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Chang LiuNoora Haavisto

& Barbara Radaelli-Muuronen

Vantaa Smart City Development in Business, Mobility, and Art

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Introduction

The smart city concept has been widely used and discussed in city planning and brand-ing. Smart city strategies usually refer to improving the city’s design or solving city problems by using high technology meth-ods. It has become a trend that more and more cities are embracing the smart city concept in their policies and strategies. Smart mobility, smart waste management, and a startup culture are all related to this phenomenon.

In Finland the “Six City Strategy,” known as 6Aika, aims to develop more open and smart services. It is a common smart city strategy for the six biggest cities in Finland: Helsinki, Espoo, Tampere, Vantaa, Oulu, and Turku. Around 30 percent of Fin-land’s population lives in these cities. The strategy is funded by the European Regional Development Fund, the six cities themselves, the Finnish government, and the projects making up the Six City Strategy. The funding is for 2014–2020 (Uutta kaupunkia… 2017).

The purpose of the Six City Strategy is to create efficient urban services, and is based on three focus areas. These focus ar-eas are: open innovation platforms (physical and virtual environments), open data (mate-rial for the development of new services) and interfaces, and open participation and customer service. The aim is to make cit-ies more open and to create new operating models, so that the whole community can take part in the development work (Uutta kau-punkia… 2017).

The aim of Vantaa within the strategy is to create a more transparent city and create more open public data (Läpinäkyvä Vantaa 2017). However, Vantaa’s current city strat-egy was made before the Six City Strategy and does not mention anything about smart cities (Valtuustokauden strategia... 2015). However, the smart concept and The Six City Strategy are mentioned several times in the budgetary plan for 2017–2020 (Talousarvio… 2017).

The smart city concept promises access and opportunities while building civic en-

gagement and expanding public participation (Smart cities 2017). On the other hand, con-cerns are raised regarding private data use, the risk of loss of privacy, as well as a growing monopoly of Internet of Things (IoT) corporations. To avoid these risks, The Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communica-tions has launched “My Data,” a Nordic model for human-centered personal data management and processing (Poikkola et al. 2017).

Also, electromagnetic field (EMF) pollu-tion caused by 5G wireless antennas has to be taken into consideration. In response to health concerns on possible health effects, the World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a large multidisciplinary research effort. The WHO concluded that current evi-dence does not confirm the existence of any health consequences from exposure to low level electromagnetic fields. However, some gaps in knowledge about biological effects exist and need further research (Electro-magnetic… 2017). The concept of smart city itself aims for well-being and sustaina-bility. Smart mobility was developed to be an ecological alternative which influences health in a positive way. In order to ensure citizen safety and wellbeing, EMF emissions have to be kept under control.

Critics also raise concerns about poten-tial negative effects of technology, includ-ing heavy technology users not having enough opportunities to use their imagination or creativity (De Loach 2015). Smart solu-tions are used to reduce time consumption and increase resources. As human beings, we still have to preserve handcraft skills and avoid excessive automatization. On the other hand, a positive smart city example can be found in Helsinki’s Kalasatama neighborhood. Here, innovations are not solely made from technology, but innovations also come in the social form, including participation and civic collaboration (Fiksu Kalasatama 2017).

This thematic chapter studies Vantaa as a smart city from three points of views. The first part is about innovative busi-ness development in Vantaa. The content includes: the current situation analysis; how smart city strategies and open innova-tion platforms can help Vantaa in creating a more creative business environment; how the

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entrepreneurs, city, and other factors are connected; and what the working model looks like. The aim of this chapter is to explore the ways in which the innovation business developments are influencing the city, and how smart city strategies can help Vantaa define the problems and improve the system in the innovation business development. The second part reports on the use of private cars in Vantaa, how smart mobility could be one solution for the challenged Vantaa is facing, as well as some suggestions for Van-taa. The third part considers the potential of using the IoT to create art projects, as well as how to finance them. Beside the traditional “percentage financing princi-ple,” we suggest new ideas for acquiring art with the smart participation of citizens, particularly in the Aviapolis area, as it is becoming a coveted aerotropolis.

REFERENCES

De Loach, P. (2015). The four negatives sides of technology, Eudemic. 15.12.2017. <http://www.edudemic.com/the-4-nega-tive-side-effects-of-technology/>

Electromagnetic fields (EMF) (2017). World Health Organization (WHO). 11.12.2017. <http://www.who.int/peh-emf/about/Wha-tisEMF/en/index1.html>

Fiksu Kalasatama (2017). Fiksu Kalasatama -hanke. 11.12.2017. <https://fiksukalasa-tama.fi/>

Läpinäkyvä Vantaa (2017). The Six City Strategy. 11.12.2017. <https://6Aika.fi/kaupungit/vantaa/>

Poikola. A., Kuikkaniemi, K. & Honko, H. (2017). MyData – A Nordic Model for hu-man-centered personal data management and processing. Ministry of Transport and Communications, Helsinki. <https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/78439/MyData-nordic-model.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y>

Smart cities (2017). Georgia Tech, Center for Urban Innovation. 15.12.2017. <https://urbaninnovation.gatech.edu/re-search/smart-cities>

Talousarvio 2017: Taloussuunnitelma 2017–2020. (2017) City of Vantaa. 14.12.2017.

<http://www.vantaa.fi/hallinto_ja_talous/talous_ja_strategia/talousarvio_ja_rapor-tointi>

Uutta kaupunkia yhdessä (2017). The Six City Strategy. 11.12.2017. <https://6Aika.fi/6Aika-avoimia-ja-alykkaita-palveluja/>

Valtuustokauden Strategia 2013–2017 (2015). City of Vantaa. 11.12.2017. <http://www.vantaa.fi/hallinto_ja_talous/talous_ja_strategia/strategia>


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Smart City Strategy for Future Vantaa - Create an Innovative and Vibrant Business City

by Chang Liu

Introduction

Many cities in different parts of the world are working hard to solve social problems and make the city a better place to live. Urban issues and urban problems used to be considered to be the research area for urban planners and city architects. However, with the rapid development of advanced technology and open access to big data, a new class of technology-based entrepreneurs has emerged: civic entrepreneurs. Civic entrepreneurs recognize the opportunities to solve social problems and finance business with ser-vice-oriented programs such as Uber and Air-bnb. Their initiatives fill in blanks spaces in the market and reduce the pressure on the city administration offices for public infrastructure and service provision. The benefits for cities and the ability to en-hance productivity have been well document-ed, and include such things as pooling the labor market, sharing inputs, and technolog-ical and information spillovers (Rosenthal & Strange 2003).

This study leans on a mixed methods ap-proach. First, the main problems in Vantaa have been identified by comparing Vantaa’s city master plan and future vision with Van-taa’s reality – weak business development in a suburb city. Geographic Information System (GIS) and data analysis were used to illus-trate the gaps in between. Second, the case of Vantaa has been contextualized through a literature review on the use of smart city strategies. I have asked how smart business strategies can help with Vantaa’s situation, especially in creating an attractive busi-ness environment for innovative businesses. Third, I have analyzed the entrepreneur’s perspective: What features in the business environment are considered attractive to

them? How are they influenced in the eco-system behind the innovative platform? What is the relationship between the municipality and the entrepreneurs, during the coopera-tion? What are the barriers and the opportu-nities, and how can the system be improved?

I have also zoomed in to the innovation platform-working model, based on the organi-zation system in Vantaa. Through the for-mal and informal organizational connection, three big factors are influencing each other in the network: the municipality, the en-trepreneurs themselves, and social problems. The Vantaa working model has its own prob-lems about segregation and lack of invest-ments, but there are many ways to improve the working model and improve the attraction for entrepreneurs. I claim that seeing the big picture and acknowledging the func-tions of the whole system can help the City of Vantaa develop and test its smart city strategies, as well as to enable better con-trol of innovation business development in the future Vantaa.

Vantaa Master Plan and Regional Business De-velopment Situation

In its four-year term city strategy plan 2013–2017 (made by The City of Vantaa city strategy), Vantaa drew up its vision for 2025:

Wealthy Vantaa [Vakavarainen Vantaa] is an international center for sustainable growth, with the city and the quality of services developed together with resi-dents. Vantaa is safe for residents as a hometown, the best partner in Finland for companies, and best country-led city for workers. (Valtuustokauden strategia… 2015; Table 1)

From the goals Vantaa set for itself, we can see that Vantaa is under great pres-sure to create more job opportunities and to improve job quality, transforming the traditional retail and service dominated industries into a multi-layered structure with high-technology companies and high-ly-educated people as the driver. Accord-ing to the 2013–2017 strategy plan, Vantaa hopes to improve the economy and employment

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Vantaa goals 2014 2017

reduce unemployment rate 11.6% 10.5%

raise employment rate (15-54) 73.8% 74.0%

raise foreign-language employment rate 56.1% 60.0%

add KIBS work-seats - 300 new seats

add City office work space - growth 0.5% per year

through improved policy, to provide a safe environment, to update gender equality and equal opportunities, to halve the rate of immigrant unem-ployment, and to strength-en the education level and identity by building a new urban landscape (Valtuusto-kauden strategia… 2015). This pressure encourages Vantaa to bring in more innovative in-dustries, which can help cre-ate an English-language work-ing environment for its large percentage of foreign-lan-guage speaking groups.

The quest for information and communications technol-ogy (ICT) based jobs can be seen in the recent employ-ment statistics. During the years 2008–2014, the number of jobs in Vantaa increased steadily (Figure 1). By the end of 2014, there were 1,616 more jobs than in 2008, even though the ICT industry lost 133 jobs by the end of 2013. From 2013 to 2014, the number of ICT-jobs bounced back to 2,073, having 32 more com-pared to the year 2008 (Fig-ure 2). In total, the ICT in-dustry contributed less than two percent of the employment growth in Vantaa as a whole.

If we compare the ICT job growth with the other two regions in the Helsinki metropolitan area, Vantaa’s ICT industry growth has been slower than that Espoo and Helsinki (Figure 3). Espoo is the high-tech hub of the Helsinki metropolitan area. With Aalto University and a large group of highly-educat-ed people, Espoo is lead-ing in the growth of the ICT industry. Helsinki is the old metropolitan city, the

Table 1. Economic and employment goals of Vantaa for 2017 (Valtuustokauden strategia… 2015).

Figure 1. Jobs (all industries) in Vantaa from 2008 to 2014 (Data: Helsingin seudun… 2017).

Figure 2. ICT industry jobsin Vantaa from 2008 to 2014 (Data: Helsingin seudun… 2017).


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Figure 3. Job Growth Rate in ICT Industry (2010–2016), new jobs/job number in 2010 2014 (Data: Helsingin seudun… 2017).

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Figure 4. Job Growth Rate in ICT Industry (2010–2016) in 4 regions (Data: Helsingin seudun… 2017).


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culture center, and the startup hub. With high quality resources and services nearby, Helsinki has also seen rapid development in ICT industries.

