Vanhanen calls for “garden metropolis” in Helsinki region
Criticism from “concrete party”
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) has put forward a vision of a new urban structure for the Helsinki region and its surroundings.
Vanhanen told Helsingin Sanomat that as many as 20 towns and municipalities outside the actual Helsinki Metropolitan Area could form a “metropolis of garden villages”. Espoo and Nurmijärvi, both of which comprise a number of different centres, could serve as a model.
Vanhanen opposes the idea that predominates especially in Helsinki, according to which dense residential areas are possible only near train or metro stations.
Vanhanen speaks of a “revived concrete party”, whose proponents include former Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen (SDP), who has referred to the Helsinki region as a sparsely-populated Siberia, and Helsinki City Council member Osmo Soininvaara (Green), who feels that new construction in the region should take place at a maximum one-kilometre radius from a train or metro station.
Vanhanen’s solution to Finland’s climate challenges would be a dispersed model in which people live in small garden-type areas close to their jobs and services. Commuting would take place by bus or electric car.
While he is in favour of the westward extension of the Helsinki Metro, and the construction of a ring railway that would bypass the centre of Helsinki, Vanhanen does not feel that they would significantly advance the attainment of Finland’s greenhouse gas emission targets.
The government’s decision to require that by 2010, 5.75 per cent of fuel for vehicles should be of biological origin would, in Vanhanen’s view, curb carbon dioxide emissions by as much as the whole Espoo Metro will.
“And it wouldn’t cost the state practically anything. The Metro costs EUR 700 million”, he says.
He also notes that housing prices would not come down by building near the Metro station.
Key figures responsible for housing policy in Helsinki reject Prime Minister Vanhanen’s idea of a garden village metropolis.
Osmo Soininvaara notes that in a model where residential housing is concentrated along rail or Metro lines, people are less dependent on the services of their home village, as they can easily take public transport to other centres. He notes that in Vanhanen’s model everyone would drive to a big shopping mall.
He does not believe that electric cars and biological energy would be a solution to the climate problem.
“The Greens were once attacked for supposedly thinking that electricity comes from a wall outlet”, Soininvaara says.
He also sees Vanhanen’s notion that the Metro model leads to expensive housing to be “awful circular logic”.
“If homes are expensive in the Metro model, it means that they are desired. Then we should build more of them.”
Helsinki’s Deputy Mayor responsible for urban planning, Hannu Penttilä (SDP), agrees with Soininvaara: homes cost more, the closer they are to the centre of Helsinki, and that people prefer that to “forest living”.
Demographic forecasts for the city of Helsinki had to be revised when it was noticed that families with children started coming back to the city.
Penttilä also notes that it is unlikely that both partners in a family with two adults would both easily find jobs in the same small village.
“In an age of short-term contracts, the entire metropolis is needed as a labour market area”, he says.
Minister of Housing Jan Vapaavuori (Nat. Coalition Party) says that he has not met an expert in zoning, community planning, or transport in Finland or anywhere else, who would think like Vanhanen does.
He also feels that the Prime Minister’s talk of a “concrete party” is insulting.
“Rome or Paris are not massive concrete complexes: they are among the most beloved and most idyllic places in the world”, he says.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 8.9.2008 - TODAY |
 Vanhanen calls for “garden metropolis” in Helsinki region |
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