Application Form for the European Green Capital Award 2021
City Introduction and Context
Give an overview of the city and a general background to the application, including examples of social and economic sustainability in the city.
Discuss positive and negative factors that have influenced the quality of the environment within the city and its surrounding area.
Provide a description of the key environmental challenges which the city faces including historical, geographical and/or socio-economic factors which have influenced the city’s development.
The city's infrastructure plan should be briefly explained.
Applicants are advised to include any former or outstanding environmental legal proceedings in this section.
Please provide the following two maps :
▪ Map 1 should show the layout of urban areas, geographical and other features across the city; ▪ Map 2 should show your city in the context of the wider surrounding area.
Please also complete the following table:
Table 1: Benchmarking Data - City Introduction and Context Indicator Units Year of data Population 119 573 Number of inhabitants 2017 Area 517.63 km2 2017 Population Density 267 Inh/km2 2017 GDP 30 783.10 €/capita 2014 Dfc: Subarctic climate Cold winters Köppen climate classification and short, cool-to-mild summers. Precipitation all year round.
(max. 1,000 words and five graphics, images or tables plus the two requested maps as detailed above)
Lahti is a city of 120 000 inhabitants in Southern Finland. Lahti and the neighboring municipality of Nastola merged in 2016. Lahti’s area increased over three fold and the population by 15 417 residents. Now, forests cover over 70% of Lahti (Fig. 1).
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Application Form for the European Green Capital Award 2021
Figure 1. Lahti’s city centre is densely built but, most of the city surface is covered by green and blue areas.
Located in between two capitals, Helsinki and St Petersburg, the City of Lahti has always been an important logistical route and marketplace (Map 2). Lahti has a special geographical environment and history. The Salpausselkä ice age formation, runs through the city from east to west, which is why some of the oldest human settlement remains, in all of Finland, are found there. The Salpausselkä Ridge provides numerous ecosystem services: large groundwater reservoirs (one of the most valuable in Northern Europe), recreational values for citizens and visitors, and a diversity of biotopes (Map 1).
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Application Form for the European Green Capital Award 2021
Map 1. The Salpausselkä Ridge ice age formation, the Salpausselkä Ridge, brings unique characteristics and ample nature opportunities and value to the city.
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Application Form for the European Green Capital Award 2021
Map 2. Lahti is a regional centre with 200 000 inhabitants and easy connections to the airport, Helsinki and St Petersburg
For a long time, Lahti was only a small village linked to the wealthy agricultural municipality of Hollola. The last 50 years have proven to be a remarkable growth period for the city. After WWII, Lahti grew faster than any other city in Finland. Lahti City’s rapid growth was a consequence of Finland’s industrialization and urbanization, during the 1960s and 1970s (Fig. 2), and it created numerous jobs, new industries and an economic boom for the area. Lahti was known as the “City of Carpenters” in the early 19th century.
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Application Form for the European Green Capital Award 2021
Figure 2. The population growth and urbanisation of Lahti was very rapid after WWII, but plateaued by the mid-70s.
The rapid industrialization and population growth also caused some unpleasant environmental problems. Nearby Lake Vesijärvi was badly eutrophicated during 1970-1980, although, the first sewage water treatment plant started functioning in the 1960s.
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Application Form for the European Green Capital Award 2021
Figure 3. Thanks to decades of active restoration, today, Lake Vesijärvi is a popular recreational area.
Key Environmental Challenges and Solutions
Eutrophication of Lake Vesijärvi The Lake Vesijärvi Project (from 1987 onwards) is a classic environmental management project, where knowledge from university research groups, active participation by residents and funding from the city and companies have all created a positive cycle to improve the lake's condition. Today, the badly eutrophicated lake is in better condition but, further work is needed to meet the WFD goal of good ecological status. Lahti's harbour area is a prime example of a sustainable, urban, design project that created a large open area near the now cleaner Lake Vesijärvi, the much used pedestrian and bicycle route along the Vesijärvi shore and the world- famous wooden Sibelius Concert Hall (Fig. 3).
Decreasing Car Dependency Development of the city centre towards a pedestrian and bicycle friendly environment is one of the key strategic choices that the City Council of Lahti made in the 2010s. The Lahti City Consortium has and is investing some 100 million € on city centre development, e.g. the new Travel Centre (Fig. 4), underground parking places, new bicycle lanes and wider pedestrian areas during 2010-2020.
Decreasing car dependency in a cold climate country, with generally long travel distances is, however, still a
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Application Form for the European Green Capital Award 2021
challenge; although, the City of Lahti has upgraded public transportation service by 40%, in recent years (2014- 2016). We are currently implementing personal carbon trading scheme to revolutionarize citizen participation to climate change mitigation (CitiCAP 2018-2020, EU, UIA).
Figure 4. The new Lahti Travel Centre provides the opportunities to combine different mobility modes.
Environment for New Cleantech Business A circular economy and cleantech are the key focus areas of the Lahti Region Business Strategy. The long-term work and expertise in the waste management sector, and efficient resource use has created new potentials for businesses that utilize different side streams in their manufacturing processes. There is a clear social reason for the renewal of the industrial and business environment. The City of Lahti has had a very dramatic and difficult history involving manufacturing businesses that were producing goods for the Soviet Union trade market. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, together with the Finnish national economic depression, created a period of massive unemployment in the mid-1990s. Since then, the unemployment rate has rarely been under 10%. Currently, the employment rate is steadily increasing, but unemployment is still 14%, although Lahti has a job employment-sufficiency rating of 111%.
Today, the largest employers in Lahti are commercial operators (Hämeenmaa), training organizations (the Lahti University of Applied Sciences), the food industry (Fazer, Hartwall), the furniture industry (Isku) and mechatronics companies (Kemppi, Oilon). Lahti has a vibrant small and medium-sized enterprise cluster, with a lot of family businesses.
City Infrastructure Plan
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The Lahti and Nastola municipalities merged at the beginning of 2016, forming a new City of Lahti with 3.3 times greater surface area (2015: 155 km2 → 2016: 517 km2) and 118 000 inhabitants (2015: 103 000 → 2016: 118 000) (Fig. 3). The larger urban planning area provides many new possibilities for housing, recreational activities and nature protection; but, it also poses a great challenge for maintaining a solid urban structure.
The City of Lahti has a strong, unique and strategic land-use planning instrument, and a continuous master plan process. This provides many advantages and occasions for citizens and companies to weigh in and participate in strategic city development questions. The most important questions for the current Master Plan Cycle (2017- 2021) are: the combining of the urban planning and SUMP processes into a holistic entity, determining the growth possibilities and boundaries of the new City of Lahti (Fig. 5) and increasing the strategic importance of diverse urban nature as a vital issue for citizen well-being and as a potential attraction for new tourism.
Figure 5. The urban growth boundary/urban growth zone of Lahti are determined in the current Master Plan Cycle 2017- 2021.
Word Count Check
Please complete the below word count check for City Introduction and Context.
As per the Guidance Note (Annex 2 of the Rules of Contest), the word count includes text in graphics/tables and the body of text. The word count excludes text in the original application form, captions and text in Table 1: Benchmarking Data - City Introduction and Context.
Number of words in Number of words in Total number of words in Max. Section graphics/tables body of text graphics/tables and body of text words Introduction 1000 1,000
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Application Form for the European Green Capital Award 2021
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