Creating futures that would otherwise not be’ – Reflections on the Greater Helsinki Vision process and the making of metropolitan regions

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Source
Progress in Planning, 75, (2011), pp. 155-192ISSN
Publication type
Article / Letter to editor

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Organization
Planologie
Journal title
Progress in Planning
Volume
vol. 75
Languages used
English (eng)
Page start
p. 155
Page end
p. 192
Subject
NON-RU research; Onderzoek niet-RUAbstract
In 2007, the Greater Helsinki Vision 2050 ideas competition was held and attracted international interest,
with more than one hundred submissions, out of which ultimately nine were chosen as winners. The ideas
competition was a voluntary joint effort of the fourteen municipalities composing the Greater Helsinki Area.
In principle, the competition can be understood as the shared effort to create ‘futures that would otherwise
not be’ (Albrechts). One possible future is actually the formation of a metropolitan region in Finland, which
does not yet exist, at least in any formal sense. Even though it does not yet exist, the making of a metropolis
is high on the agenda of many actors in Finland. This article explores the how and why of this competition,
the results, the implications and its complications. For that purpose, it will develop a framework to
understand the situation, addressing the particularities of the Finnish territory and policy. It will present and
comment on the Greater Helsinki Vision competition and also its follow-up process. After this, the article will
also reflect on the current academic and planning debate regarding metropolitan regions, their existence
and function, and their ambivalences for societal and territorial development. The final conclusions will look
into theoretical aspects of ‘vision making’, post-modern planning, and how a territorial response capacity
can be shaped to create different futures.
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- Non RU Publications [13190]
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