Kirstiecat | Blog

(I apologize in advance for the seriously bad pun here)

Saturday night, I was very priviledged to see a presentation put on by a woman named Inger Lena Gaasemyr from Norway who has studied the urban planning and community involvement in the Nedre Nygaard section of Bergen, Norway’s second largest city. She presented different photo documentations as well as the historical significance of certain buildings and the government laws that regulate the new construction of buildings. This is some of what I learned through her, which I thought I would share in case there are those who might be interested in and concerned about issues like regentrification and may be wondering how communities of people in other countries might deal with these issues.

Briefly, Norway is social democracy where there is also a monarchy in place. There are roughly 4.5 million people there with approximately 250,000 people in Bergen. There is a limitation as far as areas to expand into as there are several mountains in the Norwegian landscape.

According to Inger, the only people in Norway who are homeless are those who choose to be homeless. Because of their Social Services Act, the government provides every citizen with a free home, health care, and education (no wonder the UN voted it best place to live, right? At this point in her presentation, everyone wanted to know how hard it was to acquire Norwegian citizenship.) Recently, however, the government began allowing people who are building homes for the homeless to receive grants but after ten yers, the people building the homes can actually own and sell their building and the government relocates the people. It’s an odd sounding situation that seems pretty lucrative as well. I hate to think of people having to leave their homes so someone can make a profit but I still think it’s a wonderful thing that Norway at least provides them with a home. The taxes, as you can imagine, are greater than 50% for the middle and upper classes of Norwegians but the outlook on this seems much different than in the US where people constantly seem to begrudge the poorly providing social programs we do have because they are taxed. (Personally, I’d feel so much better about all of the taxes I paid last year if I was sure it wasn’t going to fund weapons programs and Halliburton.)

Due to the Planning and Building Act as well as the Cultural Heritage Act, the Norwegian Government actually has to involve the community of a given area in the process of planning whenever a new building or structure may be built. In addition, historical and older buildings are protected under the latter act. Inger described two times in which there were issues with areas of Bergen changing in terms of building development. During the 1980s, Norway decided they would like to establish a financial district in Bergen called the Manhattan Project. They had bought up many of the buildings they were proposing to demolish but the remaining ones were inhabited by artists and the poorer class. The citizens fought this decision until 1991 when a real estate crash made it economically unfeasible anyhow, with the ultimate result that the area was more or less preserved. When I asked Inger what tactics the citizens of the community used at this time, she said there were anarchist demonstrations and public gatherings but what really was the most effective in Norway was the letter writing campaigns. Apparently, the Norwegian government has a policy that they must answer every citizen’s letter (imagine that!) so 400 letters would be sent and as soon as the response was received, everyone would send out another letter, thereby delaying the project.

The second period that unfortunately did not end as well ocuured when in 2003 the conservatives came into power and started realizing that allowing condos to be built was very lucrative. A few buildings were destroyed as a result but according to Inger, because of the newer building protection laws, it will be more difficult to happen in the future.

What I found most fascinating about Inger Lena Gaasemyr’s excellent presentation was the way she talked about building and architecture. She spoke a great deal with the idea of green spaces and public meeting spaces. Even in areas where buildings vs. green spaces are present, she talked about buildings because architecturally built so that they are in “communication with the street.” Also, it is seemingly very disheartening to people in Bergen when a person comes into the community and does not partake in the artistic and cultural activities of that community. Finally, people are encouraged to walk vs. drive as the streets are made of cobblestone.

Inger’s presentation raised a few questions in my mind that I think Americans need to start thinking about more and more. Of course, I think the people who are hurt most by government planning that doesn’t take them into account are most often the people who are so busy trying to provide for their families and put food on their tables that simple fact is getting them involved is more difficult. We need to find a way to do this.

I think the first step is somehow convincing all people that they have a valuable voice and I do believe that if 60% of the people that were recently polled and said they didn’t approve of Bush were to protest openly on the street right now, we’d see change. Instead, many of the people, even those who disagree with him are complacent. Now, are we complacent because we do not think it will make a difference anyhow what we think and say as citizens to our government? Or perhaps, are we complacent because our government keeps us just comfortable enough, with the dreamy illusion of an “American Dream” rocking us to sleep at night? I think it is probably the mixture of both.

I’m a nonviolent protestor and yet I would say I am not nearly as negatively affected by Bush’s policies as many Americans are who for some reason aren’t protesting. When I take to the streets publically, I do not think I as one single person am going to change Bush’s mind or even the world. What I am doing is simply a representation of what I feel everyone in a democracy should be doing when they want to create positive change. If 2 million people were to fill the entire Chicago downtown area and beyond refusing to leave with a protest against Bush’s policies, I doubt it would be so easy for the media or Bush to ignore. It would also be no longer possible to criticise the protestor as unpatriotic or an extremist…are 2/3rds of Americans extremists?

Also, I think specifically in terms of regentrification and planning issues, we need to find a way for the government to realize that it is important to take the community of people living in the affected area into account instead of simply going with whatever makes them money. I am just not sure how to best do this…I’d like to hear the thoughts others have…

This entry was posted on Monday, November 7th, 2005 at 8:47 pm and is filed under politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.