Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.06.2013, Blaðsíða 8

Continues over
Hur hur hur, you
said abutting.
And a fine word it is. For a long
time the city government has been
working to increase the popula-
tion density of Reykjavík. The old
policy of building new neighbour-
hoods whenever housing was need-
ed has meant that the city is more
sprawled than a ski jumper who did
not fasten his boots properly.
And how does remov-
ing the airport solve
the population density
problem?
It does not solve it, but it helps quite
a bit. The city reckons that around
7,000 apartments could be built on
the land now occupied by the air-
port. As it is centrally located, a lot
of already available service centres
will be in reach of the new neigh-
bourhood, and as it would be quite
densely populated, transit would be
cheaper than in the sprawling outer
boroughs.
Well then, that all
sounds fairly reason-
able, so I guess the
airport's leaving.
According to the City of Reykjavík,
yes, but a lot of people are against
it, especially those who live in the
countryside of Iceland. As Reyk-
javík is the capital, out-of-towners
find it necessary to visit from time
to time. For them it is quite handy
to have a downtown airport to fly
into because most government of-
fices are a stone's throw away from
the airport.
Speaking of stones, it
brings to mind, well,
things that fall down
on the ground.
One of the mostly unspoken sub-
texts of the debate is the pants-wet-
ting fear that grips people who are
walking around in downtown Reyk-
javík, and glance up to find them-
selves staring a Fokker 50 in the
nose, which is a passenger plane and
not the latest mixtape in the rap feud
between The Game and 50 Cent.
The planes fly overhead of course,
but the illusion of being about to be
squished by 41,000 pounds of metal
is persistent on whichever part of
your lizard brain that thinks it is a
good idea to discharge all excess
pee when very frightened.
Presumably it's to
make you lighter on
your feet and leave a
slippery patch for your
pursuer to slip on.
It is clear you have given this a lot
of thought. I said this subtext was
mostly unspoken of because the
political discussion show Silfur
Egils used to preface any segments
about the airport relocation by
showing an animation of a Fokker
plane crashing into the Icelandic
parliament building. Thankfully
no planes have crashed in inhabited
areas, though in 1988 a medium
sized transport plane crashed fifty
metres south of Reykjavík's most
traffic-heavy road, killing the three
people on the plane.
Yikes! How did they
react to that? Move
the road somewhere
else?
Yes, eventually they moved the
road about fifty metres southward.
If that seems a bit crazy, the reason
they did it was largely to give the
National Hospital more space as
said high-traffic road went straight
through its grounds. As you may
gather, city planning as a concept
was a late arrival on these shores.
The closeness of the hospital to the
airport is, however, part of what
makes any schemes to relocate it
especially touchy for out-of-town-
ers, as it is the only facility in Ice-
land capable of performing many
of the more complicated medical
procedures.
So where is the City
thinking of moving
the airport?
The main candidate is a place on
the eastern edge of the city called
Hólmsheiði, the sort of lovely,
evocative place that makes one
want to build a prison, as the Ice-
landic state has just started doing.
Since this development might re-
quire the municipal authorities to
change its plans, other airport loca-
tion ideas are being discussed. Of
those ideas, the most popular is to
use Keflavík Airport as the munici-
pal airport for Reykjavík.
That would not make
the people who want
to be able to make a
quick trip to Reykjavík
happy.
There have been suggestions to ac-
commodate them, most excitingly
a 2007 proposal to build a mag-
lev train that goes from Keflavík
to where the municipal airport is
now, though sadly that option has
not been discussed much lately.
That is a shame because whoosh-
ing around on a mag-lev train is the
second coolest transport option,
after the jetpack. For now though it
seems more likely the airport stays
where it is, until a plane crashes
into the parliament building.
Like many long-running political disputes in Iceland, it’s the fault of the British. During World War II, the UK occupied
Iceland and built an airport on the then-outskirts of Reykjavík. When Keflavík Airport became the main international air-
port of Iceland, the one in Reykjavík lived on as the hub for domestic flights. But for almost two decades now, the City of
Reykjavík has been working to relocate it, as it is no longer on the outskirts of town. In fact, it is now abutting downtown.
So What's This Airport Dispute
I Keep Hearing About?
by Kári Tulinius
Iceland | FAQ
Illustration: Inga María Brynjarsdóttir
Iceland, home to the world's most
beautiful women and strongest
men, which probably explains why
nearly 1,200 women have entered
this year's Miss Iceland beauty pag-
eant, including Sigríður Ingibjörg
Ingadóttir, MP of the Social Demo-
cratic Alliance. It must be some-
thing in the water.
It's probably that same something
that's keeping 79.1% of Iceland's
over-55 population in the work-
force, making Iceland the most ac-
tive over-55 workforce amongst
OECD nations. Surely they must
just enjoy what they do. It can't be
all about economic stimulation,
right?
In any case, the Prime Minister's
got that under control with plans to
reduce fishing fees and therefore
boost Iceland's economy, right?
Wrong, says Jón Steinsson, a pro-
fessor of economics at Columbia
University who has critiqued the
Progressive Party's tactic, arguing
that it would be more beneficial to
focus on the macro-elements, even
raising fishing fees so that Iceland
could lower its taxes. The IMF con-
curs, and has discouraged Iceland
from doing what the Social Demo-
cratic Alliance MP has called an "in-
comprehensible pampering" of the
fishing industry.
Regardless, two whaling ships,
Hvalur 8 and Hvalur 9, took to the
high seas on the evening of June
17 in pursuit of the endangered fin
whale. Hvalur 8 came in with the kill
the following morning, prompting
the Animal Welfare Institute to call
Iceland out for its determinations
"to act as a rogue whaling nation,
no matter the cost to its tourism and
seafood industries."
Despite the bloodshed, Iceland was
named the most peaceful coun-
try in the world by the Institute
for Economics and Peace’s Global
Peace Index for the sixth consecu-
tive year. Besides, even if there are
costs to tourism, the travel industry
is ready and willing to make up for
them with entry fees on popular
natural wonders. Though the de-
NEWS IN BRIEF
JUNE
8The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 8 — 2013
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