| Helsinki Redesigned |
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| Written by Joshua Liberles | |
| Thursday, 18 October 2007 | |
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The Finnish city of Helsinki has a unique opportunity to completely redesign a large urban area. Most of the world’s large-scale new designs are for undeveloped areas – and tend to be far from concentrated city centers. The Länsisatama (West Harbour) redevelopment project involves moving industrial shipping from Helsinki’s southwest waterfront area to Vuosaari at the city’s far eastern edge. Over the next 15 years, the 200 hectacres that comprise Länsisatama will be rebuilt from scratch. The Helsinki City Planning Department is starting with the Jätkäsaari area, with construction due to begin in 2008. So what does the ideal city of the future look like? Well, not surprisingly (at least to us at Carectomy), it relies on walking, biking, and lots of public transportation options. Three trams, bus lines, bike paths, taxis, and car share programs will supplement a walking-friendly design. In fact, private cars are largely left at the outskirts of the city, where they belong. The drive-to big box stores and shopping malls have been nixed in favor of traditional street-level individual businesses. Project Leader Matti Kaijansinkko: "We are realistic enough to know that many Jätkäsaari residents will want their own wheels, but our idea is that local services and routes will be planned so that a car will not be needed for local access. Multi-story car parks are planned for residents to keep parked cars from clogging up the streets Jätkäsaari was originally an island popular for vacationing about a century ago, When the harbor was constructed, land reclamation united the island to the mainland. More land reclamation will expand the area from 86 hectacres to about 100 once the cargo harbor is relocated. Jätkäsaari sits a mere 1.5 km from the center of Helsinki, making it prime urban real-estate. The three main goals as laid out by Helsinki City Planning are:
According to Mokkikunta, one-third of the housing will be set aside for low income; one-third is “price-regulated free-market housing and right-of-occupancy housing”; and one-third is privately funded housing. Via Mokkikunta Comments (0)
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Cars are the most inconvenient convenience we have. We're required to have them, but increasingly, we dislike them. At Carectomy, we're trying to figure out how to extract cars from people.
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