# The perfection of Nordic cities



## Adde (May 8, 2011)

There are timber-framed houses in Stockholm as well, though I'm not sure if any of them actually look timber framed from the outside.


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

Adde said:


> There are timber-framed houses in Stockholm as well, though I'm not sure if any of them actually look timber framed from the outside.


We have often the same "problem" here; Many facades have been covered in plaster to provide some fire protection, like here:









http://www.gamletrehus.no/articles.php?id=24

However there are still many places with visible timberframes too, so I have no idea where NordikNerd got the idea that Halmstad had the northernmost timberframe buildings from.


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

musiccity said:


> I encourage you all to watch this amazing video of the city of Jyväskylä. It proves all my points, a perfect combination of functionality and beauty.


Ah, Jyväskylä. I think there are a few points I love about it and a few aspects I am not so excited about. 

First of all, its impressive how you are never far away from forests and nature, from almost anywhere in the city. The bicycle trail system is vast and really very useful and efficient. The city is really made for getting around by bike. They have a neat and tidy pedestrian centre with all the stuff you'd expect from a small to mid-sized student town. In general the city makes a clean and well run impression. And last but not least, the setting with all the rolling hills and lakes around is quite scenic. 

If you are a great fan of nordic modernist architecture you are of course well served with the works of Alvar Aalto and many other buildings clearly share some of the same qualities. For example the whole university campus along the seaside looks the natural setting and the buildings were simply made for each other. 

On the downside however, if you like old European architecture there are only few buildings for you to see in Jyväskylä. While the feeling of living somehwere in the forsts while still being in a central part of town has its own charme some people probably prefer a setting that feels a tad more ... urban. And while the nightlife options were ok I had the impression other student cities in Europe of similar size had more to offer in this regard. And of course, drinking beer is prohibitively expensive. Maybe Fins are more into private parties therefore, I don't know.

PS: The video is great.


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## apinamies (Sep 1, 2010)

I have to say that I think that Finnish cities are really boring.

Walkability is not good outside of city centers. Architecture is very boring 1960-70's buildings mostly. 

Nature is close that is true, but urbanity lacks in Finnish cities which are very car centered. Public transportation is very shitty outside of capital region.


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## calaguyo (Nov 28, 2008)

Finnish cities based on the pictures are good but not perfect. 

I would rather choose cities in Switzerland and Austria in anytime of the day! Though they're not perfect either.


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

I can't say a lot about accessibility but the train connection between Helsinki and Jyväskylä looked fairly good to me. I don't know about PT in Jyväskylä itself but a bike got you anywhere in the city area you'd like to go and I had the feeling all of it was very accessible by bike. For pedestrians the distances might be too far however and the periphery looks rather car optimized even though pedestrians and cyclists seem to be served largely as well. 

Architecture is mostly pretty modernist indeed. You may call it "boring". I for one would miss classic or old architecture during a longer stay up there.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

musiccity said:


> I encourage you all to watch this amazing video of the city of Jyväskylä. It proves all my points, a perfect combination of functionality and beauty.


If this is the kind of urbanism you like, really there are a lot of places that will fit your bill. Believe it or not, but the neatness you see here is fairly standard across Scandinavia with architectural differences of course. Modernism as you see here is more common in the suburbs, but it does make up the majority of developments around Swedish cities too. 

I think you'd love a good number of clean, safe European countries from the sound of it. Switzerland and Austria as well as all of the Nordics. You might also love to see a lot of mid-size (but wealthy and not shrinking) Japanese cities too. They tend to be very neat and tidy as well as built around railway connections. I personally really liked a lot of the commuter cities in Tokyo - Hachioji, Kashiwa, Kichijoji, Mitaka and most of the suburbs along the Tokyu lines, and a number along the Odakyu lines in Yokohama too tend to be very nice indeed.

Take a look around some of these in Japan:

Sagami-Ono
Kichijoji
Hachioji
Kashiwa
Mitaka

Probably not the best video tour of Kichijoji, but here is one from someone back in 2011:






A look around Sagami-Ono in 2012:






These are just some of the ones I've seen in person.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Now for a bit of Stockholm, just to bring it back to the "Nordics". 

Here are some lower income suburbs on the green tunnelbana line down south of the city centre. Pedestrian centres and shopping combined with train stations and bus depots. 






This is a set of very small suburbs with a total of around 25,000 people living in them to the north east of Stockholm. Again, built around a rail line. You can see why they're popular due to the lake and bathing opportunities (near the end of the video at around the 12 minute mark). 






Here is a newly developing inner suburb of Stockholm called "Hammarby Sjöstad". 






Another lower income suburb to the north of Stockholm built around the blue line of the tunnelbana called Kista. Has a large IT hub up there and a lot of jobs. You see the IT and business section towards the latter half of the video. The residential and central part of the suburb are at the beginning. 






Another middle to low income suburb to the south of Stockholm. Has a big shopping centre there. At the 7 minute mark again you can see people relaxing in the park at the lakeside and bathing. The waterways around Stockholm and the lake are what makes living here particularly special for most of us.


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## Lemanic (Jan 6, 2011)

I'd say, STOP TREATING US NORDICS AS GODS AND DO STUFF YOURSELVES, VARMINTS!!!

The Nordics are far from perfect. I'd say that UK is a far more perfect than us. The sparse Thomas Jefferson-esque suburban lifestyle that we brought in the 40's and 50's has turned Stockholm from a dense european city into a second Los Angeles. Just under-performing asphalt as long as the eye can see.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Lemanic said:


> I'd say, STOP TREATING US NORDICS AS GODS AND DO STUFF YOURSELVES, VARMINTS!!!
> 
> The Nordics are far from perfect. I'd say that UK is a far more perfect than us. The sparse Thomas Jefferson-esque suburban lifestyle that we brought in the 40's and 50's has turned Stockholm from a dense european city into a second Los Angeles. Just under-performing asphalt as long as the eye can see.


Hm, I'm from the UK and the modal split of Stockholm is far superior to even London, so it's hardly LA. Coupled with that, the density of Stockholm is around 4000 people per km sq in the urban area of the city. That isn't "undense". Couple that with the fact that most development has occurred around railway stations and you actually have a situation where it is more like Japan than LA. 

Plus I've never seen so many apartment blocks in a suburb in the UK - single family dwellings as far as the eye can see.


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## Lemanic (Jan 6, 2011)

Svartmetall said:


> Hm, I'm from the UK and the modal split of Stockholm is far superior to even London, so it's hardly LA. Coupled with that, the density of Stockholm is around 4000 people per km sq in the urban area of the city. That isn't "undense". Couple that with the fact that most development has occurred around railway stations and you actually have a situation where it is more like Japan than LA.
> 
> Plus I've never seen so many apartment blocks in a suburb in the UK - single family dwellings as far as the eye can see.


Well, more density can have many advantages. Less suicides, less allergies, less impact on the climate change, more diversity, more job opportunities etc.

UK is more gay-friendly than us nordics because they're used to that kind of diversity that their dense towns have. The only gay-friendly parts of the nordics are in the capitals, which hardly represents the countries as a whole.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Lemanic said:


> Well, more density can have many advantages. Less suicides, less allergies, less impact on the climate change, more diversity, more job opportunities etc.
> 
> UK is more gay-friendly than us nordics because they're used to that kind of diversity that their dense towns have. The only gay-friendly parts of the nordics are in the capitals, which hardly represents the countries as a whole.


