Jacob Christensen

I almost forgot about it, but 10 years ago today the first part of the Great Belt connection opened – in a case of symbolic politics it was decided that the motorway connection should be delayed so that it would only open one year after the railway connection.

On the one hand, I can get nostalgic about the ferry trips that were an integral part of any holiday journey when I was a child – and then again not: The number of train connections were limited and slow and if you travelled by car, you (or rather: my dad) would always have to rush in order not to miss the ferry booking.

It used to take three hours to get from Copenhagen to Odense and there was only one connection per hour. These days it takes from 75 to 90 minutes and for most of the day, there are three connections per hour. Odense is almost a suburb of Copenhagen

(No, this is not about Kraftwerk’s eponymous album or the defunct class of express trains)

The local newspaper tells us that a delegation from the Development Section in the Executive Office in Umeå Kommun (see also this press release) will be visiting Berlin and Kiel for inspiration about different kinds of urban development and planning.

As always, this kind of official journey invites an fest of insults in the comments section and my immediate thought is that Berlin is a strange choice. The city may be an administrative centre but it also faces deep economic problems both with regard to the public economy and the industrial structure. In fact, a recent survey rated Berlin one of the weakest metropolitan regions in the developed world.

Transport, housing and infrastructural issues in Berlin would appear to be very different from those in Umeå – even if I like the idea of giving Umeå some touch of real urbanity: Today, even the town centre reminds me more of an oversized shopping gallery in some sub-urban new town than of a town centre in its own right.

Kiel appears a more suitable object to study: It is about twice the size of Umeå, but it is not a metropolis, it has traditionally been an administrative centre, just like Umeå it is placed in a peripheral region and it has a university about the size of Umeå University.

The train connection? Well, the press release informs us that the journey is designed to be environmentally friendly, so the delegation will travel by bus from Umeå to Sundsvall, by train from Sundsvall to Gothenburg and by ferry to Kiel. They will also get a taste of the ultra-comfortable and attractively designed German ICE-trainsets which operate the Hamburg-Berlin service. It would be fun to see some of those in regular traffic on Botniabanan – if that connection is ever finished.

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