent collaborative arrangements, for example by establishing a Scandinavian postal union. Nordic conferences and congresses on various topics, including meetings between architects, also became common. In such events Finland, too, would often take part. The budding labour movement, with its internationalistic bent, was also quick to establish inter-Nordic contacts.

During the First World War the Scandinavian countries remained neutral. The common policy was expressed in identical declarations of neutrality and in the meetings between the three kings in Malmö in 1914 and in Kristiania in 1917. For Finland the fall of the Tsar brought liberation from Russia. After the war Denmark regained the Danishspeaking part of Schleswig.

During the 1920s Nordic collaboration made little progress but during the 1930s interest revived, not least because of the growing threats from outside. Among other things regular ministerial meetings began to be held at this time. Finland was also more closely involved than before. From 1940 to 1945 Norway and Denmark were occupied by the Germans and Finland had to fight two wars with the Soviet Union. Sweden did not get drawn into the war. Finland suffered most and was compelled to cede extensive areas to the Soviet Union, as well as having to pay heavy war damages.

The Second World War seems to have promoted a sense of community among the Nordic countries which had not existed before, thus laying the foundations for the cooperative enterprises briefly outlined here. A milestone was the establishment of the Nordic Council in 1952.

2
URBAN PLANNING IN DENMARK

Bo Larsson and Ole Thomassen¹

PRE-INDUSTRIAL BEGINNINGS

Compared to the other Scandinavian countries, Denmark is small and without any great contrasts in its landscape. It has no mountain ranges or vast forests, no uninhabited areas or complex lake systems such as Finland, Norway and Sweden all possess. In area Denmark is less than 10 per cent the size of Sweden and about 12–13 per cent of Finland or Norway, although its population of five million is bigger than that of either of these two countries. Denmark is intensively cultivated with dwellings almost everywhere. No house is ever very far from its neighbour, but on the other hand most urban communities are fairly small. There are only about twenty urban agglomerations with more than 30,000 inhabitants, and of these one, the capital city in the eastern corner of the kingdom, accounts for more than one-third of the total urban population.

Denmark’s most characteristic feature is that it consists of several islands—the largest being Sjælland and Fyn—together with the Jylland peninsula connecting the country with continental Europe. Nowhere in Denmark is the distance to the coast more than 50–60 km. Denmark consists of lowlands and gentle slopes; the highest point is 173 m above sea level. Man has shaped the landscape by cultivating the soil, planting forests, lining the roads with trees and securing the coasts against the natural forces of the sea.

Although relatively small in a Nordic context, Denmark’s development and settlement patterns have been determined by certain characteristic topographical features. Almost everywhere the coast provided occasion for early settlement, even where the sea is rough as it is along the west coast of Jylland. Most of the coast here has been formed, by water and wind, into broad sandy beaches with long parallel spits of sand, but with limited opportunities for farming to supplement fishing. Conditions were different along the long fjords and rivers cutting inland in eastern Jylland and on the larger islands. Here the soil was very fertile, and fishing and agriculture could develop prosperously side by side. At the head of the fjords early settlements could develop more safely than along the open coast, and communications by waterway and river to the interior of the country were good.

Some of the earliest Danish towns such as Hedeby, Roskilde, Haderslev, Næstved, Ålborg and Randers, grew up at the heads of the various deeply penetrating fjords. They were at one time seaports, and also marked the confluence of the oldest roads of the interior. Other early towns such as Ribe, Århus and Odense developed at river estuaries or on navigable rivers. Some of these towns appear to have been planned structures, but most of them have developed spontaneously as small communities based on fishing and agriculture. In the ninth century Hedeby was surpassed by the new coastal settlement of Schleswig which became one of the main trade centres in the Baltic region.

Around 1100 there were at least twelve settlements in Denmark that could be described as towns according to the conditions of the times. In many of the earliest towns a considerable part of the original street pattern has survived. The patterns varied: there might be a small agglomeration of buildings protected by a primitive semicircular rampart as at Hedeby and Århus, or a town could be built along a system of roads leading to a river-crossing as at Randers, or there might be a central core with buildings along a radial road system such as Slagelse, or often there were single roadside towns on the coast with narrow passages to the shore. The buildings, single or in rows, were built in the available materials—wood, clay or mud and wattle combined. Archaeological reconstructions have given us some impression of the appearance of the original townscapes. In the tenth century Ribe developed to become an important North Sea harbour.

This was also the time when the Danish provinces were being successively united, combining the power of several lesser chieftans to form a single country. This was followed by an early attempt to establish a national defence plan against internal enemies as well as foreigners coming by sea. The long coastline in particular was vulnerable to pirate attack. The fortresses of Copenhagen, Kalund...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Planning and Urban Growth in the Nordic Countries
• Studies in History, Planning and the Environment
• Preface
• Contributors
• 1: The North—Does it Exist?
• 2: Urban Planning in Denmark
• 3: Urban Planning in Finland After 1850
• 4: Urban Planning in Norway
• 5: Urban Planning in Sweden
• 6: Concluding Remarks: Is There a Nordic Planning Tradition?