The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia

by Michael Booth

But perhaps more representative polar opposites of Danish socioeconomic extremes are the “Whisky Belt” Danes and the “Rotten Banana” Danes. The former live on Denmark’s “Gold Coast,” Strandvejen (the Beach Road), a ribbon of lavish villas, modernist bungalows, and sea-view apartment blocks, many of them designed by Denmark’s legendary postwar architects (the aforementioned “most beautiful gas station in the world,” designed by Denmark’s master builder Arne Jacobsen, is here). Strandvejen stretches twenty or so miles north from the prosperous suburb of Hellerup and boasts great beaches, Michelin-starred restaurants, Jacobsen’s famous Bellavista housing complex, the forested deer park of Dyrehaven, and, farther north, the loveliest art museum in Scandinavia, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Strandvejen’s fishing villages and Hamptons-esque waterfront mansions are home to Denmark’s elite—its movie stars and directors, big-time lawyers, bankers, hedge funders, sports stars, CEOs, and IT entrepreneurs.