I'm sorry but this is going well off-topic. If more density = less suicides then Japan would not be so high for suicides and Australians would be killing themselves far more than they are. As for less impact on the climate - have you seen just how much CO2 per capita is produced by the UK relative to the Nordics? Most Nordic countries use far more "clean" sources of energy than the UK for energy production, which has a lot of thermal power plants (whilst the Nordics use a lot of hydroelectric power and nuclear in Finland and Sweden). Couple that with the fact that most heating is provided by gas central heating in the UK, compared to the extensive use of combustable waste district heating in the Nordics, one can see that there is a massive difference on this front too. 

As for density, the UK may be relatively dense on paper, but that isn't the total picture. The UK is far more auto-centric than Sweden most definitely (not sure about the other Nordic countries, but I can comment on this one directly). Sweden often has centres for each of their suburbs, whereas this is not quite the case - especially in newer UK suburbs. Where I grew up in Northampton, I had to walk for 2km to get to my nearest shop and I was in a "normal" suburb. This is by no means unusual. As for your comment about allergies and density? I'm sorry I really cannot follow that one. Completely nonsensical. As for more job opportunities of course a larger population offers that, but then there is also, proportionately, more competition for those jobs too. 

Secondly, as for gay friendliness, that is an odd comment. Legislation wise, Denmark, Norway and Sweden have all approved same-sex marriage, and Svenska Kyrkan approves same-sex marriage in their churches (and voted overwhelmingly to do so). In the UK there is the same conservative rural area vs. more open urban area as there is in Nordic countries too - I think this is mostly true across the world in fact.


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

Svartmetall said:


> Plus I've never seen so many apartment blocks in a suburb in the UK - single family dwellings as far as the eye can see.


Apartments blocks aren't necessarily denser as there can often be lots of wasted space in between the blocks. It would not surprise me if the copy-paste row houses the UK have a love relationship with are denser than your average "lets throw few commie blocks around on this open field"-planned apartments block in the Nordics.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Galro said:


> Apartments blocks aren't necessarily denser as there can often be lots of wasted space in between the blocks. It would not surprise me if the copy-paste row houses the UK have a love relationship with are denser than your average "lets throw few commie blocks around on this open field"-planned apartments block in the Nordics.


Thankfully we've mostly moved away from that mentality now and are doing far more infill and semi-closed block developments based around streets now rather than the hus i park style approach. The majority of newer suburbs in the UK (since the 1980's in fact) are not even semi-detached properties, let alone terraced (rowhouses), more the wimpey, Bovis et al style estates. The victorian era and inner suburb houses are most definitely more dense than the hus i park, though that isn't the majority of housing stock in many cities these days.

Though really it does depend on how much space there is around the apartment blocks (and how high they are). Hägerstensåsen, a typical outer suburban area built in that style has a density of 7,285 people per sq km. Not shabby and fairly typical of this kind of district in Stockholm.


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## Lemanic (Jan 6, 2011)

Svartmetall said:


> I'm sorry but this is going well off-topic. If more density = less suicides then Japan would not be so high for suicides and Australians would be killing themselves far more than they are. As for less impact on the climate - have you seen just how much CO2 per capita is produced by the UK relative to the Nordics? Most Nordic countries use far more "clean" sources of energy than the UK for energy production, which has a lot of thermal power plants (whilst the Nordics use a lot of hydroelectric power and nuclear in Finland and Sweden). Couple that with the fact that most heating is provided by gas central heating in the UK, compared to the extensive use of combustable waste district heating in the Nordics, one can see that there is a massive difference on this front too.


Well, per capita, UK is more environmentally friendly than us in the north. I don't know anyone that wastes as much as we do in water, electricity, gas and regular trash. We live like Hollywood celebrities up here, more or less. We have to stop doing that.



Svartmetall said:


> Secondly, as for gay friendliness, that is an odd comment. Legislation wise, Denmark, Norway and Sweden have all approved same-sex marriage, and Svenska Kyrkan approves same-sex marriage in their churches (and voted overwhelmingly to do so). In the UK there is the same conservative rural area vs. more open urban area as there is in Nordic countries too - I think this is mostly true across the world in fact.


Vertical approval doesn't mean anything. It's horizontal approval that matters. You can still be taunted, sneered and killed for being gay here up in the Nordics. Finland is a good example of that. When I'm in a small dense town like Matlock up in Peak District, where my sister lives with her husband, I feel far more liberated than in I am Sweden. The rich dense environment welcomes my flaming personality, GUUURL.


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

Hammarby Sjöstad seems to be a nice recent development:









http://www.intechopen.com/source/html/18723/media/image6.jpeg


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Lemanic said:


> Well, per capita, UK is more environmentally friendly than us in the north. I don't know anyone that wastes as much as we do in water, electricity, gas and regular trash. We live like Hollywood celebrities up here, more or less. We have to stop doing that.


Use doesn't necessarily mean that we're worse. Very little of our electricity is from thermal sources in the Nordics. In the UK, it is the majority, not the minority that comes from gas or coal fired power plants. Therefore, even if we use more electricity, we are still getting the majority of our electricity from renewable sources, and therefore, still have a smaller carbon footprint per capita than the UK. That isn't that hard to understand. 

As for rubbish processing - it has been shown that sending rubbish to landfill actually results in a greater level of greenhouse release over its decay period than burning it. Therefore, burning the rubbish to generate heat for heating and hot water is FAR, and I repeat, FAR more environmentally friendly than using natural gas like the UK, there is no comparison. Couple that with the fact that we have one of the highest rates of recycling in the EU (compared to the UK which is near bottom) and we landfill a minimum amount of our trash, even if we produce more rubbish, we are still dealing with it in a more sustainable manner, and therefore again, the footprint is lower. 



Lemanic said:


> Vertical approval doesn't mean anything. It's horizontal approval that matters. You can still be taunted, sneered and killed for being gay here up in the Nordics. Finland is a good example of that. When I'm in a small dense town like Matlock up in Peak District, where my sister lives with her husband, I feel far more liberated than in I am Sweden. The rich dense environment welcomes my flaming personality, GUUURL.


Killed for being gay? I have yet to see any recent news about that here. I find that also quite unlikely here in Sweden. I'm glad you're happy in the UK and accepted, but I can tell you quite categorically from the experience of my gay friends in the midlands that this is not the norm, certainly for those who are effeminate or affected in any way. 

PS: Matlock is dense?!?! Far from it...


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

Since this have been transformed into a general "lets brag about the Nordics"-tread rather one with Finland as speciality, then I have to say that there are two things I genuinely like about cities here in Norway and which I think we are better than many places elsewhere:

1. Even cities located in the most "boring" parts of the country nature-wise are still surrounded by large hills, mountains and/or archipelagos. You will hardly find a town or a city located without some relatively dramatic and distinctive natural features. 

