Denmark in the news! Interesting article here from Reason Magazine on the fate of Christiania and the legal battles the Freetown faces. I don’t know enough about the issue to correct Reason (except for some spelling errors), but I do have a certain sympathy for the Christianites, at least the settlers of yore. Let’s find a legal solution that works for both parties, but let the Christianites keep their own identity.
Pusherstreet, originally named to be absolutely upfront and unambiguous about what goes on there, is the commercial heart of the Freetown of Christiania, a scruffy micronation in the Danish capital’s upscale, canal-incised Christianhavn district. This notorious community of utopian rebels, who expropriated the 85-acre former army barracks in 1971, has much more to deal with these days than a crimp in its marijuana business. Christiania is facing both an existential and a property rights crisis, with an aging population of ’60s counterculturalists battling a less tolerant and increasingly antagonistic national government that sees great untapped value in the commune’s waterfront land. The two sides are now facing off in one of the nation’s most momentous court cases.
Why not have more Freetowns? And let’s liberate cannabis while we’re at it.
Daniel Beattie’s classic defence of Christiania.