Since Vantaa is starting from a small-er point when it comes to the ICT industry, the growth rate could be a better way to compare the development of ICT industries between Vantaa and the other two cities. From Figure 4, we can see that Helsinki, as the traditional metropolitan city, has a higher density of ICT work places. There is a major cluster of job units in the city center with an increasing number of ICT jobs (shown as red points), while the units with a declining number ICT jobs are also every-where (shown as blue points). It seems that ICT development in the center of Helsinki is changing quite rapidly and that while many ICT companies have been established, many of those companies did not survive.

ICT companies are more widely distributed in south-eastern Espoo, especially along the two sides of Turunväylä, whereas in Van-taa, ICT companies can be found along both sides of the main railway line. There are not yet many ICT companies along the Ring Rail III (opened in 2015), but the growth rate is quite high in some individual are-as. The Aviapolis area stands out in Vantaa as an area with dense work unit rate and a high job growth rate. The “Aviapolis Airport City” is an on-going project in Vantaa which was launched in 2016. According to Vantaa City (Smart Airport… 2017), the Aviapolis Airport City will become the economic engine of Finland in the future, hosting 1,900 com-panies, employing 35,000 people, and grow-ing by 600,000 new residents in the airport area. It is the driver of the business de-velopment in Vantaa.

Comparing Vantaa’s vision to the current business development situation, we can see that there are both challenges and opportu-nities, and Vantaa still has a long way to go. While boosting new drivers and construc-tion from outside, providing a more attrac-tive business environment for entrepreneurs could be the next step.

Smart City Strategy

Smart City as an Attractive Business Envi-ronment

There is no universal definition of a smart city, but it is considered to be the enabler of a better future city. The Oxford Internet Institute (Smart Cities… 2017), for example, defines the idea of smart city by claiming that it gives

[…] urban policymakers real-time infor-mation on a whole variety of indicators about their city (traffic, environment, services etc.) in order to improve deci-sion making and optimize service deliv-ery. However, the initial vision, mostly centered around adding sensors and RFID tags [radio frequency identification] to objects around the city, so that they would be able to communicate, has thus far remained unrealized.

Consequently, smart city strategies have been used to improve cities and solve many aspects of urban issues. Over many years of development, these aspects have been consid-ered: (1) mobility and transportation; (2) waste management; (3) urban data analytics; (4) energy management; (5) infrastructure; (6) community services; and (7) administra-tive control and transparency.

There are many factors that will influ-ence a company’s decision to locate in a specific city. High-tech companies usually consider the following factors attractive: a skilled workforce, digital infrastruc-tures, open data, and municipal policies (CITY keys… 2017). Smart city strategies can help the municipality enable these factors. In Vantaa, the Vantaa Business Department has been working with smart city strategies, and they have developed a series of pro-jects to provide open and smart services to entrepreneurs (Eskelä 2017). However, lack of investment has limited their ability to empower more projects.

To improve their ability to tempt new businesses, the six largest cities in Fin-land (Helsinki, Espoo, Tampere, Vantaa, Tur-ku and Oulu) have created a collaboration, funded by the European Union: “6Aika.” 6Aika

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is a solution-oriented thematic collabora-tion with the aim of creating new business, know-how, and jobs in Finland. The collab-oration focuses on improving open data and interfaces, open participation and customer relationships, and open innovation plat-forms. The member cities develop their own projects that target their own city prob-lems, call for proposals, and provide fund-ing for the projects after selection (Vantaa – 6Aika 2017).

Vantaa Smart City Strategy for Businesses

Entrepreneurship is seen as the enabling factor in these initiatives. Due to the resilience, adaptability, and transforma-tion-potential of large metropolitan areas, entrepreneurs are encouraged to develop new solutions for current and future city chal-lenges (Eraydin & Tasan-Kok 2012).

Vantaa has generated localized smart strategies for businesses on the basis of 6Aika’s focus areas (Vantaa – 6Aika 2017). Vantaa wants to open their data to support the creation of new innovations, both func-tionally and technologically, for business-

es and other users. The “Data Insights and Business Project” is meant to provide “work packages” with data practice and experience. These work packages include: the “Aviapolis Service” package for travelers, the “Good Long Life” package for health research, and the “In Training Insights and Business” package for utilizing analytics and service design. This project started in August 2016, and it is expected to be completed in Decem-ber 2017 (Datasta oivalluksia... 2017).

Companies and the city can bring their own development projects to innovation plat-forms that will be discussed, developed, and tested in collaboration with residents and workers. This user-oriented model creates new innovations and new business (Vantaa – 6Aika 2017). The city community is a unit consisting of citizens, companies, research and educational institutions, and public ad-ministration. Innovation platforms are work-ing environments that enable the develop-ment of new products, services, and markets while allowing the entire city community to work together to create new services, solu-tions, and businesses (Figure 5). Innovation platforms are tools that cover the entire

Figure 5. Innovation Platforms.


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lifecycle of a service - from idea to test-ing, and from testing to production (Vantaa – 6Aika 2017).

To create this innovation platform, Van-taa has launched a few projects that can be explored. First, in the areas of Myyrmäki, Martinlaakso, and Tikkurila, regional entre-preneurship and services will be developed horizontally with various parties. Second, the Petikko-Varisto business area develop-ment aims to improve the vitality of the area. The city will take measures in co-op-eration with the region’s merchant associ-ation and entrepreneurs. Third, the library will be developed as the heart of urban development and as a working environment for the business community. The libraries will create common workspaces, enabling start-ups and ideas for entrepreneurship. Each library will make a strong use of the locality, and the first phase will included Lumo Library Kori, Tikkurila Library, and Point’s Li-brary in Kartanonkoski. Fourth and finally, new solutions to the challenges of the city are being sought; businesses tell the city about their own procurement solutions, from which the city gets new ideas to solve their own challenges. Thus, the city will develop new, need-based procurement solutions (6Aika 2017).

To open involvement and customer relation-ships as well as develop e-business servic-es, Vantaa plans to provide residents with digitalized, comprehensive services that can be used by the customer regardless of time and place (Hautanen 2017). For exam-ple, home-serviced pill dispensers are being tested in Vantaa. Additionally, Vantaa’s health clinics are working with technology companies to develop “Medicine Robots” that can help speed up a patient’s case instruc-tions and improve medicine safety.

Some innovations and projects have also been proposed for the Aviapolis area. The City of Vantaa is developing Aviapolis in close co-operation with a range of stake-holders and business networks (Smart Air-port… 2017). Proposals includes green walls and vertical gardens, car-sharing, auton-omous indoor flying robots, and IoT solu-tions.

Entrepreneurs in the Innovation Platform

Technology-Enabled Local Entrepreneurship

The Internet of Things (IoT) has created value in diverse domains such as healthcare, transportation, environmental sustainabili-ty, advertising, and brand management. (Nam-bisan 2017)

Advancements in new technologies are once again enabling cities to solve their broader problems, particularly in the areas of mo-bility, public services, and infrastructure. In an effort to do so, smart cities often emulate technology platforms, by espousing open data conduits - opening up their data for local entrepreneurs to leverage and cre-ate solutions that lead to urban transforma-tions (Almirall et al. 2016).

Technological innovations are not re-stricted to local or even national pro-jects or ventures but are open to all global companies and technologies (Sarma & Sunny 2017). Entrepreneurs that recognize the op-portunity to solve social problems, provide their solution with the goal of making a financial profit, while municipalities gain the solutions through their cooperation.

Even though it sounds like a win-win plan for both the entrepreneurs and the munic-ipality, it can be challenging for social ventures to operate and scale while trying to balance financial and social missions, especially in a context where the city is a customer as well as a developmental partner. Which, then, is the primary goal: place-based social impact or short-term economic gain? Such dual focus results in ambiguity for entrepreneurs (Townsend & Hart 2008).

To learn from the entrepreneur’s perspec-tive, we interviewed an engineer who worked with the Helsinki Municipality on the Kala-satama project. This interview is not spe-cifically about Vantaa, but nonetheless it gives the audience a general understanding about cooperation between entrepreneurs and the city. His company worked on the develop-ment of trash bin sensors that will be pro-moted in the whole area. We asked him about his working experiences, responsibilities, how the company communicated with the city, and what the benefits and challenges were

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Aspects Benefits and Challenges

Scale Municipal tasks can help the company to expand their markets very quickly. Once the product is ready, it will be used everywhere in the region.

Profit Generous investments for product research and large profit potential for the companies.

Requirements Municipalities have a reputation as demanding clients.

Value pursuit Municipalities pursue the add-on values for branding and marketing in addition to the product’s functions.

Bureaucratic legacy

The bureaucratic process consumes a lot of time and energy for the company (endless meetings and long-waiting process).

Table 2. Benefits and challeng-es in the cooperation with the municipality.

working with the municipality. We summarized his main points in Table 2.

Barriers and Support

Having data open to the public has been an important factor in enabling innova-tive platforms. However, being exposed to big data does not necessarily mean that a startup knows how to use the data for the problem they want to tackle. There seems to be an abundance of data at the city level that is being made available to the public by local city governments, through open data portals (Berrone et al. 2016). Even though there have been many successful cases of startups working successfully with big data, there are still problems when it comes to data utilization. Large companies have the experts and experience, while startups lack technical ICT skills on a large scale to deal with the big data. This creates an in-ability to see the big picture regarding the design as to how the raw data can be used (Sarma & Sunny 2017).

In the case of the “Vantaa Open Innovation Platform,” the principle of the City of Van-

taa is transparency. That is why the city is developing its operating methods and tools to be participatory and open. According to their idea of “Time Strategy,” Vantaa wants to open its own functions, facilities and, more generally, the urban environment for various experiments (Vantaa – 6Aika 2017). With the municipality as the customer and cooperator, keeping the system transparent can create an open and equal atmosphere in the innovative platform.

Some of the barriers for entrepreneurs are the municipality’s bureaucratic methods and their lack of flexibility. The most signifi-cant barriers to adopting smart city solu-tions are the multi-party or multilevel pro-cesses in cities (Falconer & Mitchell 2012). Many areas of government are still locked in legacy systems and incumbent inertia, at times from the change drivers themselves (Hodgkinson 2011). Entrepreneurs began with smaller projects, and the limited scale and scope in hackathons and other events made idea generation an end in itself. This po-tentially explains why the number of ven-tures created from data projects has been limited, and why entrepreneurial activity


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ends upon completion of project objectives (Cohen et al. 2016).

Startups need the continuous input of funding to survive. It either comes from government funding, EU funding (like with 6Aika), or from private angel investments. However, these local entrepreneurs who are embedded in collaborative networks also gen-erally lack the formalized capital that most corporate innovators are likely to possess. Even with well-functioning laboratories, in-ventive or creative problem solving does not readily occur for corporate leaders given that they lack the local context of the ear-lier groups (Browder et al. 2017). A healthy ecosystem is needed to empower the entre-preneurs and provide the tunnel of resource exchange to survive in this open innovation platform.

