Paper short abstract:

As Nordic welfare policies from the 70s onwards became more green, urban politics reacted to this. Copenhagen’s strategy was carrying components of ‘green fix’, and focusing on the Køge Bugt Beach Park project, the paper will unravel the shift in urban welfare landscaping of early 1980s and 2020s

Paper long abstract:

During the 1970s, an specifically through State reform, Nordic cities became a more integral part of the welfare state formation, and as national green policies grew, municipal strategies related to this, both by adapting and problematizing

Originating in postwar planning, larger cities such as Copenhagen was throughout the 50s and 60s promoting a close relationship with the green inland, and by the 90s, the green city was part of the capital’s strategy for turning decades of crisis around. When environmental policies became more pressing in the 00’s, this effort expanded for the city to have a dedicated major for environment (and engineering). The process, arguably, show elements of ‘green fixing’ (Malm 2017), but also policy frictions between typically left-wing mayors and shifting government policies tangering the capital.

This paper will assess the state-municipal negotiations of green (and blue) welfare, with a special case in focus: the Køge Bay Beach Park. Constructed in the late 70s as the largest recreational landscape of its kind, the long coast area was then fitted with authentic natural elements and a ‘natural’ floodwall. The 2021 government policy ’up close – greener cities’ rearticulate this area as a new, more climate-adapted political ecology, wherea 5 municipalities gathered with the capital to reform this as a new green solution.

Following this welfare landscape in its two articulations, the paper will look at the context of the early 80s and 2020s and assess the relation between green policy and urban welfare narratives.