Helsinki region falls off list of growing urban areas

Chamber of Commerce: halted internal migration causes labour shortage

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The Helsinki region is no longer among the fastest-growing urban areas in Finland. Last year the Finnish capital came only ninth on the list of the fastest growing cities.
      These are the findings of an activities report published on Monday by the Helsinki Chamber of Commerce.
      Last year Finland's fastest growing areas were the large university towns and a few smaller provincial centres. The fastest growing city was Oulu, with a 1.7% growth rate, followed by Jyväskylä, Seinäjoki, Tampere, and Porvoo.
      In addition to Helsinki, the population growth slowed down significantly also in the Turku, Salo, and Lohja regions.
     
In 2004 the population of the Helsinki region grew by 7,800 inhabitants, which was 700 individuals fewer than the year before.
      The growth was based on natural population increase as well as migration from abroad.
      The area’s growth was last this modest in 1989.
      In terms of internal migration, the Helsinki area's net gain last year was zero percent. In other words, the same number of people moved in and out of the region.
     
Managing director Heikki J. Perälä of the Helsinki Chamber of Commerce sees the present population development as somewhat problematic. In his view, the downward population trend causes labour shortages and will soon start slowing down the region's economic life.
      "Internal migration to Helsinki has come to a halt. The situation is particularly tricky as simultaneously the city's employment situation has improved while the large baby-boomer age-groups are about to retire."
      In Perälä's opinion the negative population development is a direct result of Helsinki's adverse housing policy. People flee to the growing nearby communities, where living costs are cheaper than in Helsinki.
      Speeding up the city planning process would solve the problem, Perälä reckons.
     
"It should be made possible to buy land more cheaply. The society has the means to put this into practice. It's just a matter of finding the will to do it", Perälä estimates.
      Some of the area's communities deliberately slow down the city planning in order to restrict expenditure. The city of Vantaa, for one, uses the sparse availability of land as a means to limit the need for its own municipal engineering work.
      Perälä finds it irrational that shortsighted local politics are restraining the entire area's economic development.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Migration from Helsinki to other parts of Finland is slowing down (15.2.2005)
  Finland´s internal migration evens out and becomes more balanced (9.2.2005)
  Population increase largest in Espoo and decline fastest in Helsinki (30.12.2004)

Helsingin Sanomat