Working Model

In Vantaa’s innovation platform, the City of Vantaa is the original organizer and spon-sor of many smart city projects, with 6Aika supporting Vantaa’s Business Department to promote smart city strategies in business development. The same intention of solving the city’s problems bonds the city and the civic entrepreneurs together. After all the investigation and analysis we have tried to conclude with the main factors, draw up the working model behind smart city projects, illustrate the direct and indirect connec-tion between the factors, and finally reveal the limits of the factors and how they are influencing each other on a specific aspect (see Figure 6 for an overview of the working model).

In a smart city project, the municipality, entrepreneurs, and the social problems are the three main factors in the working model (1,2,3). The City of Vantaa seeks solutions for social problems through this platform (4), so they play the role of ´Customer´. Entrepreneurs play the role of ´Vendor´ by providing the solutions utilizing technol-ogies on the issue (5). However, we failed to find any formal connection defined in the governing system between the ´Customer´ and the ´Vendor´, they have no channel for di-rect dialogue (6).

There is a third-party organization (7) that works like a neutral agent, looking at both sides and passing on opinions between the municipality and entrepreneurs. In Van-taa, 6Aika is one of the organizations that play the role of agent. Agents usually are the expert on one specific area and have connections with governments. They advise the municipality (8) on the policy level, while at the same time, they work close-ly with entrepreneurs (9) on real projects. When small startups are being working on with a municipality, the agent, as an ex-pert, can help fill the gap between the broad versus narrow scale.

In the case of smart Vantaa projects, the smart city strategy was first utilized in the business department, where the motiva-tion was to provide better business ser-vices. Then the strategy expanded to other social areas like transportation, mobili-ty, and culture (Eskelä 2017). The driving force is still restricted within the same team; the knowledge and experience stays in the silo, and thus it lacks input from other governing units (10).

How startups turn solutions into prof-it is still unclear (11). In the smart city context, most entrepreneurs are offered an opportunity to solve a social problem in which financial returns are not readily clear, nor are the solution’s sustainability (Sarma & Sunny 2017). This is further com-plicated by the fact that social and envi-ronmental impacts are problematic, and ways to gauge performance measurement are still lacking (Austin et al. 2006). Due to the missing interaction with their “customer,” it is hard to predict the risks early in the process. Who will pay for the solution after it is produced? Can the results meet the requirements of the municipality? Who should fund the prior research? Startups need both technical and financial support to survive. From our talk with officers from the City of Vantaa, there is a limited amount of funding (12), so only a few projects can feasibly be implemented.

Open Discussion

After analyzing the current business devel-

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Figure 6. Working model of Vantaa innovation platform.


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opment and employment situation in Vantaa, Helsinki and Espoo in the context of the Helsinki metropolitan area, we can see that Vantaa is developing rapidly in some busi-ness areas, but the business volume is much smaller compared to the other two cities. Smart city strategies could help Vantaa cre-ate a better environment for new technology business development. Vantaa and 6Aika also realized the power enabled by open innova-tion platforms and open data, so the Vantaa Business Department has started to create various new projects on e-services and smart mobility. With the influence of the busy Helsinki Vantaa Airport and the on-going Aviapolis Airport City project, the business potential could be huge in the future.

Vantaa has drawn up many smart city strategies, including the open innovation platform and open data package which are currently underway. At this time, it is im-portant to look at a bigger picture and use systems thinking to consider all the other factors influencing the big picture. Many aspects are needed to improve the current working model including improving the inter-action between government units, providing better tools for communication between the municipality and startups, and simplifying bureaucratic processes. By having an effi-cient system, Vantaa can turn this into an advantage over other cities. Especially by attracting new technology companies and startups, Vantaa can gradually grow itself into a vibrant and innovative business city.

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Almirall, E., Wareham, J., Ratti, C., Cone-sa, P., Bria, F., Gaviria, A. & Ed-mondson, A. (2016). Smart cities at the crossroads: New tensions in city trans-formation. California Management Review. 59, 141–152.

Berrone, P., Ricart, J. E., & Carrasco, C.

(2016). The open kimono: Toward a gen-eral framework for open data initiatives in cities. California Management Review 59(1), 39–70.

Browder, R. E., Aldrich, H. E., & Bradley, S. W. (2017; working paper). Entrepre-neurship research, makers, and the maker movement. DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.20230.37441

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Eskelä, E. (2017). Project Manager, City of Vantaa Business Development Services. In-terview 17.11.2017, interviewed by Chang Liu, Norra Haavisto and Barbara Radaelli.

Falconer, G., & Mitchell, S. (2012). Smart city framework: A systematic process for enabling Smart+Connected Communities. Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group. <https://smartcitiescouncil.com/sites/default/files/public_resources/Smart%20city%20framework_a%20systematic%20pro-cess.pdf>

Hautanen, S. (2017). Vantaalla robotti hoitaa potilaiden verenohennuslääkityk-sen. Verkkouutiset 5.9.2017. <https://www.verkkouutiset.fi/vantaalla-robot-ti-hoitaa-potilaiden-verenohennuslaaki-tyksen-69727/>

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Institute (2017). University of Oxford. 27.11.2017. <http://smartcities.oii.ox.ac.uk/>

Smart Airport City Aviapolis (2017). 27.11.2017. <https://smartcity.aviapolis.fi/>

Townsend, D. M., & Hart, T. A. (2008). Per-ceived institutional ambiguity and the choice of organizational form in social entrepreneurial ventures. Entrepreneur-ship Theory and Practice 32(4), 685–700.

Valtuustokauden strategia 2013–2017 (2015). City of Vantaa.

Vantaa – 6Aika (2017). 27.11.2017. <https://6Aika.fi/kaupungit/vantaa/>


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Car Use in Vantaa: Oppor-tunities That Smart Mo-bility Could Offer

by Noora Haavisto

Introduction

It is clear that cars evoke a wide range of feelings. It can feel liberating when you are able to move around, and empower-ing because you are your own master. You can decide when and where you want to go, and it offers social inclusion when you have the opportunity to see your friends and family. On the other hand, if you are not able to drive, you might feel social exclusion and disempowerment. Some see car ownership as an individual right, while others are concerned about the negative effects of cars in our everyday lives, which will be presented be-low. Some even feel that new mobility solu-tions are an attack on not just their car, but their culture (Sheller 2015, 221–230).

It is presumed that people always make a rational choice when choosing their travel mode. However, this distorts our understand-ing of everyday mobility, because people of-ten do not make rational choices when there are so many feelings involved. This is also the reason why so many attempts to change the behavior of private car usage have failed. Often when drawing up strategies to change people’s mobility behavior, it is forgotten that the car culture consists of material and social dimensions, but above all, affective dimensions. In this instance, affective dimensions refer to the feelings people have towards their cars (Sheller 2015, 221–224).

If cars are so important to us, why do we need to change our habits when the ever-ex-panding mobility of people provides access to employment opportunities, health ser-vices, shopping, and to maintaining social networks (see Mitchell et al. 2010; Banister et al. 2011; A closer look… 2013)? In 2010, for the first time ever, the number of vehi-cles in the world surpassed the one billion

mark. This means that the ratio of vehicles to people was 1:6.75 (World vehicle… 2011). The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) predicts that by 2050, the growth of mobility will increase at least 30 percent (Transport outlook… 2011). In 2015, approximately 83 percent of kilometers travelled in the European Un-ion were done in private cars (Modal split… 2017). However, the utilization rate of cars is extremely poor, as cars are not in use 95 percent of the time (Shoup 2005; Urban mo-bility… 2015). If the passenger miles-trave-led-per-person stays the same, and ownership of cars increases along with GDP, as it has until now, the passenger miles could dou-ble (McKerracher et al. 2016). To function, urban areas need efficient and sustaina-ble transport systems to boost the economic growth and social wellbeing (Schippl & Puhe 2012; A closer look… 2013; McKerracher et al. 2016).

While cars have affected our lives pos-itively in so many ways, and even though transportation is crucial for a lively and competitive urban area, it is also a huge source of negative impacts such as emis-sions, noise pollution, reduced space for living, accidents, traffic congestion, and urban sprawl (Mitchell et al. 2010; Ban-ister et al. 2011; Schippl & Puhe 2012; A closer look… 2013). David Banister et alia (2011) describe greenhouse gas emissions as the most immediate problem in the field of transportation. Traffic congestion costs billions of dollars; in the United States alone, costs are estimated to be 115 billion dollars a year (McKerracher et al. 2016). In 2013, 1.25 million people were killed in road traffic accidents globally (Global status… 2015). On top of that, 50 million people suffer from non-fatal accidents every year, which has economic costs and impacts on the quality of life (Arbib & Seba 2017). These all are serious problems that should be carefully considered.

There is demand for sustainable transpor-tation (Banister et al. 2011), and mobil-ity will most likely look quite different in the future (Hensher 2017). To achieve sustainable transportation, we need to put effort into developing vehicle technology

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and infrastructure, and, most importantly, to reduce car dependency through changing the behavior of travelers (Graham-Rowe et al. 2011; Schippel & Puhe 2012). Individuals will be the key for new modes of transpor-tation to succeed (McKerracher et al. 2016). Urban transportation needs to be viewed from a holistic perspective, as transportation is a system consisting of technical and social aspects. It is important to understand these aspects and how they interrelate, and to be able to influence them (Schippel & Puhe 2012).

This study concentrates on the conditions inside Vantaa and tries to recognize pos-sible car use differences between “suburban centers” and “suburban suburbs.” The aim is to answer the question of whether the car is a part of the Vantaa suburban identity, by studying inhabitants’ car use in Vantaa. This has been done by analyzing several da-tasets, such as data on the number of cars, traveler income, and travel preferences. This information is crucial if we want to change the car identity and people’s mobil-ity behavior. Without knowledge it is hard to make changes. Finally, at the end of this paper, there will be a discussion around smart mobility and how it can help in the context of Vantaa.

Car and Suburban Identity in Vantaa

Car Use in Vantaa

Urbanization in the 1900s was mostly caused by industrial expansion, which was enabled by assembly lines and the growth of services and commodities. Industrialization made it possible to build cities based on mass tran-sit modes. Responding to this modernization, political and administrative decisions were made so that people could actually afford to consume these products. This is called Fordism as Henry Ford, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, was one of the first who thought it was important for his employees to be able to buy the products they manu-factured. He created the famous Model T car, so that the working class could actually afford to buy a car. (Perkins & Thorns 2012,

56–57).In this way, Ford had a considerable im-

pact on the mass markets being formed. This growth in available commodities created the birth of suburbia in the 1950s. After that cities were no longer planned for pub-lic transport, but for private cars. Hence private cars enabled the birth and growth of suburbs (Perkins & Thorns 2012, 56–57). As cars have had such a major impact on the birth of suburbia, it would be difficult to argue that cars are not part of suburban identity.

