During the last four rounds of OmaStadi, Helsinki residents have proposed and voted on a total of EUR 32 million in improvements to the city. Implementation of the latest batch of winning proposals will begin this autumn.
The City of Helsinki’s participatory budgeting initiative OmaStadi allows residents of the city to decide on how to use a portion of the city’s budget. The funding allocated by the city to implement the fourth round of resident-inspired OmaStadi proposals is EUR 10 million.
Last autumn, Helsinki residents came up with a record number of ideas for OmaStadi. From 11 to 29 March, every eligible resident of the city was able to vote for their favourites on the OmaStadi website.
All residents of Helsinki aged 13 and over were eligible to vote for up to five proposals in one major district of the city. They were encouraged to vote for proposals that improve, develop and repair the existing city environment and add to Helsinki’s activities and events.
After the vote, the City of Helsinki develops the most popular proposals into feasible projects, in cooperation with the city’s inhabitants. Implementation of the improvements will begin in autumn 2026.
OmaStadi has strengthened the dialogue between the city and its residents and highlighted what Helsinki people want from their everyday environment.
OmaStadi is the City of Helsinki’s way of implementing participatory budgeting together with its residents.
“OmaStadi has strengthened dialogue between the city and its residents and highlighted what the people of Helsinki want from their everyday environment. This kind of interaction is important if the city seeks to develop in line with the needs and wishes of its inhabitants,” said Kirsi Verkka, the City of Helsinki’s Participatory Budgeting Development Manager.
Helsinki residents submitted more than 1,700 proposals to the fourth round of the OmaStadi initiative.
“OmaStadi is in a class of its own because the people of Helsinki actively submit proposals and vote. That’s one of the reasons it has attracted so much attention throughout the world,” said Verkka.
OmaStadi also stands out from many of its peers because Helsinki’s residents have so enthusiastically participated in the co-creation phase that follows the vote. During this phase, residents and experts from the city work as a team to refine the proposals into a feasible project plan.
OmaStadi is the people of Helsinki’s very own. This is because the idea for the participatory budgeting initiative originated from the city’s residents back in 2016, when Helsinki was looking for new ways to encourage resident participation. The goal is for residents' voices to be heard more strongly in budget planning and decision-making, strengthen local participation and learn the wishes and needs of the people living in the different districts of the city.
The city’s Participation Model and OmaStadi (“MyCity”) were born as a result. In the first round of the initiative, which took place in 2018–2019, EUR 4.4 million was allocated for implementation of the residents’ favourite proposals. In this first round, 1,273 proposals were submitted, 296 proceeded to the voting stage, and 44 were implemented. The voting percentage among Helsinki residents in this first round was 8.6.
The second round in 2021–2022 was extended to two years, and the allocation from the city budget was doubled to EUR 8.8 million. Residents of the city made 1,463 proposals, of which 396 proceeded to the voting stage. Ultimately, 75 of the proposals were implemented. The voting percentage in the second round was 8.1.
The third round also lasted two years and had a similar budget of EUR 8.8 million. A total of 4,368 proposals were submitted, and 1,532 of these proposals proceeded to the voting stage. The percent of eligible Helsinki residents that voted in the third round was 7.1.
In the most recent, fourth round of OmaStadi, the budget was once again raised, this time to EUR 10 million. The two-year process fielded a record number of 1,761 proposals, 640 of which proceeded to the voting stage. Over 31,000 Helsinki residents voted in OmaStadi in the fourth round, accounting for 5.1 percent of eligible residents of the city.
To date, some 170,000 residents of Helsinki have voted in the OmaStadi rounds, and more than 200 proposals have been turned into reality or are currently being implemented.
“Concrete examples of how OmaStadi has made Helsinki a better place to live include convenient outdoor gyms right near people’s homes, joyful health-promoting exercise sessions for older people and school lessons on LGBTQ issues,” Kirsi Verkka said.
Verkka feels that the OmaStadi initiative has increased people’s understanding of Helsinki’s municipal operations. When the residents work together with the city’s experts to co-create the selected proposals, it becomes clear to them how many things need to be taken into account or how long things like permit processes can take. In addition, information on the decisions and progress of OmaStadi projects is made publicly available on the omastadi.hel.fi website.
The City of Helsinki also benefits from the initiative in many ways, as the OmaStadi proposals, assessment and co-creation work help city employees to learn more about the wishes and needs of many different kinds of residents and associations.
The City of Helsinki also consults its residents in the continuous development of the OmaStadi initiative. For example, in the beginning of the programme, the residents and city experts came together to assess and co-create each of the resident proposals as a team, but this was judged to make the process unnecessarily lengthy.
In subsequent rounds, only proposals whose feasibility has been first verified by the city’s experts were accepted for consideration. Proposals that are too expensive are now eliminated and similar ideas are often combined.
“Residents don’t necessarily know, for example, who owns the land they are proposing a barbecue shelter for. The city can only build on its own land. The city experts also check to make sure that the proposed changes aren’t already in the works,” Kirsi Verkka said.
The voting process has also been fine-tuned. In the first years of the initiative, voters could choose two kinds of proposals: those that would affect their immediate residential area and others that would affect the whole city.
Now, voters must select all of the proposals they support from a single area of the city known as a major district. Verkka noted that it is most common for voters to choose the major district in which they live. Nowadays, the total number of votes is only announced after the end of the voting period, and a running tally is no longer visible on the OmaStadi website.
Helsinki residents have praised the OmaStadi participatory budgeting initiative for increasing the exchange of information and enhancing their sense of community. Participants in the initiative’s workshops reported that work on the proposals allowed them to meet new people and be introduced to different points of view.
“The workshop feedback we received noted that while discussions on social media tend to fall into familiar ruts or go off track, when residents sit down face-to-face to discuss issues in their area, the discussion tends to stay constructive. OmaStadi contributes to creating and maintaining a shared understanding of our city. It fosters community spirit, and this is no small thing,” Verkka said.
“One of OmaStadi’s goals is to include representatives from as many different groups of residents and associations as possible. That’s why information has been made available on different channels in seven languages. There is also no requirement that people be Finnish citizens in order to vote,” said Titta Reunanen, the City of Helsinki’s Partnerships Manager, who also participates in OmaStadi work.
She explained how OmaStadi works closely with many kinds of organisations, so information about the participatory budgeting initiative can spread to as many groups of residents as possible and activate them to help develop the city. Now, if voting activity in one district is lower than in others, the city steps up its cooperation with the local associations in response to this.
Helsinki inhabitants have several other options alongside OmaStadi when it comes to participating in city decision-making and having an influence. Residents are always free to submit a municipal resident’s initiative, provide feedback on the city's activities and voice their opinion on city planning, as well as attend mayor's residents’ evenings and vote in municipal elections.
The City of Helsinki also works to connect city workers with the wishes and needs of the capital’s different neighbourhoods. This is partly ensured by the city’s borough liaisons, a team of outreach professionals who were hired to interface with residents in each of the city’s major districts. The liaisons also promote cooperation between local residents and organisations in the area.
All residents over the age of 13 are eligible to vote on OmaStadi proposals, but in addition to this, young people can make a difference at their school, for example, through the Youth Budget, initially known by the name of RuutiBudjetti.
Many schools utilise the OmaStadi participatory budgeting initiative when instructing their students about different kinds of civil engagement and participation. It is an effective way for Helsinki residents to have a wide-ranging influence in the working of their hometown.
This article was first published on 22 August 2025. It has been updated in March and April 2026.
