Copenhagenization
noun

- the process of making a city safer and more accessible for bicyclists and pedestrians

WordSpy

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WORD ORIGIN

On 13th May 2008, urban design consultant Mikael Colville-Andersen wrote an article in his blog: “The Birth of Bike Culture  —Vive la Vélib* - The Copenhagenization of the French capital has not just begun, it has developed in leaps and bounds. There are now 20,000 Vélib bikes at about 1500 racks around the city.”

*Velib, is a combination of the words Vélo and Liberté and translates as “bike freedom”.

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HOW TWO WHEELS TRANSFORMED THE WORLD

In the 1890s the bicycle was a hugely disruptive technology, easily comparable to the smartphone today. It was affordable and stylish, lightweight and easy to maintain. The bicycle could transport you along any road, path, or lane, faster than a horse and carriage,… and for free.

Society experienced a mobility revolution and women the beginning of emancipation: the opportunity to discard their cumbersome Victorian skirts and to adopt “rational” clothes. “I think bicycling has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world”, said Susan B. Anthony in an interview with the New York Sunday World in 1896. “I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammelled womanhood.”

By 1898 cycling had become such a popular activity that bicycle manufacturing became one of America’s biggest and most innovative industries. A third of all patent applications were bicycle related—so many that the U.S. patent office had to build a separate annex to deal with them all.

“Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)” is a popular song written in 1892 by British songwriter Harry Dacre:

“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do
I’m half crazy all for the love of you
It won’t be a stylish marriage
I can’t afford a carriage
But you’ll look sweet upon the seat
Of a bicycle built for two”

69 years later, in 1961, Daisy Bell was the first song to be sung using computer speech synthesis (by an IBM 704), a recording that was echoed in Stanley Kubrick’s epic 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey”.

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation, say something like:

“Nowadays, COPENHAGENIZATION is a trend we see happening in many European cities.”

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