How Do You Move a City?

Zothecula writes "The town of Kiruna in Lapland, Sweden, is known for its Jukkasjårvi Ice Hotel and for hosting the recent Arctic Council summit. It also sits within the Arctic Circle, on one of the world's richest deposits of iron ore. Now in danger of collapse due to extensive deep mining, the city center is to be relocated."

Comments

What the?

[TubeSteak]

The iron mine is owned by the Swedish government, and it is the mining company who will be paying for the townâ(TM)s re-location. It might seem there is a pretty strong case for shutting down the mines and opting for the preservation of natural environment, and of the longstanding community. But this iron mine is far too important to Swedenâ(TM)s economy, accounting for just under one percent of the countryâ(TM)s overall GNP and a significant portion of the world's iron supply.

Well that answers all my questions right there.

Re:Chinese

[Jonathunder]

Or ask Hibbing, Minnesota. From 1919 to 1921, the entire city moved about two miles to make way for what became the largest open-pit iron mine in the world.

Been there done that in MN

[thejuggler]

Ask Hibbing, MN how they moved their city when it was found to be sitting on a huge Iron Ore deposit. They did it.

Soldiers Grove, WI relocated and solarized in 1979

[An dochasac]

This has been done before. Soldgier's Grove Wisconsin was moved due to flooding by the Kickapoo river. One interesting outcome is that this happened in 1979 during a time of rapidly ising energy prices so the new business district was designed to be heated by solar energy. Several million residents who lived in towns near China's 3-gorges dam were also relocated.

Re:Chinese

[SJHillman]

Nope, they built entire new cities for the people to move into and relocated shrines brick by brick. Netflix has a documentary on it... really quite impressive.

Jukkasjärvi

[hsa]

Even TFA got it wrong. It is Jukkasjärvi, not Jukkasjårvi.

Direct translation is "The Lake of Jukkas". And "The Loke of Jukkas" sounds funny (å is pronounced that way) in native Finnish tongue.

Yeah, it is so close to Finland, the name is in Finnish, even though it is a part of Sweden.

Re:Chinese

[Karl Cocknozzle]

Or ask Hibbing, Minnesota. From 1919 to 1921, the entire city moved about two miles to make way for what became the largest open-pit iron mine in the world.

I'm pretty sure the Simpsons did it, too...

Ahh yes, here we are: Trash of the Titans, S9 E22.

Re:How Do You Move a City?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just put up a couple big malls in the desired spot and the downtown will more or less move itself.

Malls are not a city centre. City centres have soul. A mall is just a big, ugly shopping centre.