Example: 

Halden, located in the flattest part of the country and right next to Sweden:








http://www.halden.kommune.no/organisasjon/enheter/Sider/Rådgiver.aspx

... And Ålesund, located on the completely opposite side of the country and towards the north sea:








http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alesund_2.jpg


2. The absolute best of our modern buildings are seriously good. Sadly the worst are seriously bad to compensate. 

Example:

Kilden opera house in Kristiansand:








http://www.huftonandcrow.com/projects/gallery/kilden-performing-arts-centre/

Modern apartment building at Tjuvholmen, Oslo:

http://www.tomaszmajewski.no/


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

I'd say exaggerations are often wrong.. it's true that Nordic cities have their pluses in the planning which I really admire, but there's also problems like everywhere else, like sprawl (which is quite pervasive for European standards) and car dependency; also, as already said, they are a bit "dead" sometimes, and the architecture a bit stale outside of the center.. Seen from satellite, I'd say especially Finnish cities are not exactly perfect, there is lot of sprawl taking large chunk of forests (as well by the timber producers) like I haven't seen everywhere else in Europe


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

UK does have sprawl, but it's not as bad as those in Scandavania. I personally think UK cities are more interesting than Scandinavia cities despite the poor urban choices.


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

LtBk said:


> UK does have sprawl, but it's not as bad as those in Scandavania.


I think it depends on how you see it. I believe UK cities (outside of London) have more suburbs relative to their population, but the suburbs appears to be generally denser and better contained around the inner city cores. UK cities don't really appears to have that many relatively dense 19th century housing quarters like this around - their historical housing stock seems to mainly consist of Victorian suburban row houses and they appears to have started buildings suburbs much sooner than us. Therefore I think UK cities probably have a larger percentage of their population in the suburbs than us, but those living in the suburbs are probably better connected to the inner city than those in suburbs here.


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

I'd say the peculiarity of UK cities is the one to have lot of "low" buildings, and row houses, so that they take more space (look at London) however planning for the suburbs is better done, both the architecture and the space; in Scandinavia it appears more all over the place (more similar to Germany), with flats/council houses and the likes more mixed up randomly and with more choice in regards of colours, styles.. I'd agree that UK cities are more lively as well, not necessarily more beautiful but more "lived in"


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

^^ We don't really have that many "council houses" up here. At least not in Norway anyway. Only 3% of the housing stock in Norway is owned by the public authorities and the majority are in the Northern parts of the country. The rest are in private hands.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

LtBk said:


> UK does have sprawl, but it's not as bad as those in Scandavania. I personally think UK cities are more interesting than Scandinavia cities despite the poor urban choices.


Lived in both, not necessarily true really. I honestly don't think that UK cities are more "lively" than their Scandinavian counterparts. When I compare Manchester or Birmingham to Stockholm (equal sized cities) I can't help but feel that Stockholm has the edge - especially with regards to connectivity which assists in liveliness given people are more mobile. But this is just my experiences from having lived in both.

Also, Scandinavia/the Nordic countries are not homogenous. Sweden has a lot more apartments in their housing stock - 3/4 of Stockholm's housing stock consists of apartments in the urban area. The suburbs are spaced out along rail lines with "centres" to them with all amenities one needs for every day living as well as youth centres, schools etc. The suburbs are designed to be self-contained but well connected. This is quite different to UK style suburbia which is like a denser version of American/New World suburbia where one has to drive to ones nearest supermarket (with exceptions of course).


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

But Stockholm is the capital and largest city. It's supposed to more lively than the regional cities. I was comparing UK regional cities like Birmingham, Liverpool, and Cardiff to their Scandinavia counterparts. Can other UK forumers chime in?


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

LtBk said:


> But Stockholm is the capital and largest city. It's supposed to more lively than the regional cities. I was comparing UK regional cities like Birmingham, Liverpool, and Cardiff to their Scandinavia counterparts. Can other UK forumers chime in?


We don't have any regional cities of the size of Liverpool and Birmingham. I guess Cardiff would be comparable to a place like Bergen and I have to say that Bergen appears more lively to me, but then again I have never actually been to Cardiff.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

LtBk said:


> But Stockholm is the capital and largest city. It's supposed to more lively than the regional cities. I was comparing UK regional cities like Birmingham, Liverpool, and Cardiff to their Scandinavia counterparts. Can other UK forumers chime in?


I doubt there are too many UK forumers that have lived in both places like myself, it does give me some perspective. Also, the capital city does not always have to be the most important - look at Auckland in New Zealand. Biggest city by a long way with over 1/4 of the country living there, and Wellington, which is nothing like as important as Auckland. 

The next nearest comparison is Göteborg and Sheffield (that I can think of). In terms of transportation, Gothenburg has a massive and well-utilised tram system, a large urban core which is larger than Sheffield and is more concentrated on the centre of the city. Sheffield has one of the largest regional malls in the UK that sucks a bit out of the city centre. Both are very nice cities (and Sheffield has had a lot of regeneration), but the city core in Sheffield seems to end quickly due to the low-rise buildings and so it feels smaller despite the population similarities. Gothenburg simply due to the building stock feels like the larger city. But both are very different. 

The UK has a lot of pros for its lifestyle over Sweden, and visa versa. I prefer Sweden and the Swedish urban form myself to the UK - and I actually grew up in the UK so that feels more "familiar" to me.


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## Adde (May 8, 2011)

Comparing "regional" cities in the UK and Scandinavia seems kind if useless to me. All of Scandinavia has got less than 30 million people in an area much larger than the UK. Our towns and cities quickly drop off in terms if population. In Sweden, you're down to less than 200,000 inhabitants in the 4th largest city. 

And as far as suburbs go, there were virtually no Scandinavian suburbs when all those Victorian row houses were built in the UK. We really didn't start building suburbs until the 30's (with a few exeptions) and they didn't really take off until the 50's and 60's. Of course they're mostly modernist in style and planning.


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

Adde said:


> Comparing "regional" cities in the UK and Scandinavia seems kind if useless to me. All of Scandinavia has got less than 30 million people in an area much larger than the UK. Our towns and cities quickly drop off in terms if population. In Sweden, you're down to less than 200,000 inhabitants in the 4th largest city.


As a side note, I'm quite surprised that your fourth largest city have a smaller urban population than our fourth largest city according to Wikipedia, despite that Sweden have more than twice the population of Norway. :dunno: You do admittedly have more urban areas around the 100k mark than us, but still ... 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_Norway_by_population
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_Sweden_by_population


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

^^ That's true! I didn't even notice that. I guess Norway is more dispersed throughout the non-principal cities, which can only be a good thing in my opinion. I'm not a huge fan of having one city and then a bunch of small towns.


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

Svartmetall said:


> ^^ That's true! I didn't even notice that. I guess Norway is more dispersed throughout the non-principal cities, which can only be a good thing in my opinion. I'm not a huge fan of having one city and then a bunch of small towns.


True, but given the relatively "small" population of the upper Scandinavia, it's quite normal that there's a more centralist city in the country, and Stockholm has been better at promoting itself (and is more cosmopolitan) than Oslo and Bergen, although Norway is less centralist; however Norway is better at promoting its incredible nature than its "urban nature".. strangely enough, the more centralist in Scandinavia seems to be Denmark with Copenhagen, which has less reasons to do so, given the flat Danish territory and cities more linked with each other (because of the bridges and the lack of mountains)..


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

Galro said:


> ^^ We don't really have that many "council houses" up here. At least not in Norway anyway. Only 3% of the housing stock in Norway is owned by the public authorities and the majority are in the Northern parts of the country. The rest are in private hands.


