More residents of Helsinki region commute to jobs outside urban area
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Commuting in the Helsinki region, which traditionally involves residents of suburban areas and further affield travelling daily to their jobs in the centre of the city, is changing; the flow is increasingly moving in two directions. Since the recession of the 1990s, more jobs have been established outside the city centre and in communities outside the Helsinki area.
Increasing numbers of people living in Helsinki, Espoo, and Vantaa are now going to work in municipalities outside the Helsinki metropolitan area.
An estimated 40 percent of new jobs in Finland are being established in communities surrounding major urban areas.
Researcher Janne Antikainen predicts that the trend of employees commuting from large urban areas to jobs in the surrounding region will continue. This could lead to traffic jams in both directions on the Länsiväylä motorway leading west from Helsinki. At present, the morning rush hour on the thoroughfare focuses on inbound traffic.
In the Swedish capital Stockholm, traffic is just as heavy into the city as it is out of it both in the morning and afternoon. Antikainen notes, however, that it will still take some time before things go that far in Finland.
Antikainen recently published a study called "Urban Networks and Urban Regions 2006", covering the years 1990 to 2003.
Antikainen was surprised at how many people living in the core cities of the Helsinki area - Helsinki, Espoo, and Vantaa - have jobs outside the region.
A similar trend is also apparent in the Tampere region, as well as other urban areas.
The trend began in about 1995 and accellerated in the present decade. Nevertheless, more residents of outlying areas are commuting into the Helsinki region than vice versa.
Antikainen says that simple business logic dictates that more jobs will be set up outside urban centres. A young business will usually set up shop in the core areas of the region, and only after growing will it look for larger and cheaper premises further afield. Large concentrations of jobs are being established in Finland especially along urban bypass roads and near airports.
Workers often do not follow their companies; young workers in particular prefer to keep their residence in the city and commute to work, if necessary. Those who do move to more sparsely-populated areas usually do so primarily to be able to get a bigger house for a growing family, rather than to be closer to work.
Finns have long seen one-way commute times of about half an hour to be tolerable. This has gradually grown to about 45 minutes. In many other European countries, one-way commutes of about an hour are commonplace.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 13.11.2006 - TODAY |
 More residents of Helsinki region commute to jobs outside urban area |
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