Helsinki is very much a maritime city, in addition to being a point of contact between Western Europe and Russia and a key centre of business operations for the whole Nordic region.

When we in Finland look towards Western Europe, it is easy to imagine that we are living on an island. Efficient harbours and regular shipping services are a vital requirement. The City of Helsinki is busily developing its port facilities.

When we look in Russia's direction, we see that Finland is no island, but rather part of a huge land mass. Finland's eastern border - over 1,000 km long - is likewise the only land frontier between the EU and Russia. Helsinki is the easternmost effectively-functioning and safe logistics centre for companies with operations in St. Petersburg, Moscow and elsewhere in Russia.

Helsinki-Vantaa Airport is being expanded. A third runway there will be completed in 2003. A weekday flight from Helsinki to Brussels takes only 2 hours and 40 minutes. For most Japanese the airport is the first place they land when they arrive in Europe.

A growing metropolis

The population of Helsinki has been growing at 7,000-9,000 annually in recent years. The total increase since the beginning of the decade has been about 55,600. The city had 546,300 inhabitants at the beginning of 1999. This is forecast to increase to 580,000 by 2020.

Pattern of urban building transformed

Helsinki has been undergoing the same process of change as in other large European cities. Smokestack industries have disappeared. Instead, modern factories and warehouses have been built in the urban fringe areas, for example along the outer ring motorway. Industrial and warehouse areas close to the centre have been redeveloped as residential districts.

A similar transformation can be seen in, for example, Stockholm, Malmö, Copenhagen, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and London. Urban planners from Helsinki have learned much from these and many other cities.

New seaside residential districts

Redevelopment of the inner city area has created several new residential districts in the 1990s. They are:

Pikku-Huopalahti

Pikku-Huopalahti is a post-modern district with seaside squares and clear urban spaces. It is multi-storey and romantic in character and the city blocks there have been built on a human scale.

Ruoholahti

With its canals and open views of the sea, Ruoholahti is rationalist in its architecture. The blocks there are on a large scale and some of them have a character resembling that of the inner city. Its courtyards are safe places for children to play. The large building that was once the Nokia Cable Factory serves the area as a cultural centre. Ruoholahti contains an important concentration of high technology.

Herttoniemi

Unpretentious and undemonstrative in its architecture, Herttoniemi is a quiet suburb with a view of the sea spreading away to the south-west. The blocks are fairly large in scale and some of them have the character of those in the inner city. A substantial proportion of the total parking places are in a rock cavern in the centre of the area.

Arabianranta

The core of the new Arabianranta district will be built around the University of Industrial Art and Design, institutes concentrating on pop and jazz and art and communications as well as the renowned Arabia ceramics factory. The premises housing the University of Art and Design are being expanded. The construction programme in the area also includes TV and film studios with auditoria.

The U-shaped residential blocks in Arabianranta open towards the sea to catch the morning sun. The way in which the building are arranged in masses is intended to accomplish a variety of street and square layouts, thereby creating an urban milieu that is sophisticated in its manner of articulation.

Viikki

A new university district is currently being built in Viikki. It will contain housing for about 8,000 people and work facilities for 6,000 or so employees. The intention is to create a garden city environment in close touch with nature. Its core will be the University of Helsinki's agriculture and forestry faculty and its experimental plots.

The dwellings in the district will be built following principles of ecology and sustainable development. Every effort will be made to minimise consumption of energy and water and wood will be used wherever possible.

Vuosaari

The old part of Vuosaari is a garden city area dating from the 1960s. The next additions were the Merirastila and Kallahti developments on the site of an old sand harbour. The Metro was extended to Vuosaari in 1990-98. The functional centre is now the Vuosaari metro station and the new Columbus shopping centre.