I remember hearing something like that about Sweden though, and the architecture in some of the suburbs seem to remind something like the public housing, but yeah there's a few flats along the detached houses and row houses.. sorry then


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## musiccity (Jan 5, 2011)

Svartmetall said:


> If this is the kind of urbanism you like, really there are a lot of places that will fit your bill. Believe it or not, but the neatness you see here is fairly standard across Scandinavia with architectural differences of course. Modernism as you see here is more common in the suburbs, but it does make up the majority of developments around Swedish cities too.
> 
> I think you'd love a good number of clean, safe European countries from the sound of it. Switzerland and Austria as well as all of the Nordics. You might also love to see a lot of mid-size (but wealthy and not shrinking) Japanese cities too. They tend to be very neat and tidy as well as built around railway connections. I personally really liked a lot of the commuter cities in Tokyo - Hachioji, Kashiwa, Kichijoji, Mitaka and most of the suburbs along the Tokyu lines, and a number along the Odakyu lines in Yokohama too tend to be very nice indeed.


Yes I love cities that are *****, spam, clean, green, and functional.  And yes, I do love Japanese urbanism, especially Japanese parks and gardens!


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## SydneyCity (Nov 14, 2010)

I've never been to Scandinavia, so I understand that I might be wrong, but for me Scandinavian cities, while very clean, sporting excellent public facilities and being surrounded by nature, do have a certain 'dull' look about them, as though there wouldn't be a lot of nightlife or entertainment etc. Just what I think based on what i've seen, could be completely wrong and would be happy to be proved otherwise.


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## NordikNerd (Feb 5, 2011)

As a scandinavian city like Linköping it's a typical nordic city. It has some old architecture in the centre; a cathedral, a castle which use to be a bishops residense, so I doesn't look like a castle. 

Most Linköping consists of villas, a few dense neighbourhoods are made up by block of flats. Urban sprawl makes it a bit dull in some places. The centre has a few restaurants and cafés, but overall it's quite empty during weekdays. Most people tend to do their shopping in the commercial areas in the outskirts of the city.

I have been in Beziers, France. A city with about the same population as Linköping. The difference: Beziers feels much more vibrant and livlier. At first I thought that at least 200.000 must live there. So the difference is that nordic cities are situated in sparsely populated countries. Also the cold and dark conditions during wintertime do not contribute to the comfort.


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## Adde (May 8, 2011)

Galro said:


> As a side note, I'm quite surprised that your fourth largest city have a smaller urban population than our fourth largest city according to Wikipedia, despite that Sweden have more than twice the population of Norway. :dunno: You do admittedly have more urban areas around the 100k mark than us, but still ...
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_Norway_by_population
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_Sweden_by_population


Well, like you say, there are more urban areas around 100k. Sweden is larger than Norway, so our population is a bit more spread out, with more medium sized towns.


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## Adde (May 8, 2011)

NordikNerd said:


> Most Linköping consists of villas, a few dense neighbourhoods are made up by block of flats. Urban sprawl makes it a bit dull in some places. The centre has a few restaurants and cafés, but overall it's quite empty during weekdays. Most people tend to do their shopping in the commercial areas in the outskirts of the city.


I'm not overly familiar with Linköping, but surely there's more than "a few" restaurants and cafés? I studied in Uppsala for years, and there's a ton of restaurants and cafés there, and it's only 30k larger than Linköping. And I went to high school in Norrtälje (a small town of 17k, much smaller than Linköping) and there's a decent selection of restaurants and cafés there as well.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

NordikNerd said:


> As a scandinavian city like Linköping it's a typical nordic city. It has some old architecture in the centre; a cathedral, a castle which use to be a bishops residense, so I doesn't look like a castle.
> 
> Most Linköping consists of villas, a few dense neighbourhoods are made up by block of flats. Urban sprawl makes it a bit dull in some places. The centre has a few restaurants and cafés, but overall it's quite empty during weekdays. Most people tend to do their shopping in the commercial areas in the outskirts of the city.


I'm familiar with Linköping myself - "lived" in a friends flat near the centre for 2 weeks while he was away. I thought the centre was quite lively during the summer when I was there last year. There was a good selection of shops and plenty of decent cafes. I would agree that continental Europe tends to have more per capita than the Nordics, but then I would say that Linköping definitely outclasses any new world city I saw in Australia or New Zealand in terms of its offerings for shopping and eating compared to similar populations. It was also markedly better than my hometown of Northampton in the UK too.


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## Adde (May 8, 2011)

Yeah, that characterization of Linköping feels like the result of a bit of "hometown blindness". I think most of us tend to go a bit "blind" to the positives (and probably some of the negatives) of our home environment. We settle on our regular restaurants and stop exploring all the other alternatives, we shop in our neighborhood shops or at the suburban mall on the way home from work and and miss all the smaller specialist shops in the center. We go out of town during the summer when there's lots of cultural events, and we avoid the city center because of all the traffic and the crowds when there's a festival or outdoor concert. 

And then we complain that our home town isn't as "lively" as the tourist town we spent a couple of days in in the middle of July.


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

Adde said:


> Well, like you say, there are more urban areas around 100k. Sweden is larger than Norway, so our population is a bit more spread out, with more medium sized towns.


If anything, I believe it is rather driven by topography than area, as Norway is actually larger relative to our population than Sweden is to theirs. However the area that is buildable and suitable for human occupation (some would of course say none of Norway is) is considerable smaller. If we look the population density of Europe, then we can see that pretty much the whole southern part of Sweden is somewhat densely populated, while only the area around the oslo fjord arm and a strip along the north sea are "densely" populated in southern Norway. Which is quite natural as the vast areas inland consist of high mountains, step fjords and glacier - pretty to look at, quite crap to live in. 












Svartmetall said:


> I'm familiar with Linköping myself - "lived" in a friends flat near the centre for 2 weeks while he was away. I thought the centre was quite lively during the summer when I was there last year. There was a good selection of shops and plenty of decent cafes. I would agree that continental Europe tends to have more per capita than the Nordics, but then I would say that Linköping definitely outclasses any new world city I saw in Australia or New Zealand in terms of its offerings for shopping and eating compared to similar populations. It was also markedly better than my hometown of Northampton in the UK too.


To be fair, I do not think many considers small cities in Australia and New Zealand to be models of urbanity.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

KeanoManu said:


> We have the same problem in Sweden. It's expensive to eat out so no-one does it.


I would say this is wrong too. My experience is that dining out is a massive thing - look at all the restaurants with outdoor eating throughout the city centre this summer - they are always packed. Whilst I cannot afford to eat out here due to the poor pay of a PhD student, plenty of others do!


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

Svartmetall said:


> I doubt there are too many UK forumers that have lived in both places like myself, it does give me some perspective.


It does, but I think it must have been quite some time since you did live in the UK, things can change a lot in a decade or more. 

I'm quite happy to criticise the UK where it is warranted but the UK is now nowhere near the bottom of the EU recycling league, it's above average having shown the biggest improvement of any member state in the 2000s.

http://www.eea.europa.eu/pressroom/newsreleases/highest-recycling-rates-in-austria

Recycling rates are
actually not to far behind Sweden overall, with some parts of the country doing better. The main difference between the two countries being that of the rest, Sweden incinerates most of it while the UK still landfills a lot.

Also detached housing estates were possibly the most common form of new development during the 1990s but in the 2000s they certainly weren't, with new density requirements making city centre apartment developments and denser developments of mixed apartments and attached single family homes far more common.

