Boulevards of Growth : Assessing the planned boulevardizations in Helsinki in the context of city-regionalism and land-use conflicts between municipalities

This Planning Geography master's thesis studies the planned boulevardizations in Helsinki in the context of city-regionalism and land-use conflicts between municipalities. Interest conflicts inside regional growth machines are typical and the examination of these interest conflicts and their effects on the city-region and its growth dynamics is the corner stone of this thesis. The first objective was to examine how the planned boulevardizations can affect the local growth dynamics of Greater Helsinki Region in the context of sustainable development. The secondary objective was to examine what kinds of conflict types can be detected from the boulevardization induced interest conflicts and do they produce any positive outcomes. Boulevardizations have been implemented for various reasons. However, the new general plan in Helsinki aims to utilize the exclusion areas of highways to densify the urban structure and expand the urban core outwards. By turning urban freeways to boulevards, the exclusion areas can be built into residential areas that fulfil the need to densify the urban structure and cater to the need to produce housing into an urban environment. The research was carried out as a qualitative case study. The primary data was gathered from thirteen expert interviews. The interviewees were planning officials from the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa, Porvoo, Kerava, Hyvinkää and Lahti, and from the municipalities of Kirkkonummi, Sipoo, Tuusula and Vihti. The main theoretical background in this thesis rely on the neoliberalization of land-use and the growth machine theory, which were used to examine the inter-municipal land-use conflicts in the context of city-regionalism and sustainable development. The research shows that the Greater Helsinki city-region functions as a growth machine and the planned boulevardizations can affect its growth dynamics and can have an influence on where and how the regional growth will occur. The boulevardizations could also affect the growth dynamics between the surrounding municipalities. Infact, some of the municipalities can gain from the boulevardizations directly, when the first boulevardizations are implemented. The order in which urban freeways are turned into boulevards is a significant issue regarding the municipalities surrounding Helsinki and creates an interesting temporal aspect to the boulevardizations, which can induce conflicts and tensions in city-regionalism. The research revealed set of different conflict types that were categorized as interest, informational and value conflicts. The location of future growth in the Greater Helsinki region is the most obvious interest conflict in the process. Also, freeway infrastructure is seen as common property, which was a cause of conflicts. Experienced lack of participation is a source of informational conflicts. In this case municipalities were participated in the planning process in some extent, but the level of participation varied. Direct interaction and participation in the future could make a difference and brought a more substantial feeling of participation and regionalism. A significant reason behind land-use conflicts between officials seems to be a paradigm shift, that has occurred as planning in Helsinki has become more inclined to carbon neutrality and walkability, in other words, sustainable development. Also, the change of generation can lessen the probability of successful communication between officials as well. The planned boulevardizations have strengthened the communication between municipalities and legitimized existing organizations for cooperation, which can be seen as a positive outcome.