Of course, it would be a sweeping gener-alization to assume this is also the case in Vantaa, and it is also important to recog-nize that the book by Perkins and Thorns was not written in the Finnish context. However according to Sari Hirvonen (2005), who wrote the history of urban planning in Vantaa, the opportunity to own your own car did strengthen Vantaa’s position as a suburb of Helsinki. During the great depression in the 1930s, as an action of support, the gov-ernment employed unemployed people to build highways. As a result, all the main highways to Helsinki went through Vantaa. Car traf-fic was suitable for the rural municipality, where distances were long and commuting by bus was difficult. In 1951, the metropoli-tan region had a transportation crisis, and private car ownership was considered to be a way to relieve the pressure of the need for improved public transportation. Thus, traffic planning was based on private cars (Hirvonen 2005, 15–21).

Nowadays, inhabitants of Vantaa are in-creasing their use of private cars. The Helsinki Regional Transport Authority made a study of mobility preferences in 2012. This study indicates that in the Helsinki met-ropolitan area, private car usage is only increasing in Vantaa. Between 2008 and 2012, the number of no-car households increased in Helsinki, Espoo, and Kauniainen. Only in Vantaa has the proportion of no-car house-holds decreased, and the proportion of two-car households increased. In Helsinki, half of all trips were made by public transport, while in Vantaa the proportion was only one-third (Liikennetottumukset... 2015, 69–93).


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When comparing the proportion of com-muting to that of leisure/shopping by car, the difference is quite large: 66 percent of commutes were made by car, whereas the amount for leisure/shopping was 80 percent. One interesting thing to note is that people in their thirties (many of whom have chil-dren) were the ones who increased their use of public transport, whereas the over-65 demographic increased their use of the car (Liikennetottumukset... 2015, 69–93).

GIS Analyses

Figures 7 and 8 have been created to vis-ualize important facts that can help us to define the role of cars in Vantaa’s subur-ban identity. The data came from Statistics Finland (Income and… 2017). The car data are from 2016, and the number of inhabitant is from 2017. Figure 7 shows the ratio of cars in proportion to inhabitants in Vantaa. The residential areas are included to show how much of one post code area is actually in-habited. Figure 8 shows the average income of one post code in 2017. By comparison, the average income of Finland was 28,750 euros in 2015 (Income and… 2017). For both maps, the classes have been divided into quar-tiles, so each class contains one quarter of the post codes.

This analysis contrasts the car usage ratio of suburban areas and center are-as. Center areas were considered to be the five city centers which Vantaa is currently developing: Tikkurila, Aviapolis, Myyrmäki, Kivistö, and Hakunila. Figure 7 indicates that Hakunila and Myyrmäki are in the lowest quartile, none of Vantaa’s city centers are in the second lowest quartile, Tikkurila and Kivistö are in the second highest quartile, and Aviapolis is in the highest quartile. These results do not directly support the assertion that cars would be a part of sub-urban identity because the center areas also have a high ratio of cars. These results from city centers vary greatly and subse-quently raise the question: what is suburbia and what is a center? According to Hirvonen (2005, 95), at least until the 1970s, Vantaa was officially considered to be a suburb of Helsinki and not its own city. This could

still have strong effects on the mindset of the inhabitants and officials of Vantaa, even today. Also, according to Oya Duman (in this book), Vantaa is still in the very early stage of multicentricity, and the only true center that can be identified in the Helsinki metropolitan area is Helsinki.

After undertaking this analysis it became clear that post code areas are not precise enough for analysis. For example, Tikkuri-la has a center around the railway station, but also has large areas that are character-ized more often as suburban. Additionally, the postcode area of Hakunila is vast, so it cannot entirely be considered to be a center from end to end.

Interestingly, along the railway lines in the east from Tikkurila to Korso, and in the west from Myyrmäki to Martinlaakso, the car ratio is almost invariably in the two lower quantiles. It needs to be taken into account that the Ring Rail (opened in July 2015) had only been operating for 18 months when these car data were collected, which partly explains why the car ratio is quite high along that part of the railway lines. This is compelling evidence that good public transport can decrease the number of cars, and this is itself important information, even though it does not directly answer the research question.

Also interesting in this analysis are the clear differences in the car cultures of east and west Vantaa. Could this be ex-plained by the different quality of pub-lic transport? According to Vantaa’s 6Aika specialist Elina Eskelä (2017), who was interviewed for this study, east and west Vantaa identify themselves very differently. This is only strengthened by the fact that before the Ring Rail, the public trans-portation connections between the east and west were very poor. So, is the car a part of the western Vantaa identity but not that of east-Vantaa? Should the research ques-tion be, “Are cars more a part of western Vantaa’s identity compared to east-Vantaa’s identity?” Then the car identity would not be explained by the suburban characteris-tic of one’s living habitat, but more by the geographical location’s accessibility. Could it be that cars have an agglomeration

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Figure 7. The ratio of cars to the population.


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effect, so that if your neighbor has a car, you will buy one also?

As the car ownership ratio is drastical-ly different between the east and west, it is also interesting and important to analyze the income differences. According to Salla Kuisma (2017), who studied the daily travel of Finnish people, 29 percent of low income (under €20,000) households have a car in Finland, whereas 86 percent of high income (over €40,000) households own one. The dif-ference of income related to car ownership can be seen also in Figure 8. West Vantaa has more cars but also higher incomes. In western Vantaa around half of the post codes have income in the two higher quartiles, whereas eastern Vantaa has only a few. This supports Kuisma’s thesis that people with more money have more cars. So, is the car identity related more to geographical loca-tion and income, than living environment?

Travel Preferences of Vantaa Inhabitants

Kuisma (2017), in cooperation with VTT Tech-nical Research Centre of Finland, has stud-ied the travel preferences of Finnish people in the five biggest cities in Finland. She kindly allowed us to use her questionnaire data, of 1,163 respondents, in this study. For this study the data have been limited to considering only the 109 respondents from Vantaa. The questionnaire was executed by Taloustutkimuskeskus, and the data were ana-lyzed by SPSS software.

Of those 109 respondents in Vantaa, 87 percent had a car in their household, 90 percent had a driving license, and 87 per-cent had a public transport pass. Table3 indicates the transport mode options the respondents had on their ordinary trips. Almost all respondents had the opportunity to use the bus in their everyday travels, and only 75 percent had the option of using a car.

From the respondents in Vantaa, 20 percent were very satisfied, and 47 percent were quite satisfied with the public transport connections in their city; meaning 67 per-cent were satisfied with the public trans-portation in Vantaa. This does not correlate

with the actual use of public transport, because 56 percent of respondents used a car daily or almost daily, but only 31 percent used public transportation daily or almost daily.

Why were the respondents generally some-what satisfied with the public transport of Vantaa, but still did not use it often, even when inhabitants had the opportunity to use different public transport modes more than a car? This could be explained with the pleasantness of different transport modes. Table 4 indicates that almost 80 percent of respondents feel that travelling by car is very pleasant or pleasant, whereas only around 30 percent feel that busses are, and 40 percent feel that trains are very pleas-ant or pleasant. Thus, it is probable that cars are used more often, because people feel more pleasant travelling with them. It is important to study which factors would make the public transport more pleasant to passengers and then make adequate changes.

When asking the respondents about the factors that are important for their travel to work or study places, speed was the most important factor (Table 5), as 56.8 percent of the respondents answered that speed was very important. This also explains the use of cars, as they are usually considered to be the fastest travel mode. The second most important factor was freedom of not being bound to transport time tables; people like to travel when they feel like doing so. The third most important factor was changing be-tween vehicles. It is not considered pleas-ant if you cannot get to your destination with only one vehicle. The disadvantages of public transport are thus considered to be the slow speed, binding timetables, the effects of weather conditions, and indirect lines.

Smart Opportunities in Vantaa

Smart mobility is one of the main charac-teristics of smart cities: it will help to reduce congestion, lower accident rates, improve air quality, shrink the urban foot-print required for parking, and be a tool for achieving sustainable city development. There is no standard definition for smart

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Figure 8. The annual average income by postcode.


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On ordinary trips, do you have the possibility to use car, bus or train? (%) in Vantaa (n=109)

Mode of transportation Yes No

Car 75.2 24.8

Bus 93.6 6.4

Train 79.8 20.2

How pleasant do you usually find travelling with the following modes? (%) in Vantaa (n=109)

7 = Very pleasant 1 = Very unpleasant

Car Bus Train

7 56.9 7.3 15.9

6 31.2 22.0 24.8

5 7.3 25.7 26.6

4 1.8 25.7 18.3

3 - 12.8 5.5

2 - 3.7 4.6

1 0.9 0.9 0.9

Table 3. Inhabitants possibility to use dif-ferent mobility modes (Kuisma 2017).

Table 4. The pleasant-ness experienced by the inhabitants of Vantaa when using different mobility modes (Kuisma 2017).

Table 5. The importance of different factors when travelling to work/study (Kuisma 2017).

How important are the following factors for your trips to work/study? (%) in Vantaa (n=109)

9 = Very important 1 = Not at all important

Travelling doesn’t require much money

I travel by the fastest means possible

I am not bound to transport timetables

As little walking as possible

I don’t have to be outside in bad weather

Number of changes between vehicles

9 18.9 56.8 40.5 5.4 21.6 36.5

8 10.8 12.2 10.8 9.5 14.9 16.2

7 14.9 9.5 14.9 13.5 16.2 9.5

6 13.5 8.1 5.1 6.8 12.2 10.8

5 14.9 4.1 6.8 8.1 12.2 6.8

4 6.8 4.1 2.7 9.5 6.8 2.7

3 4.1 2.7 9.5 18.9 4.1 4.1

2 5.4 1.4 6.8 6.8 6.8 4.1

1 9.5 1.4 1.4 17.6 4.1 6.8

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mobility, as the research is still only in its early stages (Faria et al. 2017). Albino et alia (2015, 11) describe smart mobili-ty as, “the use of ICT in modern transport technologies to improve urban traffic.” There are also other definitions, but they all have in common that information and com-munication technologies (ICT) should be used (Faria et al. 2017).

Finland is currently one of the leading countries in the field of smart mobility, and Vantaa should take advantage of that. Finland is the home to the first mobil-ity-as-a-service ecosystem in the world, called “Maas Global” (see Better than… 2017), and Finnish legislation is favorable towards autonomous vehicles (Smart mobility 2017). Therefore, it is disappointing that the public transport report for Vantaa’s master plan 2020 does not mention smart mo-bility at all (Joukkoliikennekaupunki Vantaa 2014). Does this mean that smart mobility solutions are being left only to private businesses to worry about? Businesses can only accomplish so much on their own; they need efficient policies and regulations to support their endeavors, as well as close cooperation with city officials.