In fact in my town the census even showed a net decrease in detached homes between the 2001 and 2011 censuses (ie more being demolished than built) despite the population increasing by 10% in that time. I'm sure that is not atypical among most towns and cities.


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

What a shock that Norway is the poorest recycler in Scandinavia. We always talks so much about saving the environment and what's not, yet we never follows through with actual action and always fall behind all other places. The only thing we manages to implement are taxes.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Jonesy55 said:


> It does, but I think it must have been quite some time since you did live in the UK, things can change a lot in a decade or more.
> 
> I'm quite happy to criticise the UK where it is warranted but the UK is now nowhere near the bottom of the EU recycling league, it's above average having shown the biggest improvement of any member state in the 2000s.
> 
> ...


You're 10% behind according to the link you posted. with 49% of waste recycled, 49% incinerated and 1% landfilled overall here, we deal with our waste in a very different manner to the UK. It is true that the UK has improved markedly by decreasing landfill amount from 80% in 2001 to 49% in 2010, but it is still very high. Landfill, as I stated earlier, is more environmentally destructive than incineration and so that does need to be changed - especially in such a densely populated country. 

True, my impressions are a little out of date though, you're right. 



Jonesy55 said:


> Also detached housing estates were possibly the most common form of new development during the 1990s but in the 2000s they certainly weren't, with new density requirements making city centre apartment developments and denser developments of mixed apartments and attached single family homes far more common.
> 
> In fact in my town the census even showed a net decrease in detached homes between the 2001 and 2011 censuses (ie more being demolished than built) despite the population increasing by 10% in that time. I'm sure that is not atypical among most towns and cities.


Yes, it's improved with the newer developments, but I didn't say that it hadn't. What I said was that the kind of estate I described predominates due to their popularity for a long period of time. We still get judged by our million programme and our mass suburb building in the 60s and 70s with most having that image of Swedish suburbs despite it being at odds with recent developments, the same is true of the UK where a lot of the recent housing stock makes up those detached houses.

I know, for my own rather useless anecdotal evidence, I don't know a single person who lives in an apartment or even townhouse in the UK, though. Everyone owns either a semi or detached house as those are still very desirable for those with the money to afford them - unless attitudes have changed that much. Perhaps they have in the country overall, I just don't know anyone whose views have changed - they all think I must be dirt poor for living in an apartment!


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

I agree personally about incineration rather than landfill, and things are moving that way, we will have an incineration/electricity generation plant in operation by some time next year which will almost eliminate landfill in this part of the county. 

But incinerators tend to generate huge local opposition, both from local residents and environmental lobbyist groups like FotE etc so it is difficult to progress matters much quicker. 

As for flats or rowhouses, I live in a Victorian rowhouse neighbourhood so obviously I know plenty of people doing the same. 

But flats and rowhouses are popular I think among young professional singles and couples, it's when children come asking that a preference for detached housing or at least semi/row housing with larger outdoor space starts to be shown. 

There are a good number of families in my neighbourhood, mostly living in rowhouses, probably much less so in the apartment developments nearby though.


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

What you seems to lack in the UK are these dense 19th and early 20th century neighbourhoods, which is a shame as they are often very nice to live in. 

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Barc...bQdj-vvrloSBEpjbu89NPw&cbp=12,317.67,,0,-7.21

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Mila...a5eMsMin5MW6Fo3bWdGQUg&cbp=12,306.03,,0,-3.53

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Buda...=kDY7yNuVbmO3S-8qH7gaIQ&cbp=12,334.16,,0,-0.9

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Riga...=VHR4PT2L1kZZFPs2odRSjA&cbp=12,85.91,,0,-7.41


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## NordikNerd (Feb 5, 2011)

Galro said:


> What you seems to lack in the UK are these dense 19th and early 20th century neighbourhoods, which is a shame as they are often very nice to live in.
> 
> 
> https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Buda...=kDY7yNuVbmO3S-8qH7gaIQ&cbp=12,334.16,,0,-0.9


That Budapest street looks a bit similar to a street in Stockholm, Östermalm like "Grevgatan" for instance. 

But still the Budapest architecture is more baroque and showy compared to the Stockholm bourgeois neighbourhoods which have simpler facades.


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

Galro said:


> What you seems to lack in the UK are these dense 19th and early 20th century neighbourhoods, which is a shame as they are often very nice to live in.
> 
> https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Barc...bQdj-vvrloSBEpjbu89NPw&cbp=12,317.67,,0,-7.21
> 
> ...


You will find quite a lot of them in parts of London, but rarely elsewhere, though there are a few examples.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Jonesy55 said:


> You will find quite a lot of them in parts of London, but rarely elsewhere, though there are a few examples.


Yeah, I was going to say, London definitely has whole areas like that. It's one reason I love London actually - it is the only city in the UK I could conceivably see myself living in if I were not here. London is a very special gem in the UK for me. That isn't to say that the rest of the UK doesn't have some stunning architecture and districts as I am sure one can find beauty in the architecture of Edinburgh, or even smaller places like Harrogate and other unsullied UK towns and villages. 

But I do very much like European inner cities like those that Galro linked to - it's districts like them that make me love living here:

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=59.3...Y3zA&cbll=59.333382,18.082446&dg=opt&t=h&z=17

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=59.3...o8MA&cbll=59.332834,18.084723&dg=opt&t=h&z=17

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=59.3...ai_Q&cbll=59.344098,18.047093&dg=opt&t=h&z=17

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=59.3...xgTA&cbll=59.339055,18.082703&dg=opt&t=h&z=16

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=59.3..._xUw&cbll=59.313649,18.079674&dg=opt&t=h&z=16

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=59.3...UC4Q&cbll=59.318924,18.062944&dg=opt&t=h&z=16

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=59.3...70cA&cbll=59.329074,18.042637&dg=opt&t=h&z=17

Like Nordiknerd said, not as ornamented, but colourful at least.


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

Jonesy55 said:


> You will find quite a lot of them in parts of London, but rarely elsewhere, though there are a few examples.


I have to disagree from what I've seen. I sure London do have something similar as it is such a large city, but most similar districts and buildings in London seems to be commercial, hotel or offices while housing of that time tends to be a couple of stories lower, with repeating designs and does look quite a lot like row houses - which is nice enough and there is nothing wrong with that, but I do think it gives a rather different aura than the 19th century developments elsewhere in Europe. 

https://www.google.com/maps?q=Londo...=JBQm33L35YvegcyasIP5DQ&cbp=12,319.68,,0,-0.9

https://www.google.com/maps?q=Londo...wah1r-g4hOowDA95Q6KEHA&cbp=12,346.07,,0,-0.48

https://www.google.com/maps?q=Londo...noid=MTI7bjWQF2_xe0bHizX7EQ&cbp=12,317.6,,0,0

https://www.google.com/maps?q=Londo...IqfETij_jw-6vjKJS7bmJw&cbp=12,346.35,,0,-1.25

https://www.google.com/maps?q=Londo...Jt9h8EnuzoQOkpS0KmOiOA&cbp=12,124.92,,0,-4.85

https://www.google.com/maps?q=Londo...GzoAV9TbSbI-jLi-hP26iw&cbp=12,294.35,,0,-0.35

https://www.google.com/maps?q=Londo...d=V6tYELuHMV1EW-V6FN53xA&cbp=12,186.3,,0,0.97

Although I have only been in London as a tourist, this seems to be what London historic housing is mainly built upon and it feels to me much closer to your stereotypical row house than what I showed in my links above.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

^^ The Harley st example is more what Jonesy was talking about I think:

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=51.5...EzMA&cbll=51.517288,-0.147845&dg=opt&t=h&z=17

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=51.5...1eKw&cbll=51.506044,-0.144795&dg=opt&t=h&z=17

They're different to the European examples, but more similar to them than they are to the ubiquitous victorian terraced housing that exemplifies the rest of Britain which fall more along these lines:

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=52.2...egsw&cbll=52.243557,-0.879371&dg=opt&t=h&z=16


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

Yes, you will of course find lots of row housing like those examples you posted Galro, but in West-Central London especially there are also plenty of districts looking something like this.










