Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Good bye, Gjøvik!

  • Why didn't you want to understand me?
  • Why didn't you want to love my family?
  • Why didn't you want to see my beautiful daughter grow up?
My wife wanted to fill our garden with flowers, and she made a good start. In the Gjøvik song the town is told to be a place of flowers. So why didn't this town make a fertile ground for her?

Another of my wife's makings

One of my images of Gjøvik on Wikipedia. Before me the town of Gjøvik was really badly introduced on Wikipedia, the article of Gjøvik was a shame compared to the ones of her siblings around Lake Mjøsa, the towns of Hamar and Lillehammer. I'm sure my gallery of Gjøvik and the improvements made from my gallery has meant a lot for marketing and goodwill of the town. So that we have to leave is a shame!

Two times before we were forced to leave our home here in Gjøvik, because of cigarette smoke. This time we have to leave because of anti-biophilia and a missing commons. It's told that all good things are 3, but for us the third time was the worst. So now I give up the town of Gjøvik, as we seems to be like cursed here.

My vision was to make Gjøvik a center for Pocket Neighborhoods in Norway! I was even once contacted by Mr. Ross Chapin himself, the "primus motor" of the pocket neighborhood - movement of the USA, as he had found interest of this blog.

I really cannot understand how anybody can hate and disgust something as beautiful as pocket neighborhoods!?!

Why do Norwegians hate pocket neighborhoods?

Why do Norwegians embrace Suburban Hell? Here a Suburban Hell from Gjøvik.

It's like Norwegians are unable to connect quality of life with anything else than what the fabulous urban writer Nathan Lewis has named Suburban Hell. We only import the worst of american culture, like Suburban Hell. Pocket neighborhoods are now popping up all over the USA, while in Norway we continue like madmen with building a Suburban Hell of our whole country! Suburban Hell can only be compared with junk-food, another crappy idea from the USA.

Good bye, Gjøvik! You failed us for the third time. We have to leave you behind now. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry!

The only thing we can do now is to keep the vision of Christopher Alexander burning in our souls:

A New Kind of World

This is the world I want to create for my daughters, and all children on Earth.



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