Koetut arjen paikat ja asuinalueella viihtymisen kriteerit asukkaiden näkökulmasta : tapaustutkimus Espoon Matinkylässä

The experienced everyday life, importance of feeling comfortable in one's own neighbourhood and attachment to place have been popular research topics in recent years. One important reason for this is that feeling of belonging is important for everyday wellbeing. Taking care of the neighbourhood is also beneficial for the society. Active moving especially in the metropolitan area rises questions are residential areas filling the demands of a good neighbourhood. The aim of the study is to find out which factors make residential area a good place to live from resident's point of view and how residents experience their everyday life in the area. The aim is also to consider the importance of experiential knowledge can be exploited in regional planning. The research area in this study is Matinkylä neighbourhood in the city of Espoo. This is a qualitative study and the research material consists of five interviews made in Matinkylä including observation in the research area. All the interviewees live in the area. The interviews were made using the Go along-method that means walking with the participant in the research area while interviewing. Walking route consists of places that are important in the everyday life. The research material was categorized and analysed by using discourse analysis. One of the main results in this study is finding three criteria that are needed to feel comfortable in one's own neighborhood. The found criteria are the importance of the social relations in the area, functioning public transport and good accessibility to local services and the closeness of green spaces in the area. The places of everyday life contains in addition to home, local services and recreational areas. Analysis also tells that residents divide the neighbourhood in smaller areas on the basis of the areas appearance and how the resident experiences the area. Dividing the areas leads in a situation where some of the areas start to feel distant or even unsafe for the residents and it effects the ways of using the whole neighbourhood. According to interviews Matinkylä is a good place to live, but when observing the ranges of attachment the attachment is strongest in the area close to home. Including for example home street, and other places situated near home. This study verifies the importance of neighbourhood attachment to the residents. The importance of neighborhood areas motivate planners to develop high quality residential areas to improve the quality of life. Experiential knowledge collected from the residents brings added value to residential planning by giving planners information they could not have from anywhere else. Exploiting this kind of information is important especially in the beginning of the planning project. Exploring the neighborhood especially by walking creates a possibility to use the area more diverse and diminish the possible feelings of insecurity in the area. The results suggest that feeling comfortable in the area and attachment to place have strong influence for using the area. Without attachment to place the area may lose its users and its importance.