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ABSTRACT
The article seeks to explain the factors preventing the emergence of a broader city-regional view in land-use policy, in a Finnish urban region fragmented institutionally by several municipalities that have high independence in determining their own land-use policies. The ongoing municipal reform by the Finnish government acknowledges the importance of urban regions in global competitiveness and economic livelihood, and thus it encourages municipalities in urban regions to merge, in order to avoid their counterproductive mutual competition over investments and residents, and related municipal tax income. However, such pressure by the central government has often resulted in evasive manoeuvres and superficial city-regional rhetoric at the level of local governments, with a hidden motivation of maintaining the status quo of inter-municipal competition. As a theoretical framework to explain this phenomenon, the theoretical insights on path dependence and defensive routines are combined. Regarding empirical material, the article focuses on the case of Ristikytö in the intersection between three municipalities in Central Uusimaa, 35 km north of Helsinki.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 The 14 municipalities around and including Helsinki.
2 The Finnish land-use planning system involves three planning levels in a hierarchically binding order. The regional land-use plan provides the guidelines for the preparation of the municipal master plan, which, in turn, guides the preparation of the municipal detailed plan. The region of Uusimaa is the broader region surrounding Greater Helsinki.
3 Before gaining independence, Finland was a Grand Duchy of Russia (1809–1917).
4 Later on, Kellokoski became famous for a female prison and a mental institution.
5 Helsinki and its neighbouring three municipalities, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen.
6 The City Rail Loop is a planned urban railway line for commuter trains in a tunnel under the Helsinki city centre.
7 Aalto University is the second largest university in Finland, which was established in 2010 as a merger of Helsinki University of Technology, Helsinki School of Economics and Helsinki University of Arts and Design.
8 Act on the Restructuring of Local Government and Services (Citation169/Citation2007).
9 The KUUMA (acronym for Keski-Uusimaa, meaning Central Uusimaa in Finnish) cooperation network is formed by the 10 municipalities surrounding the Capital Region: Kirkkonummi, Vihti, Nurmijärvi, Hyvinkää, Tuusula, Järvenpää, Kerava, Mäntsälä, Pornainen and Sipoo. There are altogether more than 300,000 inhabitants in these 10 municipalities. There is no distinct central city among the KUUMA municipalities; instead, they form a zone of fringe municipalities around the Capital Region.
10 A common Finnish proverb.