You would have to be pretty damn rich to live in most such neighbourhoods though.


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## KeanoManu (Mar 1, 2012)

Adde said:


> I don't recognize myself or Sweden at all in this. At my job, lots if people go out for lunch every day or at least a couple of days a week. The same at my sisters job. Me and my friends go out for beer on weekdays all the time, and it's just as packed whether it's a Tuesday or a Friday. And while binge drinking is common, especially among younger people, most people can go out to clubs and bars without becoming black out drunk, and do so most of the time.
> 
> And where did you get the idea that Scandinavians don't "do things"? Walking is massively popular in Sweden, both for recreation and exercise. Friends will meet in the city to take a walk along the waterfront and then maybe take a _fika_ or a picnic. Parents will take their kids to the park (parents with strollers are absolutely everywhere) or the playground.
> 
> I will give you that we're generally not great at talking to strangers, though I have a friend who likes to just sit down in a pub or bar in his own, and he says that he always meet interesting people. I'm too much of a chicken to try that, though.





Dahlis said:


> Thats not true, I live in Stockholm and i eat out a couple of times a month and so do most of my friends.
> 
> I think its more of a planning problem. People living in single family houses in the suburbs dont go out to eat because the restaurants are to far away. And sadly thats how most of Sweden is planned.





Svartmetall said:


> I would say this is wrong too. My experience is that dining out is a massive thing - look at all the restaurants with outdoor eating throughout the city centre this summer - they are always packed. Whilst I cannot afford to eat out here due to the poor pay of a PhD student, plenty of others do!


Oh, well... I guess we have different experiences about this. 
I very rarely visits the cental parts of Stockholm though, so my view are from the suburbs.


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## Wapper (Feb 24, 2011)

I think that these neighbouhoods are missing in Britain because of the tradition of single family homes. It's (unfortunately) similar in my country.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

KeanoManu said:


> Oh, well... I guess we have different experiences about this.
> I very rarely visits the cental parts of Stockholm though, so my view are from the suburbs.


The central parts of Stockholm are the best! I think suburbs are generally dull in most parts of the world with a few exceptions. Depending on the suburb here (Stockholm) one can either have very dull with perhaps a mall and a transport hub (a lot of tunnelbana suburbs), or it can be like a mini town, like Åkerberga or Upplands Väsby. It really does depend. Still, none of these go anywhere to equalling what the central city area (Norrmalm, Södermalm, östermalm, Kungsholmen and a few areas surrounding them) has to offer. Most smaller cities are quite like that.


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## KeanoManu (Mar 1, 2012)

Svartmetall said:


> The central parts of Stockholm are the best! I think suburbs are generally dull in most parts of the world with a few exceptions. Depending on the suburb here (Stockholm) one can either have very dull with perhaps a mall and a transport hub (a lot of tunnelbana suburbs), or it can be like a mini town, like Åkerberga or Upplands Väsby. It really does depend. Still, none of these go anywhere to equalling what the central city area (Norrmalm, Södermalm, östermalm, Kungsholmen and a few areas surrounding them) has to offer. Most smaller cities are quite like that.


But the suburbs should be more similar to smaller cities (like Linköping) than the most central parts of Stockholm.

Compare smaller Swedish, or Scandinavian, cities to smaller down south on the continent and it surely feels like our cities are more dull, lifeless and people are at home more than there. Could be that I'm biased in this case as I have never lived in southern Europe.

I may just be one of these guys who always think that the grass is greener on the other side...


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

KeanoManu said:


> But the suburbs should be more similar to smaller cities (like Linköping) than the most central parts of Stockholm.
> 
> Compare smaller Swedish, or Scandinavian, cities to smaller down south on the continent and it surely feels like our cities are more dull, lifeless and people are at home more than there. Could be that I'm biased in this case as I have never lived in southern Europe.
> 
> I may just be one of these guys who always think that the grass is greener on the other side...


No suburbs will ever be like a small city when they are attached to a city as small as Stockholm - no suburb here has a population of 120,000 for one thing. Not only that, but suburbs by their very nature tend to be cannibalised by the city by sucking life out of them unless the city is not a very mobile one. Stockholm's good public transport actually counts against it in this regard as the city is so accessible. If it were less so, the suburbs may have more amenities than they do. 

I have to say, nearly every suburb here at least has a "centrum", amenities and good transport links on the whole. There are also some exceptions to the case above too - Sundbyberg Centrum is one of these most definitely.


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

I like those 19th and early 20th century urban apartments, but urbanity based on rowhouses or triple-decker apartments like those in Montreal or Belgian cities can do the same thing.


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## Adde (May 8, 2011)

KeanoManu said:


> But the suburbs should be more similar to smaller cities (like Linköping) than the most central parts of Stockholm.
> 
> Compare smaller Swedish, or Scandinavian, cities to smaller down south on the continent and it surely feels like our cities are more dull, lifeless and people are at home more than there. Could be that I'm biased in this case as I have never lived in southern Europe.


In my experience (grew up in a suburb, have lived in several smaller towns, and now lives in central Stockholm) you can't really compare a Stockholm suburb to a small town, and certainly not to a medium sized town like Linköping. Even a small town will usually have a much better amenities (shops, restaurants, cafe's, clubs and bars) than all but the most "town-like" of suburbs. Towns are usually much more urban and walkable than most suburbs, so accessibility is better and there's more street life. 

And like Svartmetall said - an easily accessible big city like Stockholm drains any suburb of potential customers, since why chose one of a limited number of restaurants in the suburb when you've got a almost unlimited variety of restaurants only 15 min away by subway? 

And finally, I'd guess that demographics also work against most suburbs. There's usually a lot of families with children living in many suburbs, and that's a group that doesn't go out for dinner much. The demographics that probably go to restaurants, pubs and bars the most are young adults, young professionals without children and older people whos children are grown up. And those are groups that are more likely to live more centrally, or for older people, move to the countryside or a smaller town.

And you're probably right that a lot of souther European towns probably are a bit more "lively" than their Scandinavian counterparts. But at the same time, we usually visit them during the tourist season, they're often pretty touristy towns to begin with, and we spend most of our time in the very center where all the restaurants and pubs are. It's like visiting Visby in July and thinking that's how all Swedish towns are like all year round.


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

KeanoManu said:


> In Scandinavia we rarely eat out, we only go to the pub/club at the weekends and that's to get so drunk that we won't remember how we got home the next day. We also rarely do things. It's not common to just go out and walk/drive through the city without any goal. We don't talk to strangers either so you can't go out all alone and find new friends at the pub, park or museum.
> 
> If we want a more active street life here we need to change our culture a bit. Start eating out more is a good start. But an expensive start, as eating out costs very much here.


