HELSINKI 02 2019 QuarterlyCITY OF HELSINKI ▶ URBAN RESEARCH AND STATISTICS CLIMATE ACTION Helsinki aims for carbon-neutrality by 2035 INNER CITY Rise of densification POPULATION Finns continue moving to big cities HELSINKI 02 2019 QuarterlyCITY OF HELSINKI ▶ URBAN RESEARCH AND STATISTICS HELSINKI Editor in Chief ▶ TIMO CANTELL Quarterly Editor ▶ TEEMU VASS 02 ● Contents 2019 Translations ▶ HENRIK ANDERSSON, MAGNUS GRÄSBECK, LINGONEER OY Graphs ▶ LOTTA HAGLUND General Layout ▶ PEKKA KAIKKONEN ● TIMO CANTELL Cover Photo ▶ CITY OF HELSINKI / YIPING FENG AND LING OUYANG 4 Editorial Cover Design ▶ PEKKA KAIKKONEN ● Interview with MIIKA NORPPA: Printing Contacts ▶ LOTTA HAGLUND 6 Denser, livelier, more ecological Print ▶ LIBRIS OY, HELSINKI 2019 – how Helsinki put the inner city back in focus ● ESA NIKUNEN Publisher ▶ CITY OF HELSINKI, EXECUTIVE OFFICE, URBAN RESEARCH AND STATISTICS 12 What is Helsinki doing to fight climate change? P.O.BOX 550, FI – 00099 City of Helsinki, Finland ● JUKKA HIRVONEN telephone +358 9 310 36377 20 Environmental awareness is at a good level, but actions do not always reflect attitudes Subscriptions, distribution ▶ telephone +358 9 310 36293, [email protected] ● PEKKA VUORI Helsinki Region continues to draw people in ISSN 0788-1576 (in print) 30 – an overview of the population projections for Finland, ISSN 1796-7279 (online) Helsinki and the Helsinki Region until 2050 ● VESA KESKINEN ISTÖM ÄR ER P K M K Y I 44 Helsinki residents feel safer than at any time in the past 15 years ● ARI JAAKOLA ● JOHANNA AF HÄLLSTRÖM ● PETTERI HUUSKA M I T LJÖ ÄRK M ● SANNA-Mari JäNTTI ● MARJO KAASILA ● PIRITA KUIKKA ● OLLI LAHTINEN Painotuotteet 4041 0014 56 From agenda to action – local implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in Helsinki www.kvartti.fi Editorial ecuring sustainable growth environment. Following the example of New has been set as the main goal York City, Helsinki has conducted a local re- of Helsinki in the City Strategy view of UN Sustainable Development Goals for the present council term. and analysed how these match the City’s Helsinki and the surrounding own strategic goals. This topic will also be Sregion have a significantly higher rate of discussed on these pages. population growth than the rest of Finland. In order to prepare ourselves for answering IN A GROWING CITY, a perennial theme of de- the needs of a growing city and its residents, bate is how to ensure sufficient housing pro- we need a solid and up-to-date information duction and how to build good neighbour- basis. The article by Pekka Vuori in the hoods. These issues have been handled in present issue of Helsinki Quarterly sheds markedly different ways in various periods light on the future population trends in the of Helsinki’s history. Currently, city planning Helsinki Region and the rest of Finland. in Helsinki is oriented towards producing a densely built and efficient urban structure TO A LARGE DEGREE, population growth in Hel- that favours rail connections and cycling. In sinki rests on migration from other coun- an interview with researcher Miika Norppa, tries, with people of foreign origin moving we review the history and influences behind to the city either directly or via other Finn- these planning trends. ish municipalities. The birth rate has been declining in Finland and Helsinki in recent HELSINKI QUARTERLY is an English-language years, and this is likely to impact our popula- journal covering the most recent urban re- tion structure fairly soon. At the present mo- search about Helsinki. Three annual issues ment, the population structure of Helsinki re- are published in Finnish and Swedish under mains young in Finnish comparison, and the the title Kvartti.■ city has a large number of working-age peo- ple. At the same time, however, the number of senior citizens – over 75-year-olds in par- ticular – is growing rapidly. IN THIS ISSUE of Helsinki Quarterly, we also look at the ways in which the City and its res- idents react to the ecological challenges fac- ing the world today. Environment Director Esa Nikunen focuses on the climate goals of TIMO CANTELL Helsinki in his article. Jukka Hirvonen’s ar- ticle sums up the results of a recent survey Director for Urban Research and Statistics PIXABAY / KOSTI KEISTINEN / KOSTI PIXABAY mapping the citizens’ attitudes towards the City of Helsinki 4 — Helsinki Quarterly ▶ 2/2019 2/2019 ▶ Helsinki Quarterly — 5 Denser, livelier, more ecological: Thirty years from now, Helsinki will be preparing to celebrate its 500 years of existence. During the past centuries, the focus of the growth and development of How Helsinki put the inner city the city first expanded outwards from a historical core and is now, after a period of suburbanisation, shifting back towards strengthening the city centre and back in focus surrounding inner city. Helsinki Quarterly interviewed researcher Miika