Guest City Helsinki

From periphery to Metropolis

Amsterdam and Helsinki have a lot in common, can learn from each-other and develop things together. What is Helsinki today, what are its strengths and challenges? What can Amsterdam offer? What can we learn from each other? The city of Helsinki and its metropolitan area, the cities of Vantaa and Espoo with URBARIA (Helsinki Institute of Urban and Regional Studies, Helsinki Uni) will join us in the event. The event is an off-shoot of Amsterdam’s WMTC and prepares for WeMakeTheCity Helsinki.

Keynote speakers

  • Mari Vaattovaara – director of URBARIA Professor of Urban Geography at the University of Helsinki and Director of Helsinki Institute of Urban and Regional Studies. What is Helsinki today? What are its strengths and challenges?
  • Meena Kaunisto – producer and curator, previous director at Institut Finlandais Paris. Lessons from Paris. What can we learn from a city of over 2 million citizens?
  • Aleksi Malmberg – Chair of Helsinki 2030 Cultural vision, previous director of Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux. Lessons from Brussels, what can we learn from the ‘capital’ of Europe?
  • Tapio Kujala – CEO, Rector at Diaconia University of Applied Sciences. What can social design do?
  • Ger Baron – Smart Citizens instead of Smart City
  • Carolien Neveja – The different parallel and overlapping rhythms of citizens
  • Esther Agricola – Vitality of the suburbs and margins of Amsterdam
  • ZeF Hemel – How to develop a future vision for the historic centre of Amsterdam

A freshly released Finnish report anticipates that in 2040, two million people (a third of all of Finland’s population) will live in the Helsinki area. Today, with the a population of 650,000 Helsinki and its Metropolitan area are similar to Amsterdam. Both are capitals of their countries, innovative, high-tech harbor-cities. Helsinki is a city sandwiched between ‘West and East’, between Sweden and Russia. Both neighbors have occupied and shaped the city and still shape the capital of Finland. But, Helsinki has stood up on its own, and has been listed as the happiest, ‘coolest’ and one of the best cities on earth to live in and visit. Helsinki and its region are looking for a conscious process while turning into a metropolitan area very fast, while the rest of Finland is getting vastly depopulated. How do you deal with questions of polarization, aging and shrinking local population, migration, integration, citizenship, loneliness, climate-change and urban planning?

In collaboration with

  • Urban Talk

Wednesday 19 June 20.00 - 22.00
Pakhuis de Zwijger, Piet Heinkade 179, 1019 HC, Amsterdam

NOTE: This program section is free, but there are limited places available. Reservation is required.

Book a spot

♿ This location is wheelchair friendly