Innovation clusters or concentrations of creative class are something cities all over the world are trying to plan. There's an extensive amount of research of the good elements needed in urban places like those.
There is one from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area as well (Inkinen & Ponto 2017). They studied three largest innovation clusters in the HMA: Ruoholahti, Otaniemi and Pitäjänmäki (Inkinen & Kaakinen 2016). Later, it has been noticed that the same places which are the most innovative clusters inside metropolitan area, have also a highest number of professionals, creative class or human capital depending which features of the residents are emphasized (Kiuru & Inkinen 2017). Therefore, it could be fascinating to research which good elements from the earlier literature appears in the residential parts of the research areas of Inkinen & Ponto (2017). Also, finding some new lessons how to build city that interests creative class, would be awesome. Usually the doctrines have been adopted e.g. from the well-known architect Jan Gehl. However, I would like to bring some older classics under consideration as well. Kevin Lynch and Edmund N. Bacon have made quite an impression on me in their studies of what elements good urban design and urban planning should include. All in all, I have observed one of the case areas already with the lenses of Lynch and Bacon and found some fascinating similarities between real world and theories of good planning. I have thought I could take some pictures and draw some mental maps of the case areas showing what lessons from the case areas could be considered planning new (mixed) areas in the HMA (there are a lot of them, Helsinki is one of the fastest growing cities in Europe), but also planning new areas in cities all over the world. So, the fourth article of my thesis will most likely be qualitative against all the odds, considering the three first (only one published) rely mainly on introducing some advanced quantitative methods. This shift in research methods has attracted me to write already two pages of the fourth paper. The next thing, however, is to finish the answers to reviews of my second paper. I finally got them and they are such supportive and charming that I couldn't be happier to rewrite the paper with the crucial comments of the peer-reviews. I find this referee system such working. Papers get so much better when read not only by you and your supervisor, but two or three professionals more!
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There are plenty of comparative studies of the innovativeness of metropolises. However, I made another one examining innovativeness in the sphere of social media. In Futura journal, I represented a comparison between the Nordic metropolises, which are usually performing well in different innovation rankings.
Examining where there is the most Twitter activity related to the exact term of innovation, Swedish cities are the top performers. When examining Twitter activity proportional to city size, Stockholm is the leading innovation hub in Northern Europe with Malmö following second. What comes to themes related to innovativeness, Helsinki is the most important concentration of startups and technology in the Nordic countries. Stockholm and Malmö are the second and the third largest concentrations of both, startups and technology. Related to innovativeness and economic growth, also the tolerance of the citizens was considered. Interestingly, perhaps the most famous city in the Nordics facing problems related to immigration, Malmö is welcoming refugees most generously. In fact, Malmö is the only metropolitan area, where there is significant movement related to hashtag #refugeeswelcome. Different themes related to innovativeness combined, the same cities appear high in ranking. Overall, Stockholm (in the picture below) is the most innovative metropolis in the Nordic countries. Helsinki has the second most Twitter activity related to innovativeness and Malmö the third most. From the results, it is obvious that metropolitan areas should be compared to metropolises approximately the same size - even if measured proportional to city size. The capitals and the largest metropolises of the Nordic countries are competing with each other, while the secondary cities of Nordics are competing in their own race (empirics of them later on). I have to admit it: I miss urban planning. Maybe in spring 2017 I come back to urban planning department of the city of Espoo. In June, there are some decisions of the funding I have applied or where I would be employed if I continued my student leave with another 1,5 years.
Anyway, Helsinki has its brand new master plan. It is innovative and up to date and even pioneering. The most important extensions of inner city are bulevardisations of the free ways. I Google Mapped the nearest Free way of my neighborhood. It is also the one that extends deepest into CBD of all the free ways. Now is the time to debate in which areas there should be master or detailed plans started. Länsiväylä would be ideal to start with. Drivers of the Länsiväylä suffers the least from the change because they have already drove the longest via the free way and accessed CBD much faster than from the other directions. In the surroundings of Länsiväylä there is plenty of potential for innovative growth and demand for professionals according to earlier studies (Inkinen & Kaakinen 2016, Kiuru & Inkinen 2017) In the blue area in the satellite picture could be mixed for example high rises of offices and apartments with sea views. Area would need just a little filling into sea. Some small islands and the banks of the free way are already existing potential construction areas. One of the advantages of the infill is, that the buildings would block the noise from the free way to important recreation areas like parks, jogging paths and sand beaches across the bay. It is also wise to develop areas that have been concluded as one of the most potential clusters to grow. Picture 2 shows the innovation potential of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. Visualisation is poor just in case of southern Helsinki where symbols of potential should be more northern than in the picture. These areas include the bulevardisation of Länsiväylä. There is especially a huge potential of innovative growth and knowledge intensive establishments along the today free way. There is also demand of more apartments for professionals. All in all Länsiväylä would be great as one of the first inner city extensions of the new master plan. There is a rather wide literature of agglomeration economies that (especially knowledge intensive) firms gain when clustering in metropolitan areas (e.g. Nicolini, R. 2012 in O'Sullivan: Urban Economics). These economic forces are divided into localization economies and urbanization economies. Former refers to benefits from single industry clustering and the latter to benefits when clustering cross industry boundaries. We wanted to find out some empirical reasons behind location choices of firms and asked some of the reasons from the executives of the firms in surrounding city of Vantaa in Helsinki Metropolitan Area (Merisalo & Kiuru (eds.) 2016). We recognize that the list of the factors is not by any means comprehensive nor is the sample size very large. However, our findings are mainly in line with the literature considering location choices of the firms. From our survey, it seems that the most important factors determining company's location choice are quite practical. Almost all, 93 % of the respondents, saw space costs important or very important factor when choosing their firms' location. Accessibility was important or very important to 89 % and infrastructure of the area to 84 % of the executives. Many studies have stressed the benefits from the labor pool that firms gain in agglomeration economies. Thus, in our survey, the availability of the workforce was seen as the third most important reason for location choices. When asked only from the knowledge intensive business services (KIBS), the availability of the workforce was in fact seen as the joint top factor with 89 %. There's plenty of debate whether urban amenities are important in determining the location of the companies. In our survey 51 % of the companies found restaurants of the neighborhood and 41 % other commercial services of the neighborhood important or very important factors. There are also different views whether firms follow talented workforce or whether employees follow firms. From our survey, it seems that also firms locate in proximity of workforce. We asked also in which spatial scale different factors were seen important; within neighborhood, city or metropolitan area. Workforce was seen largely as a regional resource. Instead, restaurants of the area, were seen most important within the city and within the neighborhood rather than within the whole region. Presence of universities and other research institutes is again regional resource. However, only 36 % of the executives saw them important or very important. Even examining only KIBS firms did not raise the percentage. What is good to know, is that City of Vantaa does not hold any universities. Thus, it may be that presence of universities is more important to those firms that locate in university cities of the HMA. Another reason determining the location choices of the firm is the brand of the area. It was important or very important to 56 % of the firms in Vantaa, but when asked only from the KIBS firms, the percentage rose again. All in all, there are many reasons that affect the location choices of the firms. According to our survey, it seems also that for knowledge intensive firms there are more factors that affect their location choice than for other firms. |
Photo by Rob Hurson
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July 2018
AuthorJuho Kiuru, geographer living in Helsinki, Finland. |