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Swimmable Cities

swimmablecities.org

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Re: Swimmable Cities

#111

Post by coreyh14444 »

interludead wrote: post #67
coreyh14444 wrote: post #9

American living in Copenhagen here. We check all of these boxes. The entire channel that runs through town is swimmable thanks to decades of work cleaning it up. On a warm summer day, you could expect maybe 1000+ swimmers in the water in the city centre across all the locations. We also do Vinterbadere (Winter Bathing) throughout the year. The only time you can't swim is after a day or two of sustained rain and there…

Do you and your family participate in winter bathing often, or is it more of a seasonal tradition for you?

During covid, my wife went every single day for months through the winter. There are lots of Danes that go for "streaks" of going every day as well. Oh, and speaking of streaking, especially in the winter they'll go in fully nude. As you don't really want a wet bathing suit to deal with when it is freezing out.

Re: Swimmable Cities

#112

Post by cthalupa »

omnimus wrote: post #45
boredtofears wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you think swimming isn’t a cultural thing in the US? Municipal pools are everywhere across the US - and practically a staple for southwest residences. The US produces some of the world’s greatest swimmers. It’s a part of school curriculum and while we don’t really have swimmable canal cities (like most of North America) there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy swimming.

I think for some reason USA has quite big percentage of people who cant swim. Compared to some countries where its part of mandatory education and thus the % is much lower.

~80% of the US claims to be able to swim, though I've found some sources that say only ~60% have the "five basic swimming skills," but they don't seem to provide any details around how they determined that vs. the people self reporting the ability to swim.

I'm not even finding consistent details on what the 5 skills even are, though being able to get into the water, float, tread water, perform some sort of basic swimming stroke, and get out of the water were probably the most numerous.

I don't see how someone could claim they could swim and not be thinking of all of those things, though.

Re: Swimmable Cities

#113

Post by coreyh14444 »

AdamN wrote: post #49
coreyh14444 wrote: post #9

American living in Copenhagen here. We check all of these boxes. The entire channel that runs through town is swimmable thanks to decades of work cleaning it up. On a warm summer day, you could expect maybe 1000+ swimmers in the water in the city centre across all the locations. We also do Vinterbadere (Winter Bathing) throughout the year. The only time you can't swim is after a day or two of sustained rain and there…

[OT] how long have you been in Copenhagen? Are you learning Danish or do you get by with basic Danish and just use English?

4 years. My kids are fluent now because we threw them directly into Danish public school cold-turkey as it were. My wife has studied a bit and knows some. For my part, I've just been too busy with work to learn much Danish and 99% of work is in English across a few organizations I've been with while being here. And 100% of the people you meet in Copenhagen will speak English near fluently so it is not necessary for daily life. In fact, you are more likely to find restaurants where nobody speaks Danish in the city. All of this is different if you travel to rural areas of course. It only becomes a problem if you are in a social situation with a bunch of Danes because they'll want to socialize in Danish. In small groups it is fine, they'll switch to English for me, but a big group makes it harder.

Re: Swimmable Cities

#114

Post by paganel »

This has to be a joke seeing how much of a fuckup "swimming in the Seine" for the Olympics has been, but I gather this writer hasn't kept up to date with people commenting on L'Equipe's related posts on social media. Maybe they just can't read French.

Re: Swimmable Cities

#115

Post by coreyh14444 »

gchadwick wrote: post #68
AdamN wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[OT] how long have you been in Copenhagen? Are you learning Danish or do you get by with basic Danish and just use English?

Not OP but my partner lived in Copenhagen for two years. As with all of Scandinavia fluency in English is very common, practically universal in cities so you can happily live there without speaking a word of the local language. Also unlike most of Europe it's a lot more acceptable to just assume English is spoken and lead with that rather than stumbling through in the native language to start with. That said it's sti…

Yeah, exactly. I have said before that I think as an American it is easier to fit in culturally in Denmark than it would have been if we moved to the UK.

Re: Swimmable Cities

#116

Post by egman_ekki »

rvrs wrote: post #20
coreyh14444 wrote: post #9

American living in Copenhagen here. We check all of these boxes. The entire channel that runs through town is swimmable thanks to decades of work cleaning it up. On a warm summer day, you could expect maybe 1000+ swimmers in the water in the city centre across all the locations. We also do Vinterbadere (Winter Bathing) throughout the year. The only time you can't swim is after a day or two of sustained rain and there…

What's the app called? I'd like to reference it to see if I can swim when I visit :D

You can see it in the By & Havn app (City & Harbour in Danish): https://byoghavn.dk/ny-app-til-alle-os-der-elsker-koebenhavn...

Also in Badevand app: https://kbh.badevand.dk/

Re: Swimmable Cities

#117

Post by coreyh14444 »

contrarian1234 wrote: post #88
lou1306 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since all other replies are a bit too concise, I'll try and dive deeper (ha ha). 1) Naturally, rains wash out street grime and small pieces of rubbish which may easily bypass the sewage system altogether and end up in the river. 2) Cities have systems in place to treat wastewaters before releasing them into the rivers. However, these systems need to store yet-untreated water in reservoirs, and heavy rain may fill the…

So naive question.. but how can they ensure all the water upstream is clean? I guess in Copenhagen its water is coming from the Baltic so maybe it's less of a concern (short of container ships having issues near the city). But the Seine river flows through many communities before it reaches Paris. Many opportunities for actors to illegally dump things in the river and for all sorts of nasty runoff agricultural and ot…

Yeah, it is helped by the geography. The channel in Copenhagen isn't a river, it is directly open to the North+Baltic seas, so we don't have this runoff type challenge of other European cities.

Re: Swimmable Cities

#118

Post by xiwenc »

Great initiative! As a relatively late swimmer (started learning in my thirties), more people should be able to swim.

I was expecting to see a map or list of places/cities to find out whether it’s safe to swim. But it seems that is not part of this initiative?

Re: Swimmable Cities

#119

Post by teekert »

CalRobert wrote: post #55
coreyh14444 wrote: post #9

American living in Copenhagen here. We check all of these boxes. The entire channel that runs through town is swimmable thanks to decades of work cleaning it up. On a warm summer day, you could expect maybe 1000+ swimmers in the water in the city centre across all the locations. We also do Vinterbadere (Winter Bathing) throughout the year. The only time you can't swim is after a day or two of sustained rain and there…

This American in the Netherlands eyes his filthy canals with envy of the Danes.

Yeah, in my city it's not that bad in the canals, but we have PFAS and GenX thanx to Chemours, down south we have 3M from Belgium dumping PFAS. Other rivers have crap from Germany.

They say: You can swim, it's not that bad, but eat 1-2 fish from said river and you're over the max your body could (theoretically) safely ingest for a year.

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