Norppa, whose doctoral thesis covers the development of Helsinki’s central areas from 1550 up to the present day. European influences and traces of uniqueness The geography of the narrow peninsula on which Helsinki is built has long saw the need to react to the dimi nishing restricted any significant expansion of population trend in the inner city due the inner city. However, the relocation to strong suburbanisation. The mas- of cargo port facilities from the ter plans of 1970 and 1976 sought to centrally located West Harbour and walk around a block in Jätkäsaari, redress the situation. Sörnäinen to the suburban Vuosaari one of Helsinki’s new maritime Harbour in the 2000s has freed up neighbourhoods that has been FOR THE first time in the post-war period, a considerable amount of land for under construction for a little over the main focus of planners was return- redevelopment. a decade now and is due to be ing to the inner-city areas. The devic- Icompleted by 2030. What would Miika es they used included the construction “IT HAS been estimated that the ma- Norppa want me to notice as I look at of new, modernist, urban districts at jor development projects now under the buildings and urban structure, in Meri haka and Itä-Pasila at the fringes of construction – Jätkäsaari, Kalasatama terms of architectural and planning the inner city, as well as addressing the and Pasila – will enable almost 60,000 solutions? ’officization’ of residential blocks and more people to live in inner Helsinki”, improving the public transport system. Norppa says. The population of the in- THERE IS the irregular shape of the city ner city has already grown by 47,000 blocks, or the high-rise towers that CHARACTERISED BY the slogan compact in 1993–2017 after a long period of de- break the traditionally low skyline of city = contact city, those new districts cline1. Helsinki. It could be the Hyväntoivonpu- of the 1970s were still based on a sep- isto park, whose curved shape was in- aration of car traffic and multi-level pe- 1) Norppa, 578. UYANG spired by Venice’s Canal Grande. Or destrian decks. Subsequent develop- O perhaps the bicycle lanes, the artificial ment projects in inner Helsinki have ING L hillocks, the decorative details on build- been characterised by a gradual return ing walls, the street names inspired by to an older, city-centre style of planning. ENG AND ENG F long-distance shipping, or the innova- This is manifested in enclosed city tive underground waste management blocks, increase in brick-and-mortar re- IPING Y system. tail, emphasis on pedestrian and bicycle traffic, as well as attractive, often mari- THE CURRENT interest in developing in- time, public spaces. ner Helsinki has its roots in the turn of the 1960–70s when the city planners CITY OF HELSINKI / OF CITY 6 — Helsinki Quarterly ▶ 2/2019 2/2019 ▶ Helsinki Quarterly — 7 The city has a healthy economy and attracts a growing population, but there are also possible obstacles for continued good fortunes. tended to be European. Recently the ‘catchment area’ of influ- ences has again widened, with places like Vancouver or Span- ish cities playing a role. THE NEW seafront developments have been influenced, in par- DESPITE THE high density and enclosed blocks, the new neigh- ticular, by similar projects in Stockholm, Gothenburg and bourhoods are actually not 100% similar to traditional inner- elsewhere in northern Europe. But with all these flows of in- sources of livelihood that characterise “BUT THE ambition to be an ecological suburban malls and stations were once city areas. fluences, what elements are unique for Helsinki? Are we only different historical periods from the city features strongly in the plans and surrounded with parking lots and indi- replicating foreign ideas in urban planning and architecture, founding of Helsinki in 1550 up to strategies of Helsinki, and it is closely vidual high-rise buildings, they are now “URBAN PLANNING is similar in terms of block design, but there or is there a local brand of urbanism? the present day. Some of these are related to the aims of densification and being replaced with inner-city type of are various differences on the level of details. Bay windows, presented in the illustrations on the the development of cycling routes or rail blocks combining shopping and resi- ornamentation or gambrel roofs have not returned in exact- “OFTEN, it’s not an either–or question. Many ideas have their following pages (Figures 1–6). traffic”, says Norppa. “Cleantech com- dential functions. A case in point would ly the same way. Ceiling heights are still lower and courtyard origins abroad but are then interpreted differently in Finland panies have a big role to play in these be the suburban district of Myllypuro. buildings are no longer constructed.” and other countries. International Art Nouveau, for example, IN THE 1990–2000s, Helsinki held a glob- endeavours.