yep...vantaa is nothing but suburbs, but it´s concidered a city! It´s unbeliveable, Vantaa is more like a suburb of Helsinki...
Havukoski, Vantaa, Finland
Hey!
Here's some pics from a suburb called Havukoski in my hometown Vantaa, Finland. Havukoski was planned to be a very dense and urban area and it has received a lot of attention for the urban planning which is very different from the typical Finnish forest-commiblock suburbs. Havukoski was built in the 70's and was supposed to become the commercial centre of the town. That never happened as it was never finished they way it was planned to be. Today it's one of the suburbs with the worst reputation here with social problems and cheap rental apartments. The area also has lots of student apartments. Hopefully the problems will change for the better as I think this is one of the most interestig suburbs we have and now finally after several years new development including a shopping centre and new apartments are being planned.
General plan from 1969:
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Last summer:
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This winter:
Here you see how unfinished the place is:
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And now to the small area which was finished:
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The text says "Back to Life"
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I hope you enjoyed!
Here's some pics from a suburb called Havukoski in my hometown Vantaa, Finland. Havukoski was planned to be a very dense and urban area and it has received a lot of attention for the urban planning which is very different from the typical Finnish forest-commiblock suburbs. Havukoski was built in the 70's and was supposed to become the commercial centre of the town. That never happened as it was never finished they way it was planned to be. Today it's one of the suburbs with the worst reputation here with social problems and cheap rental apartments. The area also has lots of student apartments. Hopefully the problems will change for the better as I think this is one of the most interestig suburbs we have and now finally after several years new development including a shopping centre and new apartments are being planned.
General plan from 1969:
Last summer:
This winter:
Here you see how unfinished the place is:
And now to the small area which was finished:
The text says "Back to Life"
I hope you enjoyed!
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^^
The number of Immigrants there is pretty high compared to many other suburbs here, but it's mostly still Finns who live there. The problems come from the large amount of public housing. Finland was never under communist rule, but during the 60's and 70's there was a huge need for thousands of new apartments in the cities which led to a large amount of commieblocks being built. We have also unfortunately had mostly socialist and left-wing politicians running the city of Vantaa.
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The number of Immigrants there is pretty high compared to many other suburbs here, but it's mostly still Finns who live there. The problems come from the large amount of public housing. Finland was never under communist rule, but during the 60's and 70's there was a huge need for thousands of new apartments in the cities which led to a large amount of commieblocks being built. We have also unfortunately had mostly socialist and left-wing politicians running the city of Vantaa.
That's true, Vantaa is very green. Most of the major residental areas here were built in the middle of forests and where no roads or houses was built forest was left untouched. Looking at this picture of Havukoski suburb shows pretty well how the houses are standing in the middle of the forest:Kuesel said:
It's true that a large part of the city is suburbs, but... uhh... :sleepy: It's officially a city even if it's just a bordertown of Helsinki, it's the fourth largest in Finland, has a job self-sufficiency of over 100%, the largest airport in Finland and the largest retail areas, it's the logistic center of the nation and has the fastest growing business area in Finland. Keep in mind how young Vantaa is, it's grown from 15 000 inhabitants in 1950's to 190 000 today. It's far more unbelievable that some small villages on the countryside have decleared themselves as towns. Sorry, I'm very biased when it comes to VantaaSuomiPoika said:
^^ I could show you similar pics of suburbs in Helsinki, Espoo, Tampere, Turku or any other big Finnish city. That pics shows one suburb in the east part of Vantaa and doesnt represent the whole city. The pic above shows how poorly any suburb in any Finnish city is planned. Besides these areas are very young (around 30 years), it takes a long time and several years of new development for these places to actually start looking like something and as I mentioned, this particular suburb was never finished, it's still only half-done. :sleepy:
Here's other pics of Vantaa:
new area under construction:
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Tikkurila (a local center along the main railroad)
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The airport also covers a huge part of the city.
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as you can see, one suburb doesn't represent the whole city. Vantaa is far from poorly planned, it's not beautiful, but it's just very young and hasn't had the time to develop a good city structure.
Here's other pics of Vantaa:
new area under construction:
Tikkurila (a local center along the main railroad)
The airport also covers a huge part of the city.
as you can see, one suburb doesn't represent the whole city. Vantaa is far from poorly planned, it's not beautiful, but it's just very young and hasn't had the time to develop a good city structure.