According to the Vantaa Strategy 2013–2017, the transportation system based on public transport will tie Vantaa into the Helsinki region city network. Densification of the city structure and development of public transport provide the opportunity to renew the service structure. The key objec-tives are to concentrate building along the railway lines, so the need for private cars diminishes (Valtuustokauden… 2015). This is evidence that Vantaa has realized that some-thing must be done with the use of private cars. However, the strategy does not provide an explanation of how precisely they are go-ing to decrease the number of private cars. The simple need for decreasing private cars does not mean that the number of private cars will actually decrease. As a matter of fact, Vantaa is increasing the number of parking lots in park-and-rides along the railways (Valtuustokauden… 2015). The offi-cials of Vantaa need to be careful that the increased number of park-and-rides will not just encourage people to drive more. They

are of course important to some inhabitants, as they enable some people to only drive to the station, versus all the way. But these should not be considered the best solution to the “last mile problem,” because it still involves the use of private cars.

Since the usage of private cars is in-creasing in Vantaa, one solution could be robot busses. Interviews done with passen-gers of the “Easymile EZ-10” robot bus (that operated in Otaniemi, Espoo, in the fall of 2017) (Robot bus… 2017), revealed that even those who strongly preferred a car as their primary mode of transportation, stat-ed that they would be willing to travel by robot bus, even though they would not use a normal bus. Over all, the respondents of those interviews considered robot buses as a positive innovation. Harri Santamala, the project manager of the robot bus project at the Metropolia University of Applied Scienc-es, stated in an interview in Kauppalehti (Viljanen 2016), that he believes that when there is better access to public trans-port, and it takes commuters closer to their destination, it will discourage the use of private cars. He also says that robot busses are convenient during bad weather, which was one of the important factors of respondents in Kuisma’s (2017) questionnaire. In this sense, robot buses could transport people from the railway station to home, and the other way around. The effects of robot buses could be intensified with the ability to summon the bus in real time so that it would take you directly home. This could also be one solution for the last mile problem of train stations. Robot buses could be sum-moned to your home and transport you to the station, in which case there would not be a need to build more park-and-ride lots.

The question that Vantaa’s urban plan-ners should be considering is how can public goals, (such as encouraging higher produc-tivity and reducing congestion, while the bringing related benefits of fewer traffic accidents, better air quality, and a smaller urban footprint for parking), be supported with today’s expanded mobility ecosystems (Viechnicki et al. 2015)? The advantage Van-taa has is the ring rail. Figure 7 indicated that there are fewer cars beside the ring


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rail. It is not beneficial to build rail-way lines to all parts of Vantaa, but it is possible to increase the range of the area which the railway lines influence. This is possible with the so-called last mile solu-tions, like robot busses.

Vantaa has a large role in the 6Aika strategy, which will lead to the develop-ment of more open and smart services and its aim is to provide more knowledge, business-es, and jobs in Finland (Uutta kaupunkia... 2017). But according to Eskelä (2017), Van-taa has the least application submissions for 6Aika. It would benefit the municipality to support the local businesses in apply-ing for funding from 6Aika and develop their business ideas. One good action could be to improve awareness of the 6Aika program. One innovative shared taxi startup company which was funded by 6Aika in Vantaa is “Vedia.” Vedia provides shared trips to people going the same direction, creating cheaper and more environmentally friendly ways to travel (Vedia Taxi… 2016).

The important factors of traveling, ac-cording to the respondents of Kuisma’s (2017) questionnaire, were speed, not being bound to timetables, not waiting in bad weather, and the number of vehicle changes. How smart mobility could tackle these prob-lems should be explored. The speed could be solved with better management of transporta-tion and better applications that illustrate the possible mobility options. If smart mobility manages to make public transport more attractive, by increasing the number of users, it would be possible to have more vehicles, and thus more frequent trips. This would help with the current feeling of being bound to timetables.

Conclusions

Private cars have negative effects on our lives, but many people are still attached to them, as they evoke strong feelings. This study aimed to assess if cars are, in fact, a part of Vantaa’s suburban identity. This was a harder task than expected. According to the GIS analyses, it cannot be direct-ly said that the car is a part of suburban identity in Vantaa. Instead, a stronger cor-

relation can be found with income and geo-graphical location. Also, data more precise than postcodes would be needed to define if the car is a part of suburban identity, as there can be a variety of different living environments in a single postcode. But this raised the question of if Vantaa is just a suburb of Helsinki, and therefore it does not have centers, thus the suburban identi-ty cannot be defined in this study. But if a car is indeed a part of Vantaa’s identity it can only encourage other inhabitants to acquire a car for the feeling of belonging. Then the disadvantages of cars will be em-phasized.

Travel preferences revealed that inhabit-ants of Vantaa are generally satisfied with the city’s public transport. However, that satisfaction does not actually correlate with the use of public transport. Only 31 percent of residents used public transport daily or almost daily. This is the gap on which Vantaa should take action. Even when cars are considered to be the most pleasant mode of travel, it is important to note that busses and trains were not considered to be unpleasant. It would definitely be possible to increase the inhabitants’ use of public transport; especially with regards to the factors residents felt were important when travelling, which are generally not realized in public transport today. The travel pref-erence data of Vantaa inhabitants should be exploited to make a change in the behavior of car users.

Mobility practices are changing and new mobility services, based on the concept of smart mobility, are popping up constant-ly. Therefore, it is a bit disappointing that Vantaa does not mention smart mobili-ty in their public transport report, which is related to the 2020 master plan. Indi-vidual private mobility projects will not diminish the use of cars, which is the key mobility-related objective of Vantaa. Vantaa could actually inadvertently create more inequality if there is no public opera-tor controlling the development. If Vantaa will rely only on the current public trans-port mode opportunities to reduce the use of cars, it will most likely fail. Those opportunities have done basically the oppo-

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site in the past, so why would they do any differently in the future? Thus, the only way is the introduction of smart mobili-ty, with which the support of the city is crucial. The good thing is that Vantaa is considering the question of transportation in their strategy, although concrete actions are still missing from it. It is a mistake to believe that by concentrating the build-ing of houses beside the railway lines would automatically decrease the use of cars. Ac-tions need to be taken to change the behav-ior of car users.

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ment-in-aviapolis-vantaa/>Viechnicki P., Khuperkar A., Fishman, T. D.

& Eggers, W. D. (2015). Smart mobility: Reducing congestion and fostering fast-er, greener, and cheaper transportation options. Deloitte University Press.

Viljanen, M. (2016). Älyliikenne on huomis-en miljardibisnes. Kauppalehti 15.9.2016. <https://www.kauppalehti.fi/uutiset/alyliikenne-on-huomisen-miljardibisnes/dAJUkUEs>

World vehicle population tops 1 billion units (2011). Wardsauto. 7.10.2017. <http://wardsauto.com/news-analysis/world-vehicle-population-tops-1-bil-lion-units>

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Smart Participatory Art

by Barbara Radaelli-Muuronen

Introduction

This study is a review of the opportunity of maximizing cultural value in the subur-ban area of Aviapolis, as it is going to be developed into a vivid aerotropolis. The main goal is to describe the existing ways of funding and actualizing public art, but also proposing new ideas of art acquisition through citizens’ participation, using arti-ficial intelligence and financing art with the participatory budgeting model.

The opprtunities for art to improve the value of new areas such as Aviapolis will be discussed. Aviapolis is a hub of interna-tional interaction, with 1.6 million tour-ists and business travelers passing through it each year. Public art in Aviapolis can thus work as a showcase of Finnish design and help strengthen the Finnish brand. With these premises, investments in art and de-sign would add great value to the area of Aviapolis, and would provide even more in-ternational prestige to the entire country, in the cultural and artistic spheres.

The suggestion of a new participatory way of financing art is an addition to the traditional percentage financing princi-ple, which can be used to acquire art in new construction or renovated areas, but not necessarily for projects that do not strict-ly belong to the political strategies of the City. This new potential form of public art procurement, the participatory budget-ing model, would be used as an additional form of financing art, when the acquisition of public art is desired for an idea coming from the residents of a neighborhood.

Recently many Finnish cities have intro-duced participatory budgeting models. On No-vember 13, The Helsinki City Board approved the implementation of a participation plan for 2018–2021, based on the City principles of participation and interaction (Helsinki’s

new… 2017). During spring 2017, the City of Vantaa began the development of “Participa-tory Vantaa” with citizens and city services (Osallistuva Vantaa… 2017). This means that there is the opportunity for Vantaa to cre-ate a new form of art: Smart Participatory Art.

Finland is already internationally well known for good design and technology. The willingness to develop new forms of partic-ipatory art using artificial intelligence was recently demonstrated during the ARS17 Hackathon, an event organized by the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, in collabora-tion with the Microsoft Corporation (ARS17… 2017). Artificial intelligence could be used to engage residents to make a better city for themselves, for example by sending in-novative ideas through applications when en-tering geo-fences in new construction areas. These applications already exist for other general purposes; it is my suggestion to ex-tend their use to participatory art as well.

In this study, I describe two internation-al cases as examples of enhancing suburban areas with resident’s participation in art. The cases include: Renzo Piano & G124 “Under the Viaduct” in Rome, Italy, as well as an extremely colorful project realized in Bra-zilian favelas by Dutch artists Haas &Hahn. These two cases illustrate that through art, it is possible to achieve sustainability and raise the sense of membership in a neighbor-hood. I claim that similar participatory art projects in Aviapolis would most probably provide an improved sense of identity and citizenship to old and new residents alike, and it could be accomplished with the use of existing smart applications and artifi-cial intelligence. Aviapolis is located in a knot of national and international exchang-es; investment in art in the urban space will equate to a global launch platform for artists living in Finland, and the neighbor-hood residents would be patrons of the arts through their own smart participation.

A survey run by The Percent for Art Pro-ject revealed that Finnish people love art and they want to see it in their everyday life (Kansalaisten käsityksiä… 2014; Pulkki-nen & Hannus 2015a). In the fall TNS Gallup was commissioned to survey Finnish peo-

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ple’s feelings about art in their everyday environments. TNS Gallup conducted tele-phone interviews with 1,004 Finns aged between 15 and 79. Seventy percent of the respondents said they wanted to see art in their everyday environments, such as res-idential areas, workplaces, and schools. The respondents unanimously agreed on the importance of art, regard-less of their age or place of residence. 71 percent of the respondents believed that art increases the value of a residential area or property. Nearly half (44 %) would also be prepared to pay a lit-tle more for an owner-occu-pied apartment if around one percent of its building costs were spent on art. As Avia-polis is going to build not only working places, but also residential areas (Aviapolis Frame… 2014), the percent-age financing principle by private developers should be emphasised.

