Immigrants in Helsinki gravitate to same municipal apartment houses
In some buildings one in five residents speak foreign language as mother tongue
Immigrants in Helsinki are increasingly gravitating toward certain neighbourhoods, and within those neighbourhoods, into certain individual municipal apartment houses - in spite of efforts by city authorities to encourage greater ethnic diversity.
More than 60 percent of Helsinki residents who speak a foreign language as their mother tongue live in a building where one fifth of all residents have an immigrant background.
The number of such buildings doubled in 1996-2002, according to a master’s thesis by Kaija Vilkama of the Department of Geography at the University of Helsinki.
The City of Helsinki has sought to disperse ethnic minorities into different neighbourhoods. In spite of such efforts, residents of foreign backgrounds have concentrated powerfully in the east and northeast of the Finnish capital.
Ever since the surge in immigration in the early 1990s, foreign-born residents have gravitated to districts such as Meri-Rastila, Kivikko, Kurkimäki, Myllypuro, Kontula, Jakomäki, and Kannelmäki - all areas with a large amount of public housing available.
According to Vilkama’s study, increasing numbers of residents with immigrant backgrounds have settled in the same areas throughout this decade.
"Helsinki’s ethnic differentiation has been speeded up by migration of the original population, and the tendency to shift from rental accommodation to home home ownership", Vilkama notes.
"Ethnic differentiation is a reality primarily in municipal apartment houses. The phenomenon is not seen in buildings where the apartments are privately owned."
Immigrants tend to gravitate toward two different types of neighbourhoods.
In old areas, such as Kontula, Pihlajamäki, Kannelmäki, and Jakomäki, the number of Finnish-born residents is decreasing, and the average age of the Finnish-born population increasing. In newer areas, such as Kivikko, Kallahti, and Ylä-Malmi, the proportion of speakers of foreign languages is growing.
In Tampere, Hanna Virtanen, who has studied residential patterns of immigrants in the Hervanta district, says that foreign-born residents moving to the area felt that they were integrating into an ethnically diverse group.
Eight percent of Hervanta residents speak a language other than Finnish or Swedish as their mother tongue.
According to Virtanen’s study, based on personal interviews, immigrants in many other areas felt that they were outsiders. "In other areas, members of the original population had resisted the arrival of immigrants."
According to international studies, serious problems can arise if the proportion of residents with a foreign background exceeds the critical level of 20 percent.
Mari Vaattovaara, Professor of Urban Geography at the University of Helsinki, says that in such cases, native-born residents will start avoiding the buildings in question. Those already living in such buildings start looking for other places to live.
This leads to a cycle of migration, which Professor Vaattovaara says Finland should try to avoid.
The Housing Affairs Division of the City of Helsinki does not see the development as a very big problem.
"We have asked the companies running our properties to inform us if a building starts getting too many residents who speak a foreign language. After that, we try to choose new residents in a way that maintains the balance", says planner Mari Randell.
Residents in city-owned housing are free to exchange apartments as they wish. "It could be that this is how people speaking the same language gravitate closer together."
Those who turn down an apartment that is offered to them do not always give reasons for their decision.
"It could be that someone goes there and reads the list of names at the front door, and then says that he didn’t like the location of the building", Randell ponders.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 29.9.2006 - TODAY |
 Immigrants in Helsinki gravitate to same municipal apartment houses
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