Those are very good points. I've been to Finland many times and what struck me vs. Canada was the lack of 'stuff'. The culture in Canada is based on convenience, entertainment, and abundance. Helsinki and Turku had vastly fewer dining/shopping/entertainment options and I was surprised how sprawled out Finnish cities were. 

The apartment in a park idea seems to be the norm. It's lovely from a R&R point of view, but problematic environmentally. Finland doesn't have too many large cities so they get away with it for the most part. Helsinki wouldn't work as well it were designed like that and had 3 million people. 

That said, I found Finnish cities spotlessly clean with smarter design employed everywhere you looked. Snow catchers on the roof, under passes painted light blue, 'attractive' garbage bins outside apartment blocks, public washrooms with paperless toilets, window blinds that actually block out the sun, and city works/swimming pools buried underground, etc. It all seemed to make so much sense yet simple design features like that aren't even on the radar back in Canada.

Finnish cities could benefit from Canadian convenience while Canadian cities could benefit from Finnish design.


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

^^ Are every underpass in Finland painted light blue? Here it tends to be just bare concrete. -_- And what do you mean with "city works/swimming pools buried underground"?


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

Galro said:


> ^^ Are every underpass in Finland painted light blue? Here it tends to be just bare concrete. -_- And what do you mean with "city works/swimming pools buried underground"?


Every underpass? I doubt it, but it's one of the simple design features that I did notice used. In Helsinki, things that don't need to be above ground are put underground. City electrical, sewage, plumbing, even public swimming pools are built below ground. 

It saves valuable space above ground for other things while putting the guts of a city (usually not that nice to look at anyway) out of sight. It's all easily accessible to city works crews (because they're placed in tunnels) for repair, replacement, maintenance free from pedestrians or bad weather.


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## pussyqueen (Aug 1, 2013)

Scandinavia is indeed heaven on earth, whats new here :lol:



Manitopiaaa said:


> Perfect cities for me
> 
> Hong Kong
> Melbourne
> ...


Have you been to Hong Kong


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

isaidso said:


> In Helsinki, things that don't need to be above ground are put underground. City electrical, sewage, plumbing, even public swimming pools are built below ground.
> 
> It saves valuable space above ground for other things while putting the guts of a city (usually not that nice to look at anyway) out of sight. It's all easily accessible to city works crews (because they're placed in tunnels) for repair, replacement, maintenance free from pedestrians or bad weather.


I still can not completely comprehend what you mean. 

First: Is there any developed country where plumbing and sewage are not put underground? Electrical tends to put up underground everywhere expect in earthquake-prone and rural areas too. At least that's my impression. What is so special about the Finnish way?

And second: I don't understand what you mean about swimming pools underground. Have they built public swimming under the roads or parks? Do you have any pictures of what you refers to? 



pussyqueen said:


> Scandinavia is indeed heaven on earth, whats new here :lol:


That was news to me.


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

Galro said:


> I still can not completely comprehend what you mean.
> 
> First: Is there any developed country where plumbing and sewage are not put underground? Electrical tends to put up underground everywhere expect in earthquake-prone and rural areas too. At least that's my impression. What is so special about the Finnish way?
> 
> ...


I tried to find the site online explaining it all. It depicted a huge series of subway like tunnels with all the cities public works put inside it. City workers drive to what ever part needs repairing or replacing which eliminates the need to tear up the pavement above. It's a giant subterranean city so workers don't have to worry about the weather either. That differs substantially from what happens elsewhere.

And yes, they build public swimming pools underground below roads and buildings to save the real estate above for things like housing, offices, etc. I found this if it helps:


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## alexandru.mircea (May 18, 2011)

^ amazing


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

isaidso said:


> I tried to find the site online explaining it all. It depicted a huge series of subway like tunnels with all the cities public works put inside it. City workers drive to what ever part needs repairing or replacing which eliminates the need to tear up the pavement above. It's a giant subterranean city so workers don't have to worry about the weather either. That differs substantially from what happens elsewhere.
> 
> And yes, they build public swimming pools underground below roads and buildings to save the real estate above for things like housing, offices, etc. I found this if it helps:


That's very cool indeed. I had no idea they had anything like that there. Thanks for your clip!


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

No problem at all. I was very impressed with Finnish design in general. I'm just glad I found that video.


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

Am I wrong to say that Danish cities are the best preserved in the Nordics? While Sweden, Norway and Finland (in different measures) had their share of modernism destroying the original architecture, Denmark seems to have been affected less by this phenomenon, which is visible in cities like Copenhagen, Odense and Aarhus; sadly it is also the country less associated with the stereotypical Scandinavian panorama.. still cities like Stockholm and Bergen have their share of beauties


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

AmoreUrbs said:


> Am I wrong to say that Danish cities are the best preserved in the Nordics? While Sweden, Norway and Finland (in different measures) had their share of modernism destroying the original architecture, Denmark seems to have been affected less by this phenomenon, which is visible in cities like Copenhagen, Odense and Aarhus; sadly it is also the country less associated with the stereotypical Scandinavian panorama.. still cities like Stockholm and Bergen have their share of beauties


I'm not sure about that. Stockholm is incredibly well preserved in a number of areas - Gamla Stan for example is still rather authentic. When it comes to other cities, I think it's a bit hit and miss. A lot of structures in Sweden were constructed out of wood in the past and that often means a good number of them have been either burned down or replaced. It is still possible to see the old towns in a few cities that are preserved - Gävle old town for example is a section of the city that survived the fires that destroyed the rest of it.


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

AmoreUrbs said:


> Am I wrong to say that Danish cities are the best preserved in the Nordics? While Sweden, Norway and Finland (in different measures) had their share of modernism destroying the original architecture, Denmark seems to have been affected less by this phenomenon, which is visible in cities like Copenhagen, Odense and Aarhus; sadly it is also the country less associated with the stereotypical Scandinavian panorama.. still cities like Stockholm and Bergen have their share of beauties


I agree with Denmark being best preserved, but I think it is too simplified to just blame mondernism on the ruining of Norways historic architecture and streescape. 

What is rarely mentioned is that our cities actually suffered huge loss during ww2. Many of cities was bombed by the Nazi forces in 1940. Molde, Namsos, Bodø, Harstad, Narvik among others was completely destroyed in the attacks. The Nazis forces later evacuated whole of Northern Norway with force when they were about to lose the war, and burned everything down to ground in order to not leave anything behind for the Soviet forces. There are pretty much none historic buildings left in Northern Norway as a result of that tactic. Allied forces and people fighting against the occupation powers was also responsible for bombings of many individual buildings that was perceived to by of use to Nazis during the war.

Here is how Bodø looked after the 1940 bombings: 









Kristiansund:

Bombingen av Kristiansund by Riksarkivet (National Archives of Norway), on Flickr

Oslo lost this building due to a bomb from a allied plane (it missed its intended target though): 

30. Kristiania. Victoria-Terasse. by National Library of Norway, on Flickr


We have also lost a whole lot due to fires. One problem was what Svartmetall mentioned; We built in wood and tended to combine them with narrow alleys, making them extremely prone to fires. Just look at Bergen. Another point is that we used to have rent control limiting how profitable it was to own and rent out buildings. What happened was that it was often cheaper for the owners to just the buildings rot until they eventually caught fire or collapsed. Especially Oslo lost many buildings that way.


