We want every resident of Helsinki to be proud of their local neighbourhood. A good neighbourhood provides a smoothly functioning everyday life, accessible services and a pleasant living environment. Every neighbourhood should be appealing, lively and green. Well-functioning neighbourhoods encourage an active lifestyle and a strong sense of community. People’s lives don’t fit neatly into administrative categories or distinguish between public and private. We will make sure that each neighbourhood is pleasant and contains important local services from both the city and its businesses.
Helsinki ensures that basic services, such as a quality daycare centre, a good primary school, youth services, a dedicated personal doctor, a maternity and child health clinic and inviting cultural, sports and leisure activities are within easy reach. When building new neighbourhoods, we devote special attention to ensuring that the city’s services are built up at the same pace as the rest of the area.
We encourage a grassroots urban culture and promote resident use of city spaces for their own activities. We offer a diverse selection of cultural offerings that are well distributed throughout the capital. Art and culture help build the identity, character and community of residential areas. We will strengthen the distinctive character of different areas by adding more art to public spaces. In new areas and areas of the city undergoing suburban regeneration, we will continue to follow the Percent for Art principle, which reserves one per cent of a construction project's budget for art. We will also double the budget allocation for public art in areas where the percentage principle does not apply. Among other things, this allows for the addition of more murals to the cityscape. To increase the vitality of different areas, we will facilitate the temporary use of city spaces for operators in the art and culture sectors, and more broadly, all representatives of the third sector. This will create the potential for new, longer-term opportunities. We are also investigating the suitability of the financial model for the cultural sector for facilitating access to suitable facilities.
We look after the general condition of public spaces in every Helsinki neighbourhood. The condition of a residential area has a direct impact on how good, safe and pleasant it feels. We will enhance and improve the quality of the maintenance and cleaning of streets, parks, open spaces and other public areas. We will petition residents of the city, housing companies, property owners, event organisers and businesses to join us in our efforts to improve cleanliness and tidiness.
Each resident of Helsinki, no matter what part of the city they live in, should have easy access to nearby nature. We keep the city’s green areas in good condition. We will add more greenery and green spaces to streets, open spaces and other outdoor areas in the city infrastructure. All newly established areas of the city must have parks and green areas.
We will continue to expand the city’s network of outdoor sports parks to evenly cover the different parts of the city. We will see to it that jogging paths, fitness stairs, sports fields, dog parks and outdoor gyms are properly maintained. We will ensure that the broad range of outdoor exercise opportunities in the city serves different Helsinki residents in a diverse way.
The districts and neighbourhoods of the city are distinctive local communities that play an important role. We support local organisations and associations and include their voice in the development of their area. Helsinki is shaped by its residents. We make a variety of methods available for people to share their experiences, wishes and opinions with us. We strive to develop these means of participation so we can reach Helsinki residents of all ages and backgrounds. We will maintain and develop our participatory budgeting initiative, expand the use of resident panels and continue the city’s community house operations.
A wide-ranging and knowledgeable network of organisations, associations, sports clubs and volunteer groups is one of Helsinki's strengths. The City of Helsinki is an active partner with many organisations and associations. We advance operational opportunities for organisations and associations by making city spaces available to third sector operators.
Together with local associations, we plan concrete ways to enhance people's sense of agency, their willingness to forge connections and their desire to do something for their local community. Our activities promote the connection diverse communities and people from different backgrounds feel with Helsinki, as well as their identity as a Helsinki resident.
Helsinki is a children’s city. We will continue our Child Friendly City work in accordance with the UNICEF model. Helsinki is also doing its part to implement the National Child Strategy, and we make sure child impact assessments are conducted throughout the city. We want to be a safe and fun city for children. We will build appealing new themed playgrounds. One of these themed playgrounds will be located in one of the city’s suburban regeneration areas. Helsinki’s playgrounds offer paddling pools and free summer weekday lunches for children under the age of 16. These and other family-friendly activities and exercise opportunities invite children and families to stay active and enjoy themselves.
We recognise the importance of art and culture on the wellbeing, growth and education of children and young people. In Helsinki, all children and young people have equal access to art and culture. The range of cultural activities offered to children in Helsinki is created in close cooperation with the multifaceted cultural sector that operates in the city. During this strategy period, we will make our Culture Kids programme, which invites every child to participate in cultural events designed for young children, a permanent part of our operations. We will safeguard traffic safety near schools and in areas where children attend recreational activities.