A Danish commune's 50-year run as a semiautonomous district in the heart of Copenhagen may be slowly rolling to its end. The New York Times visits Christiania today, with a look into its history alongside the residents who have called it home for decades. The threat of more recent violence from drug gangs, paired with its tenuous right to exist under Denmark's official government, have some inhabitants seeing their days as a commune numbered. Christiania was founded in 1971 when squatters took over an abandoned military base with the goal to live in what the Times calls a "post-'60s anarchistic paradise." "You could do whatever you wanted as long as you didn't disturb others, and there was a feeling of community," Ole Lykke, archivist and resident since 1980, tells the Times.
Sprawling over 74 acres in the middle of Copenhagen, today it's home to 900, but also serves as a tourist attraction and quirky place to dine or pick up a bong for locals. Despite its anti-establishment roots, the commune has laws, requires permits to build, and governs via consensus democracy. Violence and hard drugs are illegal, and with an uptick in gangs (who took over its notorious Pusher Street's once tame cannabis trade), residents believe it's time to call in support. At a recent town hall, they decided unanimously to close Pusher Street and ask the state to intervene. This new move, plus a tentative agreement to allocate nearly four acres of their turf to new public housing, is a change welcome by some, but is leaving others wary. Check out the full story here. (Check out longform stories.)
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