Greetings from sunny Finland, the host country of this year's World Planning Schools Congress (WPSC). As a warm-up to the congress and its host country, in this post I'll provide an overview of current debates in Finnish planning.
In Finland, we have a three-tier planning system: national, regional, and local. In this hierarchy, municipalities have a very powerful status, as they exercise a planning monopoly similar to other Nordic countries. The municipalities are responsible for land policy and master and detailed planning in their jurisdiction. The regional councils are statutory joint municipal authorities that are responsible for regional development and land-use planning. Thus, they consist of the municipalities – mandated by law to be members of one – and are politically steered by representatives of the municipalities. The state, in turn, is responsible for national transport planning and the transport network, prepares broadly worded national land-use guidelines that must be followed in regional and local planning, and provides funding and information guidance for the other planning levels.
Recent years have seen a surge in new strategic planning approaches and alliances that seek to align different actors behind jointly shared long-term goals. The clearest example of this shift are the Land Use and Transportation agreements (LUT agreements, or MAL in Finnish) between the state and seven large city-regions, in which the municipalities agree to certain housing outputs, as well as other goals, while the state agrees to fund key transport projects in the regions. In city-regions, the strong institutional status of municipalities has historically led to urban sprawl and the misalignment of land use and transport, as each municipality has optimised its own short-term success. This soft planning instrument has, however, become a powerful tool not only for agreeing on projects to be realised, but also for joint sense-making and deliberation between different planning actors. The Finnish experiences mirror many other examples of soft strategic planning tools, such as the Norwegian Urban Growth Agreements (Bymiljøavtalene, byutviklingsavtalene, byvekstavtaler) and Swedish growth packages (Stockholms- och Sverigeförhandlingen, stadsiljöavtal).
Another topical theme is the renewal of the Land Use and Building Act, ongoing since 2018 and now in the final stages of decision-making. The final proposal consists mostly of incremental changes to the existing planning system but continues a general tendency towards greater neoliberalisation. The proposed new elements include narrowing the power of the regional councils to steer development, loosening control over locations of new retail areas, and giving landowners the right to propose zoning for their areas. Concurrently, the new law should respond to the acute need for a thorough sustainability transformation.
Sustainability in various forms is also a continuously discussed topic in its own terms. In recent years, there have been intense debates over the quantity and quality of urban greenery, decreasing land take for new construction, and compensation methods in situations where development reduces environmental quality. These topics are pressing in the growing city-regions – encouraged to grow in part by the previously mentioned LUT agreements – but also in many rural areas that have seen a boom in new wind and solar energy production. This development has enabled a nearly fossil-free electricity production system, but also requires vast quantities of land, highlighting the tensions in transitioning to a net-zero world.
However, despite this wave of investments, most Finnish municipalities are shrinking. As in many parts of Europe, the natural population growth rate is negative, and young people tend to move from rural areas to cities for education and work, as do immigrants from other countries. Thus, the other side of the coin of growing city-regions is the smaller, predominantly rural municipalities that are slowly losing population. This is not yet a top priority in planning discourse, but it will potentially increase in significance as urbanisation continues.
These challenges are being addressed by planning scholars and practitioners from various backgrounds. As in many countries, the planning field has not had a clear academic home in universities. Planning – with multiple focuses – is taught in several different departments and universities, spanning disciplines such as engineering, geography, architecture, and the social sciences. Many of us will also be present at WPSC and hope to see you there. If you are participating, remember also to join the AESOP YA general assembly and social event on Tuesday 30 June.
Author
Mikko Airikkala is a PhD candidate at Aalto University, School of Engineering, Department of Built Environment, with a background in social policy, strategic spatial planning, and planning practice at master-plan level. His research examines how foresight can be conceptualised and implemented as a continuous activity in strategic spatial planning processes. He also serves as AESOP Young Academics Regional Ambassador for the British Isles and Nordics (Finland). He can be reached at