CITY LIMITS: Read my lips - Espoo - is - not - a - city

And nor is Vantaa, for that matter

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By Kimmo Oksanen
     
      Whichever way you slice them, two tall tower blocks do not a city make.
      Pori is a city. Lahti is a city. Jyväskylä is a city.
      Oulu, Tampere, Kuopio, whatever they all are, they are all cities.
      But do not, saints preserve us, try telling me that Espoo would be a city.
     
Pori has a centre and suburbs, and the same goes for Lahti and for Jyväskylä.
      But Espoo has no centre, no downtown area, just a host of suburbs and behind the suburbs more suburbs, and behind them a few more 'burbs...
      And then in between there are a few little outbreaks of neat row-houses and detached houses, plunked down willy-nilly in scrubland and soggy fields.
      Oh, and there's forest.
      And Espoo has more than enough of that to go round.
     
It really doesn't make a scrap of difference that the Espoo powers-that-be have now decided to build two 17-storey tower blocks in Espoon Keskus.
      The Espoo Urban Planning Committee is going to discuss the matter and the zoning changes tomorrow, Wednesday.
     
The towers apparently symbolise the speedy facelift being given to Espoon Keskus and the area's significance as the hub and core of the entire "city".
      "The aim of the town plan and the amendments to the town plan is to design a regional entity that will symbolise and express the rapid redevelopment of Espoon Keskus and its new importance as Espoo's main centre; that will offer a residential alternative for those who appreciate an urban milieu and excellent transport links; that will be architecturally striking and will bind together the area's skyline, span the districts to the south and north of the railway line, and act as a landmark highlighting the identity of Espoon Keskus."
      Whoa! You have to be kidding! Come ON! They don't write prose as rich as that even in North Korea!
     
Espoon Keskus is situated behind fields, overgrown copses and little wooded areas, somewhere "out there", and you can find it if you can be bothered to ride the rails or drive far enough down the motorway into the sunset.
      It is never going to become the hub and the core of anything.
      Claiming that it will is just so much nonsense.
      And I do not understand why Espoo's "urban planners" want to cling on to such mumbo-jumbo.
      Is it really such a shameful thing to be a conglomeration of 'burbs?
      To my way of thinking it is not shameful at all, but just the truth.
     
Way back, ten years ago, the philosophers Tuomas Nevanlinna and Jukka Relander observed that Espoo is not a city, but a state of mind.
      And exactly the same goes for Vantaa, in case you are wondering why I'm ragging on Espoo so much.
      Espoo and Vantaa are satellites of Helsinki in just the same way as are the clutch of suburbs that form Eastern Helsinki and - pretty soon, at least - the newly-annexed bit of Sipoo.
      Espoo is "West Helsinki", and Vantaa is "North Helsinki".
      Put it this way: when the good people of Espoo or Vantaa head off to the square to celebrate their team's winning the ice hockey championship, the square in question is situated right in front of Helsinki City Hall, down by the South Harbour.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 1.6.2010


Links:
  Espoo (Wikipedia)

KIMMO OKSANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
kimmo.oksanen@hs.fi