Report: Insights and Proposed Solutions – Summary of the Results from Three Challenge-Based Collaborations in the Sustainable City Program in the Years 2022-2023

A group of motivated cities and municipalities in Finland joined a one-year problem-solving journey to address the numerous interrelated challenges that slow down sustainable city transition. Demos Helsinki coordinated the subgroup, which focused on the “challenge bundle” of urban planning. Now, the solutions have been crystallised and published! They include some systemic suggestions, such as the “urban planning timeout” – a reflective pause in the core operations of planners – to recalibrate the planning system. The report underlines the need to reveal the mismatch between growth targets set by the major cities and their own climate action and nature preservation agenda. It also calls for multi-level dialogue involving the stakeholders pulling the strings at the national and regional levels. A number of other solutions have also been presented in the report “Insights and Solutions” published by Demos Helsinki. It compiles the work of three “challenge bundles” that have been operating over the past year. 

You can read the report, which is currently only available in Finnish, here.

You can read more about the project here.

For more information on this report, or the project in general, feel free to contact:
Kaisa Schmidt-Thomé
Research Area Lead, Demos Helsinki 
kaisa.schmidt-thome@demoshelsinki.fi