The Role of Art in Urban Space

Art and Everyday Environments

Art has a vital role to play in our environment and has become an integral part of many urban areas. A high-quality environment is essential for good quality of life and high quality public art is necessary to create that environment, be it an open space, public building, hospital or ed-ucation facility. (O’Dono-ghue 2004, 5)

Figure 9. Keilaniemi Metro sta-tion, Espoo. Grönlund & Nisunen’s installation creates local identi-ty with its distinctiveness. (pho-to: Barbara Radaelli-Muuronen)


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Since ancient times, art has been used as a commemorative process of past events, helping to overcome traumatizing pasts, and negotiate power relations and social val-ues. Nowadays public art tends to create and renew local identities with the synthesized design of local elements. One of the newest successful examples of art in urban space in Finland can be seen at the Keilaniemi metro station, Espoo. The installation is made of led-light tubes under a black ceiling, cre-ating an illusion of the roof disappearing. At the same time, it is a reflection of the identity of the area, which is strongly con-nected to science and technology. The great work, made by artists Tommi Grönlund and Petteri Nisunen, provokes in the everyday traveler an impactful experience of a light-ing monument, and with its distinctiveness, the environment creates its local identity (Figure 9).

Art also helps to increase well-being and creates meaning for everyday life. For decades, Finland has gained international acclaim for its stylish design. Contemporary art often originates from industrial ceram-ic art, textile art, glass art, and exper-imental design based on conceptual contents (Ornamo 2017). Culture becomes available to everyone when placed in everyday environ-ments like schools, kindergartens, hospi-tals, and parks. When placed on everyday routes like at the aforementioned metro sta-tion, or a bench at the bus stop, these can become the landmark of an area. Furthermore, quoting a review conducted by The UK Art Council (The value… 2014):

Arts and culture play an important role promoting social and economic growth through local regeneration, attracting tourists, the development of talent and innovation, improving health and wellbe-ing, and delivering essential service.

Therefore, the role of urban art in the international area of Aviapolis would have great influence on the Finnish national brand.

Aviapolis’ Potential in the Artistic Sphere

Aviapolis is a fast-growing suburban area located near the Helsinki Vantaa Airport, which was built in 1952 for the Olympic Games. The International Airport brought to the surrounding areas industries, logis-tics and offices, as well as houses designed by Alvar Aalto in Aerola (Aviapolis Frame… 2014). At the moment, Aviapolis is home to more than 18,000 residents and new resi-dential blocks are to be built next to the Aerola buildings. In the future, the Avia-polis Airport City of Vantaa intends to be the most coveted business area in Europe, being located at an exceptional traffic flow location. The annual number of passengers at the airport exceeded 10 million in 2000. In 2013, more than 15 million passengers trav-elled through the Airport, and it is esti-mated that the growth will continue steadi-ly, in particular the traffic to Asia. The area hosts 1,900 companies employing 35,000 people (Aviapolis Frame… 2014). Aviapolis offers, among other services, business-ori-ented hotel facilities, spas for tourists, a huge shopping center, and an international school.

The newest promoter for growth in the area is the Ring Rail, connecting Helsinki Air-port to the Helsinki city center. The stra-tegic position and the premises available in Aviapolis (Figure 10) have the potential to transform the currently confused suburban area into a vivid, successful, livable, and diverse urban city. This would provide even more international prestige to the citizens of Vantaa, as well as Finland as a whole. If there is to be a significant investment in public and private art and design, the prof-it would be on a national scale.

Pauline Guinnard and Antonin Margier (2017) stated that:

In a context of increased urban compe-tition, art and culture are often used by cities world-wide as tools to improve their image and make urban spaces attrac-tive. In that process, art is becoming a new urban norm, which is normalizing not only urban space and experience, but also art itself.

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Figure 10. Map of Aviapolis. Hosting Finland’s largest airport, the in-ternational connections of Aviapolis are broad. The new Ring Rail makes Aviapolis even more accessible (Aviapolis Frame… 2014).


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In order to understand how planning is be-ing done for Aviapolis, in terms of art as a tool to attract citizens and visitors, we interviewed Elina Eskelä, City of Vantaa Business Development Services Project Manag-er and Six City Strategy (6Aika) Coordina-tor. According to the interview, Aviapolis is intended to be built as a smart city. The Vantaa Art Museum is willing to promote more accessible art, and they seek to con-nect layers of history with technology. For example, a park, inspired by the ice age and explorable by virtual reality, will be cre-ated in Vantaa (Eskelä 2017). Also, the city is striving to make new public art acquisi-tions inclusive and accessible to everyone, preferably outdoors rather than inside prem-ises, which excludes some viewers.

The growth of Aviapolis in terms of new workplaces, hotels, companies, shops, studi-os, and residential areas will create huge opportunities for art and design. For in-stance, the new buildings and infrastructure alone create opportunities to develop modern architecture, to design smart transporta-tion, and to landscape the new construction sites. Furthermore, there will be a great opportunity for artists to work with innova-tive ideas in multimedia, lighting, and all forms of digitalization to produce smart art on any scale.

Participatory Art and Design

In this section, I present two internation-al cases of participatory art which are good examples of enhancing suburban identity. As the Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning ar-chitect Renzo Piano (Architect… 2015) says, “The periphery of the cities are not beau-tiful, of course; they are not well treated. But they are the future of the city; or they are the city of the future, if you prefer.” In 2014, with the help of six young archi-tects (the group named G124), Piano start-ed a project to renew a disused viaduct in a suburban area of Rome. The participatory plan desired to be sustainable, walkable, and to connect communities. The team worked on giving a new life to the viaduct, and thus enhancing the local economy through design, and transforming the abandoned area

into a cultural hub. The project was re-alized with shipping containers to host workshops for local residents. Furniture was made from used tires, and art installations were made from recycled materials, as an economic and sustainable choice.

Another challenging participatory public art project took place in Brazil in 2011, to transform the rough neighborhood of Villa Cruzeiro. The project was led by artists Dre Urhahn and Jeroen Koolhaas (ie. Haas&Hahn) from Holland. The artists had the vision to change the perceptions of “bad neighbor-hoods,” by engaging locals to paint a new colorful neighborhood themselves. Haas&Hahn have given color to poor and gray suburbs in Philadelphia, to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and also in Haiti. They gave locals in tough neighborhoods the opportunity to change the image of their living areas just by using colors (How art… 2017).

Hass&Hahn completed their mission of in-spiring locals to give a new identity to their own neighborhood through an extraor-dinary art project on a massive scale. The project was crowdsourced with the aim of transforming a favela in Rio de Janeiro into an astonishing place where residents were happy to live, and tourists would visit (Favela Painting… 2017). In the beginning, only a few people participated in paint-ing the walls, but by the end, the project had enormous success (How art… 2017). The project highly enhanced the sense of pride and membership to the place. Residents that had dreamed of leaving the slums, now wanted to stay, as they saw that it was possible for positive change. It is important to note that that change was not merely economic, but also an improvement in the quality of life was guaranteed, through the improved aesthetics of the surroundings.

Similar workshops have been conducted in Vantaa. For example, in 2015, two school children named Onni & Bruno, sought permis-sion from the City Mayor to renovate two bus stops in the Ylästö neighborhood. After receiving permission, they worked on the project with a team of their friends, guided by their teacher. Materials and a workshop were provided by the City of Vantaa. The re-sult was colorful and innovative. They even

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added interactive led-lights to the walls, which travelers can choose the colors of, while they wait for the bus. The project immediately gained (positive) media interest as a participatory initiative run by chil-dren, and one which ended in a work of art that now belongs to Vantaa City’s public art collection (Aikuiset eivät… 2015).

During a workshop about Smart Cities organized by the start-up company Chaos Ar-chitects in November 2017, I was inspired by the possibility of joining participa-tory methods and IoT technology, to engage citizens in planning new art projects. One example is the aim of Geo-fences sending push-notifications to remind and to enhance the experience of creating a better city. The concept of Geo-fences was introduced to workshop participants by the Proximi.io company, which already had an application for participatory ideas on new construction areas in Helsinki. The “Happy City” applica-tion was also introduced as a smart solution to vote for the best urban ideas (The first… 2017). Applications for participatory plan-ning are meant to inspire citizens to create a better city with different ideas, but a specific application for art would be par-ticularly useful for new construction areas in Aviapolis.

A suggestion for an alternative form of smart participatory art in Aviapolis could be realized in the form of a Hacka-thon event. Hackathons are typically two or three day events, in which a large number of different professionals meet to engage in collaborative computer programming. Similar-ly, in November 2016 the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art and Microsoft organized the 21-hour “ARS17 Hackathon” event. During the event, eight artists and eight developers showcased their talent through a new inter-active and digital creation event. The ARS17 Hackathon engaged artists and IT develop-ers to create an understanding of digital opportunities. It also offered participants the opportunity to experiment and devel-op different ways of working and networking among various experts from different fields (ARS17… 2017). Aviapolis could be an optimal environment to organize a Hackathon event, inviting artists and developers from all

over the world to brainstorm their abili-ties. As a central location of logistics and travel transfers, Aviapolis offers business and technology facilities, as well as a fu-ture new huge multifunctional entertainment and media studio. According to their inter-net site (Aviapolis Studios 2017), “Aviapo-lis Studios [will offer] common spaces and events that support courageous thinking and shared know-how for everyone in the indus-try.” These premises would have a great im-pact on the growth of digital and multimedia art on an international scale.

How Public Art is Financed

Percentage Financing

In Finland, as in many other countries, the public art collection of a city can be ac-quired through the so-called percentage fi-nancing principle. The percentage financing principle (also known as the percentage for art principle) means that one percent of the construction costs of public buildings (hos-pitals, daycare centers, libraries, schools, youth centers, metro stations, etc.) are reserved for the acquisition of artwork, to be placed on the site in city areas (Pulkki-nen & Hannus 2015a–b). This financing model is primarily used to commission new art works (Prosenttiraha… 2017). In general, the acquisitions are done in cooperation with architects, property developers, artists, and usually with the aim of a city art muse-um coordinating the different participants. Percentage-financed works of art are usu-ally acquired to for placement in outdoor locations, in parks or street construction projects. It is also possible to apply the percentage financing principle to renovation projects (Pulkkinen & Hannus 2015a–b).

For decades, many cities in Finland have applied the percentage financing principle for acquiring public art. The Vantaa Art Museum is responsible for acquiring public artwork in Vantaa. Outdoor sculptures and environmental art pieces are visible ele-ments of the city’s art collection. At the moment, Vantaa has about forty pieces of public art outdoors, most of which were ac-quired through the percentage for art prin-


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ciple. To provide a few ex-amples, public art in Vantaa ranges from a bronze sculp-ture made by Laila Pullinen in the 1970s, to Anssi Asun-ta’s Cinetic Cubes outside the Heureka Finnish Science Center acquired in 1989, to mural art in Myyrmäki real-ized in 2016.

