
How do you build a healthy city? Copenhagen reveals its secrets - Cbasedlifeform
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/11/how-build-healthy-city-copenhagen-reveals-its-secrets-happiness
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henrikschroder
A quick note on the bikes:

1) Copenhagen is really, _really_ flat, which makes it easy to bike for
everyone.

2) Cars in Denmark have an environmental/luxury tax of over 100%, on top of
the 25% VAT, making cars incredibly expensive to buy.

~~~
ssttoo
What if you don’t ride a bike, for either physical or whatever reason? Say
butt hurts, wind and rain ruin your hair?

~~~
Fredej
Pretty good public transportation. Metro, busses and trains will bring you
most places.

I've lived in Copenhagen for 3 years now and don't own a car. I am not an
outlier.

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callumprentice
A well traveled American ex-colleague of mine moved to Copenhagen but left
after 6 months. He said he simply couldn't afford to live there on his
(Senior) game developer salary and theorized that the reason Danes are so
happy is that they have such low expectations.

I really hope that's not true (I'm pretty sure it isn't) as I find the idea of
moving and raising my family there very appealing.

~~~
bjohnson225
Developer salaries are significantly lower in the whole of Europe than the US,
but they’re still extremely well paid positions that’ll give you way over what
an average person earns.

Describing it as unaffordable sounds a bit off to me when there are people
living comfortably on half what he earned (assuming he wasn’t being massively
underpaid).

If he wanted a garage full of Tesla’s in his city centre garage, then yeah,
it’s unaffordable.

~~~
allthenews
The fact that Danes are "living comfortably" in light of outrageous taxes and
living expenses does nothing to argue against the GP's reasonable claim that
perhaps Danes have low expectations.

People "live comfortably" on dirt floors in many parts of the world. That
doesn't mean such a restriction on financial freedom is appropriate for
everyone.

~~~
Barrin92
there seems to be disparity in the definition of comfort.

Your Danish home is going to be smaller, you're not going to drive a giant
car, but in return you have excellent access to public transport, years of
income guarantee should you lose your job, your kids and you have universal
access to healthcare and education regardless where you are on the social
strata and so forth. If that's a definition of comfort you like, then Denmark
is for you. If you don't, you're better off somewhere else. Rest assured,
nobody in Denmark is living in a hut.

~~~
nine_k
Just ask how long are you going to _wait_ until a doctor is available to see
you, particularly if it's a specialist. Or how long are you going to wait for
a surgery.

~~~
Barrin92
Denmark has some of the lowest waiting times among OECD countries

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016885101...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168851014002267)

and some of the highest physician density in the developed world. I'm German
and have worked in Denmark, and have never experienced waiting times.

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hedgew
A Scandinavian economist once said to Milton Friedman, ‘In Scandinavia, we
have no poverty’. Milton Friedman replied, ‘That’s interesting, because in
America, among Scandinavians, we have no poverty, either’ (quoted by Kotkin,
2009).

~~~
_delirium
That's not even true, though. The highest concentration of Scandinavian-
Americans is is in North Dakota, where they make up 1/3 of the state's
population, and have a poverty rate that is significantly above zero.

~~~
protomyth
Actually they are a lot less of the North Dakota population[1] being 4.7% of
the population.

For 2016[2], North Dakota had a poverty rate of 10.7 (10th lowest in the US).
Of that 10.7%, 8% were listed as White.

Given this, I don't think a significant amount of Scandinavian-Americans in
North Dakota are in poverty. I guess any number is not zero, but North Dakota
is probably the wrong state to use for a demonstration.

1) [http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/north-dakota-
populat...](http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/north-dakota-population/)

2) [https://talkpoverty.org/state-year-report/north-
dakota-2017-...](https://talkpoverty.org/state-year-report/north-
dakota-2017-report/)
[https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/ND/PST045217#vi...](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/ND/PST045217#viewtop)

~~~
_delirium
> Actually they are a lot less of the North Dakota population[1] being 4.7% of
> the population.

Your reference [1] says that 30.8% of the state's population reports Norwegian
ancestry, and 4.7% reports Swedish ancestry. Overall that's pretty close to
the 1/3 I ballparked for Scandinavian-American.

~~~
protomyth
Opps, I forgot the Norwegian[1]. Well, 30.8% of 8% of 10.7% is a pretty low
number and assumes that the 8% is an even distribution over the White poverty
rate.

1) I might still hold a grudge over the damn lefse and not being told its was
potato before eating it. I was not in good shape 30 minutes later.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
I think you are misreading your source. You seem to be interpreting it as
saying that 8% of people in poverty are white, but what it actually says is
that 8% of white people are in poverty.

Assuming that the poverty rate is evenly distributed over the white
population, then the poverty rate for Scandinavians would also be 8%.

~~~
protomyth
I'm not misreading the source, else 100% of the people in North Dakota would
be in poverty. The Native Americans are listed as 35% and that is not their
percentage of the population.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Then why are you taking 8% of 10.7%? The correct way to interpret the
statistics is not "10.7% of people are in poverty and 8% of those are white",
it's "8% of white people are in poverty and that 8% overlaps with the 10.7% of
all people who are in poverty".

