After dark a familiar city turns into a terrifying place

Nearly 40 per cent of residents are afraid of walking alone in central Helsinki at night

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By Samuli Leivonniemi
     
      At five o’clock in the early November afternoon the Helsinki sky is almost pitch black.
      A dim light desperately tries to illuminate the Pasila station underpass. Next door, beads of water decorate the eaves of the station house. The sound from their splashing onto the platform paving echoes eerily from the concrete elements.
      At least Anu Kettunen is of the opinion that this is a scary place.
      She has been walking along the long straight path parallel to the railway line without encountering a soul.
      “If there were many joggers here, the place would feel more safe. The surroundings of the station are also scary, because of the dodgy elements that hang around here”, Kettunen adds.
      As for Helsinki’s downtown area, Kettunen would never visit it alone on a weekend night.
     
Kettunen is not the only one harbouring such fears. There are many others as well.
      According to a recent safety study by the police, 37.6 per cent of the respondents considered walking alone in central Helsinki on weekend evenings unsafe or fairly unsafe.
      One in twenty Helsinki residents does not dare to go out alone at all.
      Only 7.8 per cent of the respondents felt completely safe in the Finnish capital.
     
“People are afraid of each other. Women fear being sexually assaulted. Men fear they will get into a fight”, says Hille Koskela, Academy Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor in Urban Geography at the Academy of Finland.
      In her research, Koskela has focused on the topic of fear of violence and has just published a book on the subject called Pelkokierre (“Spiral of Fear”).
     
According to the researcher, people are afraid of places with a bad reputation, such as Helsinki’s Itä-Pasila district.
      Or desolate places empty of other people, such as the Kaisaniemi Park.
      Or places with many drunken people, such as Central Helsinki on a weekend night.
      Koskela points out that such fears are not unfounded even if people’s perceived sense of insecurity does not correspond to the actual crime statistics.
      Such fears are fuelled by the fact that “we believe and convince each other that the city is a dangerous place”.
      In Koskela’s view, fear easily leads to a spiral: a scary place becomes even scarier when people avoid going there.
      In the worst case fear can lead to indifference.
      “If our default attitude is that another person always presents a potential danger, it is very difficult to lend a helping hand.”
     
In the researcher’s view this phenomenon is already visible in people’s attitudes towards Helsinki’s beggars.
      “I cannot imagine a less intimidating person than a distressed migrant Roma woman begging on the street”, Koskela says.
      Koskela urges people to take heart. In her opinion women, too, should start walking through the Kaisaniemi Park at night.
      “The more people go there, the safer the park becomes.”
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 2.11.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Kaisaniemi Park second most feared place in central Helsinki (3.9.2007)
  Railway station most frightening place in downtown Helsinki (5.4.2007)
  Widespread sense of insecurity in Helsinki´s Kaisaniemi Park at night (7.10.2005)

SAMULI LEIVONNIEMI / Helsingin Sanomat
samuli.leivonniemi@hs.fi