During 2015, the City of Vantaa started an interest-ing art project in Leinelä, an area that was ranked as one of the most desired new residential areas in Fin-land in a survey carried out by Taloussanomat (Leinelä in… 2017). This colorful art district is made unique by the area’s environmen-tal art. Artist Vesa-Pek-ka Rannikko was responsible for the general plan, but a great team of artists was involved: Anni Laakso, Hilda Kozár, Demis Ziegler Markku Pääkkönen, and Heimo Suntio. The works are part of the everyday lives of the area (Figures 11, 12). For exam-ple, the multisensory benches by artist Hilda Kozari are made to be enjoyed with other senses than vision. Some of them are impregnated with tar to evoke the fragrance, and one of them has braille alphabet letters on it, to be enjoyable by persons who do not have the capacity to see them. Anni Laakso’s Puun-haltijankolo on the yard of a kindergarten it is a sculp-ture, inside which children can play.

Also, the Leinelä rail-way station, opened in 2015, is enhanced with art. The station has already become famous among train travelers for the public art work, ti- Figure 12. Public Art work at the Leinelä Railway Station, 2015,

Tuula Närhinen: Animation. (photo: Barbara Radaelli-Muuronen)

Figure 11. Leinelä Art project, Tuula Närhinen: Night shadows.(photo: Barbara Radaelli-Muuronen)

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tled “Animation” by Tuula Närhinen, repre-senting an evolutionary sequence of silhou-ettes made of aluminum. In the same year, the Vantaa Art Museum created a residential design participation project in Aviapolis with three environmental art projects real-ized by artist Heini Matveinen and Ari Björn (Tällaisia taideteoksia… 2015).

The percentage financing principle can also be applied by private developers (Pulkkinen & Hannus 2015 a–b), known as the percentage financing principle by private developers. The systematic practice of this principle would enhance the identity and financial value of a suburban area like Aviapolis. A motivating factor for private developers to invest in art would be the ad-ditional value, both cultural and financial, which cultural heritage would provide.

In addition to the percent for art, anoth-er form of financing art acquisitions could be developed within the residential partic-ipation model and partnership. In Finland, the residential participation model is a new form of budgeting, which is also going to be introduced in Vantaa. Active resident participation could be an additional way to acquire art or develop art projects when the principle of financing art could not be applied.

Conclusions

Airports of today are experiencing a great business evolution. In addition to their primary aeronautical services, they have developed a significant amount of non-aer-onautical services and are gaining a large share of revenue from non-aviation indus-tries. These changes concern also air-ports’ direct neighboring area. The new model of airport urban planning puts an airport in the center and allows to build up variety of businesses and venues around it. (Klos 2014, 1)

During the next 35 years, Aviapolis will be at the heart of the Helsinki metropolitan region and will be unique in the area, since Aviapolis will diversify and grow consid-erably faster than the rest of the capital region.

Comfortable surroundings do not emerge au-tomatically. When constructing the area, the existing environment values must be used to their full potential and “Aviapolis Quality” must be the requirement for new construc-tion, as well as for the new city environ-ment. The frame plan will define the best locations for living and for resident ser-vices. In cases where environmental distur-bances set restrictions on the use of areas, housing must be implemented in all places where it is possible (Aviapolis Frame… 2014, 8–20).

In a negative scenario of the future, it would be possible for noise and air pollu-tion caused by the airport to affect the quality of life in Aviapolis, and this would limit the vividness of the area. On the oth-er hand, in recent years, sound isolation technology has improved enormously, and the City of Vantaa should be able to decrease the number of decibels to make Aviapolis a livable airport city. Another possible issue could be that residents proposing partici-patory projects would not be listened to by the decision makers, which would cause frus-tration and end motivation to aspire for the collective good.

In a positive scenario of the future, the concept of aerotropolis applied to Helsin-ki-Vantaa, would not only enhance the iden-tity of Aviapolis, but would also enhance the aesthetic appeal and the cultural her-itage. The artistic value of the area would encourage economic growth for landowners, improve tourism, and offer new job oppor-tunities. Finavia has already taken a step forward in enriching Aviapolis with an in-novative sculpture (Bird) by Stefan Lindfors (Helsinki Airport 2017).

As Finland has strong high-tech skills and citizens aspire to equality, Aviapolis could make participatory smart art unique and known all over the world, enhancing also other more traditional forms of art and de-sign, which are already well represented.

REFERENCES

Aikuiset eivät saaneet töhrittyä bus-sipysäkkiä kuntoon, nuoret laittoi-


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vat toimeksi (2015). MTV3 Uutiset. 12.12.2017. <https://www.mtv.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/artikkeli/aikuiset-eivat-saa-neet-tohrittya-bussipysakkia-kun-toon-nuoret-laittoivat-toimeksi-vid-eo/5511506#gs.3M7bD_k>

Architect Renzo Piano: The Future Of Eu-rope’s Cities Is In The Suburbs (2015). US National Public Radio. 15.12.2017. <https://www.npr.org/sections/paral-lels/2015/03/10/390981452/architect-ren-zo-piano-the-future-of-europes-cities-is-in-the-suburbs>

ARS17 Hackathon (2017). Kiasma. 27.11.2017. <http://www.kiasma.fi/naytte-lyt-ja-ohjelmisto/tapahtumat-ja-luennot/hackathon/>

Aviapolis Frame Plan − Starting Point and Objectives (2014). City of Vantaa. <https://www.vantaa.fi/instancedata/prime_product_julkaisu/vantaa/embeds/van-taawwwstructure/111450_aviapolis_tavoit-teet_2652015_english-netti.pdf>

Aviapolis Studios (2017). 12.12.2017. <https://aviapolisstudios.fi/>

Eskelä, E. (2017). Project Manager, City of Vantaa Business Development Services. In-terview 17.11.2017, interviewed by Chang Liu, Norra Haavisto and Barbara Radaelli.

Favela Painting Foundation (2017). Haas-&Hahn. 12.12.2017. <https://www.favelapa-inting.com/>

Guinard, P. & Margier, A. (2017; in press). Art as a new urban norm: Between nor-malization of the City through art and normalization of art through the City in Montreal and Johannesburg. Cities. DOI::10.1016/j.cities.2017.04.018

Helsinki Airport (2017). Finavia. 27.11.2017. <https://www.finavia.fi/en/helsinki-airport/services/free-time/art-stefan-lindforss-bird-sculpture-2/>

Helsinki’s new participation plan (2017). City of Helsinki. 12.12.2017. <https://www.hel.fi/uutiset/en/kaupunginkanslia/participation-plan>

How art changes us (2017). TED Radio Hour. National Public Radio 10.22.2017. <https://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/559959855>

Kansalaisten käsityksiä taiteesta osana ar-kiympäristöä ja julkisia tiloja (2014). TNS Gallup, Espoo. <http://prosentti-periaate.fi/wp-content/uploads/TNSGal-lup_2014_taide.pdf>

Klos, D. (2014) Airports as cities – The concept of aerotropolis applied to Hel-sinki-Vantaa International Airport. Bach-elor thesis, Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences. <http://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/77781/Klos_Domini-ka.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y>

Leinelä in Vantaa (2017). Lemminkäinen OY. 15.12.2017. <http://www.lemminkainen.com/housing-finland/search/leinela-in-van-taa/>

O’Donoghue, J. (2004). Preface by Minister. In Public Art: Per Cent For Art Scheme General National Guidelines, 5. Irish Government, Dublin. <https://publicart.ie/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF_Folder/Pub-lic_Art_Per_Cent_for_Art.pdf>

Ornamo (2017). 27.11.2017. <https://www.ornamo.fi/en/theme/promoting-cul-ture-and-art/>

Osallistuva Vantaa -malli kaupunginhallituk-sessa (2017). City of Vantaa. 11.12.2017. <http://www.vantaa.fi/uutisia/kaikki_uutiset/101/0/136204>

Prosenttiraha (2017). HAM – Helsinki Art Mu-seum. 27.11.2017. <http://www.hamhelsin-ki.fi/kokoelmat/prosenttiraha>

Pulkkinen, M. & Hannus, H. (2015a; eds.). The handbook of the Percent for Art Principle in Finland for commissioners. Prosentti taiteelle -project, Helsinki. <http://prosenttiperiaate.fi/wp-content/uploads/Prosenttiperiaatteenkk_Taiteen_tilaajalle_Web.pdf>

Pulkkinen, M. & Hannus, H. (2015b; eds.) Prosenttiperiaatteen käsikirja taiteen tilaajalle. Prosentti taiteelle -project, Helsinki. <http://prosenttiperiaate.fi/wp-content/uploads/Prosenttiperiaatteen-kk_Taiteen_tilaajalle_Web.pdf>

The first Smart City Platform (2017). Workshop organized by Chaos Architects 27.11.2017.

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<http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/de-fault/files/download-file/Value_arts_cul-ture_evidence_review.pdf>

Tällaisia taideteoksia tuli Aviapolik-seen – vantaalaisetkin saivat osallis-tua ideointiin (2015). Vantaan Sanomat 25.12.2015. <https://www.vantaansanomat.fi/artikkeli/349138-tallaisia-taide-teoksia-tuli-aviapolikseen-vantaalaiset-kin-saivat-osallistua>


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Conclusions

We have approached the concept of smart city in Vantaa from three different perspectives: business, mobility, and art. All of these perspectives, if functioning well, have the opportunity to change the image of Vantaa. As presented in this study, Vantaa has im-plemented many smart projects. Clearly there is an attempt to change the image of Vantaa through smart projects. However, a coherent smart city strategy that would gather all the different aspects of the smart city to-gether is still missing. Scattered projects around different fields, with no connec-tions, will not create an efficient smart city but a scattered and nonfunctioning one. A coherent city strategy on what kind of smart city Vantaa wants to be, and what it would take to achieve this, should most definitely be drawn up. This would guide the operation of the whole municipality, as in true smart cities, the concept of “smart” can be witnessed in every aspect of life. The present city strategy does not mention the concept of smart city while the budget-ary plan, which has been released this year, does. This is encouraging proof that actions are being made. The new city strategy should be out soon, and it will be most interesting to see what this new strategy will contain.

The methods of smart city strategies serve the purpose of improving or changing city issues, but the trend of implementing the smart city itself will not make any differ-ence without cities defining their problems first. There is never a specific definition of what smart city refers to; it depends on what the problems are and how smart city strategies can deal with those problems. In the above chapters we analyzed the problems Vantaa is facing in business, mobility, and art, and then we showed the possibilities to improve some part of the situation with smart city strategies. We hope that the City of Vantaa would be aware of this effective tool to prepare themselves for future chal-lenges.

Finally, in the context of this publica-tion we would like to discuss the role of

smart city in the possible identities of Vantaa and its inhabitants. Smart cities are institutional, technological, and human; participation has a great role linking IoT and governance. Civic collaboration would be the strategic key for Vantaa to be a real smart city.

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Commentary:

Smart but complex cities

by Hossam Hewidy

In recent decades, human settlements and city development are increasingly changing. Urban Planning is facing a growing ecolog-ical, social and functional challenges to maintain a safe and livable city space in a balance between ecosystems and urban mor-phology. Several phenomena such as rapid urbanization in the developing countries, shrinking cities and aging nations in de-veloped counties, have significantly affect-ed the built environment and urban spaces. This effect is furthered by climate change, as well as both immigration and region-al competitiveness, creating a more complex strategy in land use. Natural landscapes are increasingly dominated by human modifica-tions and continuous corrosion caused by the growth of cities.

