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

Chinese

[SJHillman]

Ask the Chinese. They moved 1.3 million people, including several cities, to make way for the Three Gorges Dam.

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.

Re:Chinese

[sixsixtysix]

Said mining company also built the high school ($4million), which I didn't appreciate during time I was there, but after seeing other shitty, cookie-cutter public schools around the country, I take great pride of having attended. I do believe it had the first (or one of; definitely before the white house) indoor swimming pools. Sample of documentary about it.

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.

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:Chinese

[Karl Cocknozzle]

You take "great pride" in attending a school you did not choose, and that you had no hand in designing, building, or maintaining? Do you also feel full after someone else eats a meal? How peculiar.

It may surprise you to learn this, but some people have not yet become cynical assholes and can appreciate being a part of something special. even if it is just in a small way.

Re:How Do You Move a City?

[lgw]

The same way you move a file across filesystems: copy and delete.

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.

Easy

[allcoolnameswheretak]

1. Build settlers until the population is reduced to one.
2. Build one final settler.
3. Confirm that you want to disband the city.
4. Settle somewhere else.

Put Detroit Politicians In Charge Of The City

[Anonymous Coward]

They moved 1.3M people out of the city! 18k should be a snap for them.

Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid

[xevioso]

Especially if they Built This City on Rock and Roll

Re:How Do You Move a City?

[Anonymous Coward]

I got out the old ouija board and asked Johnny Cash how he would do it:

I'd do it one piece at a time
And it wouldn't cost me a dime

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.

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.

Bitter Local

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice to see my hometown on Slashdot!

Personally, I view the move as a necessary evil.
I prefer the old Town Hall to the plans for the new one, the relocation plans are realistic but will locate the town in a valley, (we're currently on an mountain) and I doubt the competency of the municipal politicians who are supposed to represent the citizens side in the negotiations with the (in my oppinion) much more powerful and skilled mining company.
We will get a cool cable railway though town, though. Unless it gets scrapped due to budget concerns. (Hint: it will.)

There are also worries that Kiruna will become a new Malmberget, a neighbouring community that has been split up by mining activities by the very same company.
Houses might lose their value (Googletranslated) and risk standing alone next to the ravine in the years between ones and ones neighbours relocations.
Not moving isn't really an option, as the mines employ a huge share of the towns population, either directly or via subcontractors.

There's more information about the competition at the Swedish Association of Architects website:
Town Hall competition, Googletranslated
City Center competition, Googletranslated, PDFs in english to the right.
(Note that the winning team are cited as sources in TFA.)

Posting as AC as I didn't get an account ten years ago and missed out on those lovely low number IDs.
And the neighbouring villages name is Jukkasjärvi. It is a Finnish/meänkieli name, and they don't even use "å"! (Except in Swedish loanwords.)

Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid

[GarethIwanFairclough]

Especially if they Built This City on Rock and Roll

Surely one would require a starship for that?

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.

Re:At last the question make sense

[Hognoxious]

I'd put quotes round the name, because otherwise it'll think I mean two files.

# mv "Mount Fuji" new_name