Denmark parliament approves giant artificial island off Copenhagen

I ended up in an argument with local "environmentalists" exactly over this (in quotes, because I think being opposed to high density is not very environmentalist at all):

They complained about new highrises near my local train station. I pointed out to them that those highrises would take up ~2,000 m^2 but provide housing for as many as one of the nearest local roads, that with the sidewalks, houses and gardens, many of which are paved over or mostly decking, takes up ~40,000 m^2.

As such, if they wanted more green spaces the better stance would be to argue for replacement rather than denying planning: E.g. make developers commit to buying up more low density housing and demolish a proportion of it and replace it with parkland or rewild it. The overall societal effect of not increasing housing supply as much would be a negative (and so there may well be needs for government incentives), but increased green spaces would be a positive. And if it reduced overall resistance to more high density construction to explicitly link density to replacement, I think it'd be worth it. E.g. award construction proposals with "points" in favour for whatever amount of existing construction they replace with parkland or nature that causes planning rules to strongly favour projects that increase density.

But said "environmentalists" seemed dead set on seeing bigger buildings as inherently bad without engaging with the point that absent getting rid of people, creating more space for nature means making people take up less space, and that means higher density.

To me arguing for high density is an essential part of environmentalism.

This "neighbourhood" is currently water. I very much doubt that is the issue here.

If only it was possible to have the kind of job and money that's only available in big cities while living there. Maybe the remote revolution will finally let this happen. Oh, and the social and cultural life as well.

Because the storm break could be a relatively simple dike, a thin structure jutting out, instead of a massive artificial island.

There will be hundreds of trucks driving through Copenhagen every single day for decades, to dump the necessary dirt to construct the island. That is going to cause massive noise and disturbance problems for people living in the city, all for a prestige project that has been hastily jammed through, including a runaround on environmental regulations.

The end result will be even more unaffordable luxury apartments, which will be bought by rich investors, creating yet another dead area devoid of local culture and life, just like Ørestad and Nordhavn, where a huge number of expensive apartments sit completely empty, bought only as investment objects.

A much better alternative would be to construct a simpler storm break, and then expand Copenhagen westwards, increasing density in the suburbs and outlying areas, by predominantly building affordable apartments and ensuring good public transit coverage, to combat the current situation of students and working class people being pushed out of the city by ever-increasing housing prices.

The article mentions it also "protects the port of Copenhagen"

But otherwise it steals value from the city and it increases the coastline.

Increasing the coastline is truly adding to society, humans value water access, but I suspect the stolen value by shifting the centre of mass of Copenhagen obfuscates it's true added worth.

It's quite different to building up or down or abstract improvements like tunnels which increase density and more clearly add more than they take.