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The new area of Vantaa looks like some upper middle-class suburb--- it's much better than Havukoski. And it looks like another sort of newer type of commieblocks with German/Swiss influence.PC said:new area under construction:
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The airport also covers a huge part of the city.
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as you can see, one suburb doesn't represent the whole city. Vantaa is far from poorly planned, it's not beautiful, but it's just very young and hasn't had the time to develop a good city structure.
That's only partly true... while Espoo and Vantaa are real basic full-planned Garden Cities most of the post-war reurbanization in Finnland ended up in a common style of architecture and city plannning... see below.
The sad thing: On one of my visits I met an old German couple complaining about the boring modern Finnish cities and that there is no Old Towns remaining... omg, that's sad - they were old enough to know the historical background. And at least there is still Rauma
Rovaniemi
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Jyväskylä
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Mikkeli
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Tampere (although - one of my fav Suomi cities)
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The sad thing: On one of my visits I met an old German couple complaining about the boring modern Finnish cities and that there is no Old Towns remaining... omg, that's sad - they were old enough to know the historical background. And at least there is still Rauma
Rovaniemi
Jyväskylä
Mikkeli
Tampere (although - one of my fav Suomi cities)
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I don't think that's sad, but I think American sprawls usually "looks more comfortable" than European commieblocks in the suburb. Yet Commieblock itself, it's a different type of architecture, and it's beautiful, if it's well-maintained and well-designed. In smaller Finnish cities with commieblocks, generally the social status of commieblock districts are a bit better than Helsinki or Tampere. And in Oulu the commieblock neighbourhood are rather nice. Tampere is one of the better Finnish city, when compared with Greater Helsinki (Not the core of Helsinki!), and it's very industrial. Rovaniemi? I've never been there but it looks like some sort of modern-planned city up Lappland. (Is that called Lappland architecture? I don't know anything about Lappland, though I personally fond of it)Kuesel said:The sad thing: On one of my visits I met an old German couple complaining about the boring modern Finnish cities and that there is no Old Towns remaining... omg, that's sad - they were old enough to know the historical background. And at least there is still Rauma
Rovaniemi
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Here in Bismarck, North Dakota, I couldn't find any pics of commieblocks. But I would start a thread with a commieblock-like project in Quebec, not Canada.
What do you mean? There are probably more SSC members than foreigners in Finnlandaplz said:
There are probably no Ethnic Ghettos in this country. And if you mean "slum" I have to disappoint you - The finnish cities are very clean and even sterile even in the outskirts. But the architecture is indeed a bit boring - apart from some unique structures (I love Alvar Aalto for example ).There are some parts of Espoo, Vantaa, Helsinki or Tampere has serious graffiti and crime problems--- but Ethnic Ghettos is rare --- even from its neighbouring Russia or Estonia--- they simply live together in the city, not separating each other, very much like the situation in Switzerland or some cities in Canada. And, generally Finnish cities are very safe when compared to Russian or American cities.Kuesel said:What do you mean? There are probably more SSC members than foreigners in Finnland
Alvar Aalto is for sure a great architect, but unique residential structure in Finland is quite rare (Apart from the elite mansions).
Yeah, but what is one supposed to expect. We got rich after the war, and people wanted better living conditions instead of living in flammable wooden houses with no water and no electricity. Central european counties had more older and historically important cities and were more proud of them. The key is, that they made their houses from bricks or stone, which made them more expensive to bulldoze. The stone/brick buildings in Finland didn't suffers nearly as much as did the wooden ones. Finns though the wooden cities had no historical value (wood was cheap material unlike stone or brick), and were pretty satisfied to get rid of them. Of cource we, the younger generation, really don't understand that sort of mentality, where our built history is destroyed by 97%.
Workers' homes in Tampere.
Street scene from Helsinki.
A Rare Kalevala (Karelian) influenced building in Oulu that once worked as a library. Nice display of woodcraft btw.
Survivor...
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I wouldn't consider Havukoski much of a "ghetto". There are just 4 "towers" (the pictures here manage to fool one quite easily) and then some other low-rises (very typical in Finland).
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