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## Grotlaufen (Mar 2, 2007)

AmoreUrbs said:


> Am I wrong to say that Danish cities are the best preserved in the Nordics? While Sweden, Norway and Finland (in different measures) had their share of modernism destroying the original architecture, Denmark seems to have been affected less by this phenomenon, which is visible in cities like Copenhagen, Odense and Aarhus; sadly it is also the country less associated with the stereotypical Scandinavian panorama.. still cities like Stockholm and Bergen have their share of beauties


Second that, but I guess it has to do with timing of urbanization. Sweden, Norway and Finland are _Ultima Thule_ in regards of city-dwelling in Europe, a majority didn´t live in urban areas before 1960´s. Hence once they urbanized, they catapulted into modernist planning on a (relatively speaking) grander scale. In Denmark urbanization took off earlier than that and they weren't as rich as Sweden back in the heydays of modernism to fulfil all the dreams their modernist city planners had. 




Svartmetall said:


> I'm not sure about that. Stockholm is incredibly well preserved in a number of areas - Gamla Stan for example is still rather authentic. When it comes to other cities, I think it's a bit hit and miss. A lot of structures in Sweden were constructed out of wood in the past and that often means a good number of them have been either burned down or replaced. It is still possible to see the old towns in a few cities that are preserved - Gävle old town for example is a section of the city that survived the fires that destroyed the rest of it.


Gävle is perhaps one of the worst examples regarding preservation of their old town (outside that reservate, made in the first place so city planners could tear down the rest that is)...


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

Thank you for the infos guys; I didn't know Norway had it so bad to be honest.. a shame that things like that happened everywhere in Europe in so little time, but what was worst is what government and city planners made later


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

Bad urban planning happened everywhere.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Grotlaufen said:


> e examples regarding preservation of their old town (outside that reservate, made in the first place so city planners could tear down the rest that is)...


If you read carefully I said that the majority burned down and only that old town section survived.


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## Adde (May 8, 2011)

Large scale town fires were common in Scandinavia until the early to mid 1800's. The majority of buildings were built of wood in most towns (except for the very largest one's like Stockholm or Copenhagen), and there was generally no such thing as a fire brigade to quickly put out fires. So by the mid 1900's, most towns didn't have a lot of buildings older than the 1700's and 1800's. Unfortunately, city planners, architects and politicians, at least in Sweden, of that time generally considered buildings of that kind of age culturally unimportant. 

Modernism coincided with a period of intense gains in general prosperity and standard of living. Old buildings were seen as relics and symbols if a much poorer and unsanitary past. By getting rid of old, often quite run down buildings and building new, modern ones, people's standard of living would go up and the population would be healthier and happier. 

Remember, the people responsible for this movement were almost to a man born in the 1890's, 1900's and 1910's. They all remembered growing up in cramped apartments (big families in those days) without running water or heating, often with only a out-door loo in the yard, with lots of vermin etc. For them there was nothing romantic about old buildings.


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

Adde said:


> Large scale town fires were common in Scandinavia until the early to mid 1800's.


It was still common until the 1920s in Norway. Bergen downtown burned to the ground in 1916 and so did Molde, whole of Ålesund burned down in 1904, Haugesund burned down in 1899, Steinkjer in 1900 just to give you a few example. 


Adde said:


> Remember, the people responsible for this movement were almost to a man born in the 1890's, 1900's and 1910's. They all remembered growing up in cramped apartments (big families in those days) without running water or heating, often with only a out-door loo in the yard, with lots of vermin etc. For them there were nothing romantic about old buildings.


I don't think that was so much the case for Norway at least. While we did demolish slum and poorer areas too, many our biggest loss was actually luxurious apartment complexes from the late 1890s. They had often more roomy apartments, higher roof clearance and generally higher standards relative to their time than the buildings that replaced them. We have also had many cases of redesigns of fully functional buildings where all architectural features were removed and replaced with blank, modernistic walls. From what I've read it was rather due to a hatred of the neo-historic styles that drove the demolitions here. Some examples of demolished "high-end" buildings in Oslo to show what I mean: 



























(The large doomed building to the left.)









(The building in the middle.)


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## Adde (May 8, 2011)

Galro said:


> It was still common until the 1920s in Norway. Bergen downtown burned to the ground in 1916 and so did Molde, whole of Ålesund burned down in 1904, Haugesund burned down in 1899, Steinkjer in 1900 just to give you a few example.


Well, in Sweden the general pattern is that major fires became much rarer after the mid 1800's, though there are some notable exceptions. The reason was usually better fire fighting capabilities and new ways of lighting houses. 




Galro said:


> I don't think that was so much the case for Norway at least. While we did demolish slum and poorer areas too, many our biggest loss was actually luxurious apartment complexes from the late 1890s. They had often more roomy apartments, higher roof clearance and generally higher standards relative to their time than the buildings that replaced them. We have also had many cases of redesigns of fully functional buildings where all architectural features were removed and replaced with blank, modernistic walls. From what I've read it was rather due to a hatred of the neo-historic styles that drove the demolitions here.


In Stockholm the pattern was very much the one I described. The biggest program of demolition was that of the Klara area of Norrmalm, and that was considered a "city-sanitation". Klara was called a ghetto by politicians of the time, even though it was made up of many quite elegant 17th, 18th and 19th century buildings. Unfortunately, many of them was in rather poor condition, and bigger apartments had often been turned into many smaller apartments to maximize profits for the owners. 

The fanciest apartment complexes from the end of the 1800's were mostly left intact by the wave if demolition (see lower Östermalm, Valhallavägen etc). Buildings like that were torn down here and there, not because of some hatred of neo-historic building styles but because they simply got in the way of large scale redevelopments targeted at mostly working class areas. 

The transformation of many smaller Swedish towns were similarly not driven by some hatered for classicist architecture (though not much value was placed on such buildings) but a general modernist idea of the city center as a place for work and shopping (apartment stores and modern offices) while people were moved into modern apartments in suburbs. Here too it was called "town sanitation" and was very much driven by people who considered the old as poor and unsanitary. 

The term "lort-Sverige" ("dirt-Sweden") for pre-war Sweden became an accepted term, and I don't think it's possible to understand the wave of demolition that happened in the 60's and 70's without factoring that.


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## Grotlaufen (Mar 2, 2007)

Svartmetall said:


> If you read carefully I said that the majority burned down and only that old town section survived.


No, Gävle didn't burn down in the 1950's or 1960's. Actually Gävle was a role model for how "sanering" in Swedish town planning should be pursued, look up the name Louis Campanello 


http://www.gavledraget.com/soder-och-sodra-kungsgatan-som-jag-minns-det-av-stig-gavlen/


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Grotlaufen said:


> No, Gävle didn't burn down in the 1950's or 1960's. Actually Gävle was a role model for how "sanering" in Swedish town planning should be pursued, look up the name Louis Campanello
> 
> 
> http://www.gavledraget.com/soder-och-sodra-kungsgatan-som-jag-minns-det-av-stig-gavlen/


So the big fire of 1869 had NO role whatsoever in the loss of the old town when 80% of the population lost their homes? Interesting to know! :|


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