Christiania, Copenhagen, Denmark

Where to start? Christiana is not an intentional community in the usual sense of the word. It is a large, anarchic “village” near central Copenhagen, a haven for old and young alternative lifestylers, a Freetown full of people, bicycles, large brick industrial-scale buildings, stalls and businesses, graffiti, and hand-built houses. Up to a thousand people live there in the main area and spread along the banks of the lake and canal. Visitors are welcome to wander through the house clusters and along the wooded walks (it's publicly-owned land after all); people have been living here for over 35 years and there is a vibrant life to the place.

The site was an abandoned army barracks and weapons store when it was taken over in 1971 by locals, squatters, and alternative lifestylers wanting to build a life based on communal living and freedom. Over the years there have been many attempts by the authorities to remove them, but each time the Christianites have rallied enough support through street theatre, media and political actions to stave off the need to move. After the first few years Christiania evolved into an organisation paying rates, power and water like any other residents in the city, and even secured money to help them to restore some of the old military buildings. Art, music and theatre have flourished, along with other innovative enterprises such as the women's blacksmithy, and the bicycle business that designs, manufactures and exports bicycles around Europe.

Christiania has always been open to all comers; to paraphrase their own words they are a “loser's paradise for homeless and jobless young people, single mothers, Greenlanders, street people and vagabonds”, as well as the politically active and freedom-loving. This does mean a wide diversity of people and the need to manage the problems associated with marginalised people, in particular an ongoing issue with drugs. Although all hard drugs are banned, the community is widely known as a source of hash, and the main street, Pusher Street, is lined with ramshackle booths where dealers sell their product. I was there on a cold, wet autumn day, and the atmosphere was a little menacing, certainly uncomfortable, to walk past these clusters of men hanging out smoking or warming their hands at the fires smoking in oil drums, eying up any strangers to assess if they were either potential clients or undercover police.

I stayed with a long time resident and artist, and she said that the community is currently at another cross roads. Many residents want to accept a government offer to build more houses, provide more services, and give more security of tenure, but others, mainly the pushers and others involved in the drug trade, have no desire for things to change and block any moves to accept the offer. With a conservative government again in power, residents are nervous that attempts will again be made to close them down. Many residents have a big vision to expand their creative and educational enterprises in the future, but any major undertaking is very difficult to get agreement on with the diverse interests, and it seems likely that any real innovation will continue to be at the level of individual initiatives rather than collective projects.