Topic
Cities
Commentary
Pekka Sauri, the Deputy Mayor of Helsinki, shares his views at Flow Talks 2015 for Demos Helsinki about the role of the city as an organization, and how has it changed during recent years: Dan Hill, an urbanist and designer from UK, leaves you wondering where we should draw the…
“The world that the construction field is serving, is changing radically”, were the opening words by Jussi Aho, the CEO of the construction company Fira. Ways of working, ways of living and the logic of retail are changing. “Digitalisation holds a huge potential for built environment. Construction business must invest in immaterial…
Last years have marked the emergence of new smart urban services such as car sharing, smart homes, pop-up diners, electric bicycles and many forms of collaborative consumption. Meanwhile, many – even central – neighbourhoods in European towns and cities are facing severe decline. Lack of investments, eroding infrastructure and e-commerce…
A big group of Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian directors, researchers and other top professionals from the fields of construction, energy production, real estate and many others are wandering around in Hökarängen, a small Swedish suburb almost 20 kilometres from Stockholm’s T-Centralen. Someone might ask why. The Nordic countries have a…
Smart Retro, a smart city project by Demos Helsinki and its distinguished partners, was kicked off in a spirit of enthusiastic co-operation. The high ambition of the Smart Retro is to turn the massive potential of the 60’s and 70’s buildings stock into a business model innovation that combines energy retrofitting…
Publications
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.
Achieving an impactful decrease in homelessness — and preventing it from happening in the first place — requires significant structural and operational changes. While Housing First holds great potential to enable systemic change in homelessness, it also risks being interpreted and deployed as a mere housing management tool — a misunderstanding of tragic consequences.
Over the past decades, the term “smart city” has been used as a catch-all for various city development initiatives and concepts. With this joint Nordic Smart City Roadmap, we want to promote conceptual, ethical, and political guidelines that honor a more human-centric, inclusive, and collaborative approach to developing smarter and more sustainable communities.
Projects
The ongoing biodiversity crisis demonstrates that we need better ways to live with nature in cities. The MUST project, employing a multispecies transition lens, aims to enhance the understanding and visibility of multispecies needs. This, in turn, will foster improved deliberation and action among stakeholders.
Demos Helsinki and the City of Tallinn, the European Green Capital 2023, joined forces to create an innovative approach to sustainability governance in cities. Together, we embarked on a journey to develop the concept of sustainability governance, aware that cities could hold the key to fostering sustainable transformation and have…
The Sustainable City programme, coordinated by Finland’s Ministry of the Environment, convenes a group of motivated cities and municipalities to join a one-year problem-solving journey to address the numerous interrelated challenges that slow down sustainable city transition. The challenges are related to urban planning that considers sustainability goals and prosperous…
People
Anna Kurth
How can we reimagine city life within planetary boundaries? What governance tools and capabilities are needed to drive this transition? These are the questions that fuel Anna’s work at the intersection of urban climate policy and systems change. Anna has a BA in International Affairs from the University of St….
Johannes Jauhiainen
At Demos Helsinki, Johannes Jauhiainen focuses on participation, interaction, impact, and science-society relations within the CoWup and CO3 research projects. He is passionate about public innovation, new forms of decision-making, democratic development, geopolitics, and the role of cities as pioneers of societal transformation. Before joining Demos Helsinki, Johannes worked on…
Roosa Laakso
As part of the Regerative Localities team at Demos Helsinki, Roosa applies her expertise in multidisciplinary collaboration and sustainability governance expertise in practice. Roosa has a background in the public sector and has previously worked with the national and international implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals at the Prime…
Themes
Cities can lead collective action. We help city leaders and administrations transform their governance, equipping them with the mindset, tools, and knowledge to address societal challenges.
This is not a Smart City
November 5, 2015
Urbanisation is one of the most important megatrends to shape global society of the 21st century. However, urbanisation puts a strain on the quality of life in cities, as well as the management of big infrastructure systems, such as city traffic and energy usage. The Smart City approach is the…