The changing position of housing estate neighbourhoods in the Helsinki metropolitan area

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Access rights
openAccess
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
Date
2023
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
20
Series
JOURNAL OF HOUSING AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Abstract
This paper addresses the under-researched phenomena of investments in the private rental markets in disadvantaged suburbs in Finland. Despite the application of a social-mixing policy in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area and the Nordic welfare model, suburban housing estate neighbourhoods built in the 1960s and 1970s have experienced a socioeconomic decline since the 1990s. According to several recent large surveys, housing estate neighbourhoods represent the least popular housing environments among Finns. Nevertheless, as the Helsinki Metropolitan Area is currently facing rapid population growth, these neighbourhoods have now become the target for heavy infill development, and ambitious city-led regeneration plans. Simultaneously, housing investment has become an opportunity in Finland for both national and, increasingly, also international real-estate investment companies, as well as for private households. We explore the resurge to invest in housing estate neighbourhoods through two case studies in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. Using statistics and interviews with policymakers and institutional real-estate investors, as well as a review of policy documents as our data, we show the variegated ways in which the marketization and financialization of housing and urban renewal policies change the social geography of housing estates in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area.
Description
Funding Information: Open access funding provided by Aalto University. The research was funded by Svenska Kulturfonden under the postdocpool-grant framework. Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s).
Keywords
Financialization, Helsinki metropolitan area, Housing policy, Real-estate investment, Segregation, Social mix
Other note
Citation
Lilius, J & Hirvonen, J 2023, ' The changing position of housing estate neighbourhoods in the Helsinki metropolitan area ', Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, vol. 38, pp. 121-140 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-021-09890-5