Making mistakes is an important part of life. It’s an opportunity for growth and a lesson to others. Unless, of course, you’re a city. Too often, cities think they’re unique and repeat the blunders that others have made before them. Here are three of the worst ideas that keep getting recycled.
Go to any urban or regional development conference and you will be dazzled with whimsical “Smart City” visions. Usually, this covers a mix of presentations about making cities better places to live in together with tech companies by the application of rapidly developing digital technologies ranging from block chain technology to 3D printing and artificial intelligence. But the presentations could include anything, really. The Smart City is a broad concept and circulates the conferencesphere and urban strategies without any solid definition.
Does anyone else pay attention to this: many times the renderings of new urban development projects include a plaza or similar open space, sitting somewhere in front or between the proposed new buildings. Scaling purposes aside, the glitzy visualizations paint pictures of future plazas teeming with life. People are lounging around, meeting each other and having a good time, actively engaging in public life.
The city of Jyväskylä organized an architectural competition in 2016 to compile ideas for shaping the central blocks of their landmark development project Kangas. This one’s the winning entry. Image: Schauman & Nordgren Architects Oy / ApS
But wander off to anywhere in Helsinki (or any Finnish city, really) and you will find dead plazas galore. Reality is far from the imagery. Most of today’s plazas were planned before digital tools came into play and made adding people easy, but the story has been quite the same for a long time: once materialized, our plazas typically end up being void of the public life they’re envisioned to support. Continue reading From Life-Filled Imagery to Dead Plazas – Why Cities Need a Place-Driven Future→
This summer’s visit to southern Italy for a project meeting was a great opportunity to include a few extra days for absorbing local urban experiences. Italy is one of the most-studied scenes in the world among urbanists. Not to mention architecture lovers.
Like so many after their travels to Italy, I also felt compelled to share my experiences and continue my article series on ideas worth stealing (or not) from other cities around the globe. (See the previous ones on Tokyo & Hong Kong here and Istanbul here). Continue reading Urban Lessons from Naples, Potenza and Matera→
Fighting climate change is unavoidable to save the planet. But for everyday life, the future has already arrived in urban Finland. To soften global warming’s impact on social sustainability, cities need to get active about adapting and keeping traditions going.
Finland’s chilly temperatures this summer have inspired many to talk about global warming. They’ve called it off, the typical joke goes. Obviously, they have not. While us Helsinkians needed to resort to our spring jackets in June, globally it was the fourth-warmest June in 137 years of modern record-keeping. Continue reading Global warming is slowly changing life in Finnish cities→
One of the best things is flaneuring across cities around the world. They’re all different, yet remarkably similar. It’s the perfect opportunity for reflecting how your own city or cities compare. Two places I’ve recently had the pleasure of exploring are Hong Kong and Tokyo.
These Far East mega cities may seem an odd couple at first, but there’s a key theme they share: they’ve been built over and over again. Hardcore redevelopment is part of their DNA. Continue reading Urban Lessons from Hong Kong and Tokyo→
Kallio, my neighborhood in central Helsinki is a fantastic and lively place to live in. Most services are within a couple of blocks, there are plenty of bars and restaurants to choose from, you can hang out in a number of characteristic parks, and the connections to elsewhere in Helsinki are superb. There’s little to complain about.
Except there’s one thing. When I’m feeling too lazy to go out to the park or the weather’s a bit unpredictable, I often envy my friends who have the luxury to lounge on their balcony or in their yard. I live in a building from the 1930s that doesn’t have balconies and I can’t really resort to the yard option either. Continue reading The Quest for Terrific Courtyards in Creating High-Class Density→
The focus has dominantly been on questions related to new neighborhoods. As many choose urban living over suburbia today, we’ve emphasized the need for high-quality urban environments for a new generation of city dwellers. Not to mention the need for decreasing mobility footprints by increasing the “walkability” and “bikeability” of our urban areas (= more walking and biking, less driving). Continue reading Making Downtown Helsinki more Walkable – It’s Time for a Grassroots Revolution→
It’s been a bit more than a year since I and my urbanist comrades accomplished one of the most exciting things ever – well, at least as far as urban planning goes. Following about 10 months of work during evenings, weekends, and holidays, in October 2014 we finally published Pro Helsinki 2.0, the alternative master plan for Helsinki.
For those not familiar with the project, head here to learn more about its contents. But in short, it’s a DIY urbanism initiative that emerged out of a need to diversify discussions around Helsinki’s official new master plan project. And, essentially, to propose something better than the city administration is. Pro Helsinki 2.0 illustrates how Helsinki could develop in a more sustainable way than its counterpart and offer more choice to the housing market by reviving the urban block. Continue reading Could Your City Benefit from DIY Urban Planning? Yes, the Experience from Pro Helsinki 2.0 Suggests→
Goodbye underperforming asphalt. Bringing urban feel to the suburbs is now officially on the horizon in the Helsinki area.
In September a community-based do-it-yourself initiative called Myyrmäki-liike (Myyrmäki Movement) invited me to talk about contemporary urban development trends. They had staged an event to generate discussion around a set of nine proposals to transformation the commercial center of Myyrmäki, a 1970s & 80s railway suburb in Vantaa. The goal is to retrofit a big parking lot into mixed-use urban blocks.
