Background

The concept of the Home Street (Kotikatu) Project was launched in 1997 by the Helsinki University of Technology in cooperation with two citizen organisations, Helka, The Federation of the Associations for Helsinki City Quarters and the The Association for Local Culture. Helka has been active in developing new channels of participation and obtaining information from the municipalities for common citizens. The concept is based on an idea of a digital neighbourhood forum supporting local communities in different development processes. The financing of the project comes from several public sources: The city of Helsinki: Culture Capital of Europe 2000 Project, Neighbourhood Renewal Project, The city of Vantaa, The city of Espoo, The Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities, Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Education, Ministry of the Interior.

Goals

• Local Identity and Citizen Participation in City Planning

The main goal of the Home Street Project is to increase the inhabitant empowerment in urban planning and design and in that way strengthen local identity and processes, as well. Being architects, the authors of the project in the Helsinki University of Technology are especially interested in the changes of the built environment and their impact on the everyday life of the inhabitants. The financing authorities are also conscious of the growing need for interaction between the municipality and the citizens.

• Internet as a Participatory Channel

The second qoal of the process is to develop internet to support these interactive local processes.

Internet

Today Internet is the channel that offers new and interesting opportunities for citizen debate and participation. Internet is also a very rapidly developing sector where the data and the technology are under a constant change. The distribution of the Internet communications in the households is yet rather small. It is, however, presumable that in the future Internet will become a channel for the masses. With the establishment of new technology Internet will facilitate the access to these "arteries of knowledge".

The idea of using the internet for communication and knowledge creation by building up a local web-site was developed and tested for the first time in Pihlajisto and Lauttasaari, which are city quarters of 3000 and 20 000 inhabitants. In 1999 the project started in Maunula, which is a city quarter of 8000 inhabitants, mainly built in the 50´s and the 60 ´s. The concept of a local development strategy is realised by bringing together the "human forces" consisting of local stakeholders and professionals with technical skills and scientific interests.

Like the first two web-sites, Home Pages of Pihlajisto and Lauttasaari, the Home Page of Maunula offers a varied range of regional information, news, links and activities as inclusively as possible. Locality is the key word. Home Street Project in Maunula has concentrated in joining together all stakeholders in the area, such as enterprises, citizen associations and other communities. The project includes the idea of applying purposive strategy-thinking into local development processes using ICT. However, new technologies are not adopted by everyone – far from it. The work in Maunula has included training sessions and teaching people side-by-side the necessary internet skills during the years 1999-2000. A lot of work has also been done in numerous meetings where the web-site of Maunula has been planned and constructed together with the inhabitants, project workers and other stakeholders. The work is still continuing.

Conclusions

The web-site of Maunula has proved to function not only as a very efficient knowledge base and communication tool for the inhabitants but also a lucid "window" for outsiders to receive useful inside-information of the area. This interactive nature of internet challenges the "old system" in many ways. It implies that in the future the planning and decision making processes will inevitably be more transparent than they are today. By offering a quick, easy and informal access to many kinds of documents, comments and background information, internet makes it possible for people to participate and discuss topics concerning environmental questions and town planning issues with the experts like planners and municipalities on a more equal basis. Being a resident in a neighbourhood makes one undisputably an expert in one´s own living environment.

Opening page of Maunula homesite, translated in English (september 2000).
Home Site of Maunula: http://www.kaupunginosat.net/maunula/

The Pilot project:  Home Site of Pihlajisto: http://www.suomenkotiseutuliitto.fi/pihlajisto/
Home Site of Lauttasaari: http://www.lauttasaari.org/
Nature Management Plan: http://www.hkr.hel.fi/viher/index.html?luonnonhoito.html

Back to the Home Street project site:

Aija Staffans, architect

Address:
Helsinki University of Technology/
Department of Architecture/ Urban Planning and Design
P.O. box 1300
02015 HUT
fax 451 3960