On the other hand, many technologies have invested in research to cope with the recent challenges, among which are smart mobility, vehicles manufacturing and the growing de-pendency on renewal energy. Service provi-sion has obviously taken advantage of the rapid inventions of digital communication, forming new methods to fulfil users’ demands and change the perception of both space and time in the city; the Smart City (SC).

The City of Vantaa announced the objec-tives of its new master plan in 2017. Three themes are at the root of the objectives: Global airport city, Regional network city and Local human city. Vantaa hosts the only international airport in Finland and accord-ingly it is where a high flow of People, Information and Goods (PIG) takes place on both regional and national level.

An aerotropolis is a metropolitan sub-re-gion the infrastructure, land-use, and economy of which are centered on an airport (e.g. Kasarda 2011). Vantaa has departed from such a concept in developing its master

plan under the Aviapolis brand. Aviapolis is a business, retail, entertainment, and housing marketing brand area in central Van-taa, covering roughly 40 square kilometers, including Finland’s main airline hub and airport, Helsinki-Vantaa Airport. The Aviap-olis Business Park has the campus of Techno-polis, with LEED-certificates. This is where eco-friendly buildings are spaces for IT companies and experts situated a few minutes from the airport.

Employing Big Data in many applications has rapidly created the way to the Smart City concept. The concept of SC as a means to improve the quality of life and maintain a sustainable urban development has been gaining accumulative significance in the agendas of policy makers. The expression SC has recently become a recurring theme, in discussions about the city and urban de-velopment models, both in academia and the professions. At the same time, as discussed by several scholars, the SC is presently an undefined concept. The SC, in principle, in-tended essentially as an efficient, techno-logically advanced, ecological and socially inclusive city. Alberto Vanolo (2014, 894) describes the concept as ‘[Smart city] is an urban imaginary combining the concept of ‘green cities’ with technological futurism and giving a name to techno-centric visions of the city of tomorrow’. In Europe, the SC concept is popular for many reasons (e.g. Vanolo 2014). Such popularity is based on many factors, including the availability of extensive financial resources to fund the eco-restructuring of cities, the tendency of IT large companies to invest in urban pro-jects, the creation of a futuristic visions of technology, and the image of a clean, livable city (city branding).

However, the SC concept remains complex and should be situated in the local context of the city in concern. The smart city is a ‘political assemblage’ case (McFarlane 2011) associating the agility of policy ideas in global circuits of knowledge (Cook & Ward 2011; McCann 2011; Peck 2011).

The ‘political assemblage’ defines the mechanisms of production of sustainable ur-


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ban conduct and therefore encompasses the different geometries of power of the var-ious stakeholders involved. This may obvi-ously clarify the way in which the city is imagined, as an agent of sustainability is likely to be different, for example, in Van-taa, Stockholm or Cape Town.

Understanding the urban morphology is an im-portant step toward unveiling the dynamical processes of the urban growth and develop-ment. Cities are complex systems of accumu-lated matter. The other concept that could be studied in forming a SC strategy is Urban Metabolism (UM). UM can be defined as a sum of the total technical (i.e., production) and socioeconomic processes that occur in cities, resulting in growth, production of energy, and elimination of waste (Kennedy et al. 2007). In metabolic terms, urban systems are defined as the complex organization of appropriation, transformation, production and emission, energy and information (Decker et al. 2000; Broto et al. 2012). In seeking a SC strategy for Vantaa, a good awareness of such complex organization is essential. If the SC in principle is seeking an urban imaginary combining the concept of ‘green cities’ with technological futurism, then UM is the indicator of how ‘green’ cities are. The flows of materials and energy in a city, as well as sustainable consumption and life cycle, are the basics that link UM to SC.

Recalling the ‘political assemblage’, power regulating model should be proposed; the Transformative Planning Practice. Such practice refuses to accept that the current way of urban development is necessarily the ideal. The transformative practice must be imagined as differing radically and struc-turally from the present reality. Transform-ative practices focus on new concepts and new ways of thinking that change the way resources are used, (re)distributed, allo-cated, and the way that regulatory powers are exercised. This is an essential anxiety in creating an institutional change regulat-ing the power in the ‘political assemblage’ of urban development of Vantaa.

LITERATURE

Broto, V. C., Allen, A. & Rapoport, E. (2012). Interdisciplinary perspectives on urban metabolism. Journal of Industrial Ecology 16(6), 851–861.

Cook, I. G. & Ward, K. (2011). Trans-urban networks of learning, mega events and policy tourism: the case of Manchester’s Common- wealth and Olympic Games pro-jects. Urban Studies 48(12), 2519–2535.

Decker, E. H., Elliott, S., Smith, F. A., Blake, D. R. & Rowland, F. S. (2000). En-ergy and material flow through the urban ecosystem. Annual Review of Energy Envi-ronment and Resources 25, 685–740.

Kasarda, J. & Lindsay, G. (2011). Aerotrop-olis, the way we’ll live next. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York.

Kennedy, C., Cuddihy, J. & Engel-Yan, J. (2007). The changing metabolism of cit-ies. Journal of Industrial Ecology 11(2), 43–59.

McCann, E. (2011). Urban policy mobilities and global circuits of knowledge: toward a research agenda. Annals of the Asso-ciation of American Geographers 101(1), 107–130.

McFarlane, C. (2011). Learning the City: Knowledge and translocal assemblage. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford.

Peck, J. (2011). Geographies of policy: from transfer-diffusion to mobility-muta-tion. Progress in Human Geography 35(6), 773–797.

Vanolo, A. (2014). Smartmentality: The smart city as disciplinary strategy. Urban Studies 51(5), 883–898.

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Commentary:

Studying Smart City De-velopment in Vantaa

by Rami Ratvio & Tuomas Väisänen

Since the changing of the millennium, infor-mation and communication technologies have become an ever more prevalent part of every-day life. With the increasing presence of social media services and location services of smart technology, businesses, governments and private persons are connected to each other constantly and interact in virtual and physical space. The concepts of smart city and innovative city have been widely re-ferred to in the academic literature over the past 20 years (Kitchin 2015). These con-cepts are used to describe how cities adapt technologies and data-driven policies in the management and planning.

The innovative city is often referred to as a smart city, traditionally understood as ubiquitous computing in the urban phys-ical and policy environment (Townsend 2013; Inkinen 2015). First, the innovative city or smart city may be used as a marketing slo-gan for the city in order to build-up their reputation and image (Inkinen 2015, 4). For instance, different smart city indices have been adapted as marketing tools to attract investments and skilled workers to select a city district or a city over others. Com-petition between cities over investments, tax-payers and skilled workers has increased in Finland and on global scale. Finland’s somewhat remote location reinforces the use of smart city rhetoric in marketing, since flows of investments are limited, the in-vestments that flow to Finland are sought after by the biggest cities.

Secondly, smart city means the overall technological profile provided through the public and private sectors (Inkinen 2015, 4). For example, the availability of free Wi-Fi hotspots or 5G mobile networks in ur-

ban space and the utilization of Big Data to inform policy- and decision-making in the form of urban dashboards. Smart devices and Big Data have enabled the development of new types of services (e.g. mobility services).

With the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data, data privacy has become a contentious issue (Kitchin 2015; Kitchin & Dodge 2017). Large companies such as Facebook and Goog-le collect vast amounts of personal data and don’t communicate the use of said data transparently to the public. Algorithms that collect data from social media platforms, IoT devices or sensors in the city are not necessarily transparent, which might af-fect official statistics and thus promote a skewed view of the urban reality. Smart de-vices are also vulnerable devices in the way that they can be hacked to conduct fraud and identity theft, underscoring the importance of city-wide security solutions to protect the citizens.

Third, these concepts are realized in urban space as specific areas and locations within the city. For example, how and where ICT parks, university campuses and cultural milieus are visually presented in the city (Inkinen 2015, 6). Attracting talented and highly-educated residents is a key component for the success of cities. Creating attrac-tive neighborhoods and maintaining a cre-ativity-inducing atmosphere has been pro-posed as being a viable solution to keeping the talented and highly-educated residents (Florida 2002; Kepsu et al. 2009).

Vantaa is an interesting city when it comes to smart city development. It is part of the growing Helsinki metropolitan region, which is changing into a polycentric city. The Aviapolis area near the Helsinki-Van-taa airport has a profile of being a smart district, which aims to attract large in-ternational investments, knowledge-inten-sive businesses and creative inhabitants. The Aviapolis’ website mentions business and work opportunities before residency, which paints a picture of the area as very investment- and business-oriented (Aviapo-lis 2018). The central idea for the future development of Vantaa is to build an ur-


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ban passage with Aviapolis at one end and Tikkurila subcentre at the other. As part of this plan, the city’s developers aim to increase housing construction significantly. The plan relies on the options made avail-able by the Allegro railway connection be-tween the Helsinki-Vantaa airport and Saint Petersburg. Traffic flows can be anticipated to increase significantly, which will open completely new kinds of opportunities for commerce and services in Vantaa.

The students’ text discuss different forms of smart city development in Vantaa. The prevalent themes of global smart city dis-cussion are presented in the context of Van-taa: (1) smart city strategies in business development; (2) opportunities for smarter traffic services; and (3) creating attrac-tive urban spaces and living environments using participatory urban art and ICT.

Adapting smart city strategies and tech-nologies offer some solutions to contem-porary problems such as increasing envi-ronmental pressures, new social and urban divisions and volatile economic development but they are not a “one-click” solution. They are one tool in the toolbox of city planning and management. Cities are not merely places for businesses and invest-ments, but areas where people live and as Shakespeare so eloquently put it: what is the city, but the people?

LITERATUREAviapolis (2018). 10.1.2018. <http://aviapo-

lis.fi/en/home>Florida, R. (2002). The rise of the creative

class: And how it’s transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life. Perseus Book Group, New York.

Inkinen, T. (2015). Reflections on the inno-vative city: examining three innovative locations in a knowledge bases framework. Journal of Innovation: Technology, Mar-ket, and Complexity 1(8), 1–23.

Kepsu, K., Vaattovaara, M., Bernelius, V. & Eskelä, E. (2009). Helsinki: an attrac-tive metropolitan region for creative knowledge workers? The view of trasna-tional migrants. ACRE report WP7.5. 144

s.Kitchin, R. (2015). Making sense of smart

cities: addressing present shortcomings. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 8, 131–136.

Kitchin, R. & Dodge, M. (2017). The (in)security of smart cities: Vulnerabili-ties, risks, mitigation, and prevention. Journal of Urban Technology, 1–19. DOI:10.1080/10630732.2017.1408002

Townsend, A. (2013). Smart cities: Big data, civic hackers, and the quest for a new utopia. W.W. Norton & Co, New York.

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