Browsing by Author "Hyytiäinen, Hanna-Mari"

This paper studies discourses about suburbs that occur in newspaper writings about 1960s and 1970s infill development. The study aims to find out how writings about infill development are structured in the local newspaper Helsingin Sanomat between 2000 and 2016. The objective is to discover how a high-rise suburb appears as a site for infill development, and what kinds of discourses appear in newspaper writings about infill development. The paper uses discourse analysis to examine how high-rise suburbs built in 1960-1970 are discussed in Helsingin Sanomat between 2000 and 2016, using writings about infill development in Helsingin Sanomat in that period as research material. Due to the choice of newspaper, the addressed suburbs are found in the Helsinki metropolitan area. In recent years, Finnish urbanization has led to regional economic marginalization, which in the Helsinki metropolitan area is concentrated in the high-rise suburbs of the 1960s and 1970s. In addition to economic marginalization, these suburbs are seen to suffer from decreasing and aging population, and a need for renovations. The stated aims of infill development include urban unification and social diversification of the suburbs in order to prevent the cycle of economic marginalization. Combined with deterioration of apartments built in the 1960s and 1970s, structural and social problems in high-rise suburbs have led to a societally challenging situation. The writings contained four discourses about suburbs: potential of the suburbs, defense of the suburbs, the suburb as problematic, and the suburb as a conflict-prone site for infill development. The most powerful discourse was about potential. The defense discourse emphasized the uniqueness and meaningfulness of the suburb as the environment and home of its inhabitants. The conflict discourse refers to writings where the suburb is seen as an infill development site that causes conflict. While most of the newspaper writings mention the age and deterioration of the period’s suburbs, the problem discourse did not dominate the research material. Based on the research, the ways of talking about the suburb depend on the speaker, the speaker’s motives, and the subject. The discourses allowed a crucial observation that the suburb is an arena for wielding power where a contradictory and naïve attitude towards developing suburban social life is a major problem slowing down the prevention of economic marginalization. Because the suburbs of the Helsinki metropolitan area are very different, the research doesn’t reveal what suburbs are really like. Instead, the research shows how the suburbs of the metropolitan area appear in the context of writings about infill development, and reveals the persons featured in writings about infill development as well as the suburbs that are interesting to the media. The study also examines how different parties react to infill development, and seeks to shed light on the motives behind the remarks of different parties.