Future Perfect

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ustainable

cities

with natural areas both outside the city and in the

surrounding countryside

• Part of the urban structure

• Started in the core of the city or its immediate vicinity.

The urban park concept not only works as a strategic

instrument, but also opens up discussion and a learning

forum between municipalities, environmentalists and

citizens, to analyse and determine whether sufficiently

large areas remain within the city structure with high

mixed cultural and natural values worth preserving

and managing as national urban parks. Applications for

developing these spaces are submitted to the Ministry of

the Environment by local authorities after discussions

between the municipality, citizens, environmentalists

and other stakeholders.

The goal is to create a network of national urban

parks, with each having a special role in it. At present,

the Finnish network of national urban parks consists

of parklands in five cities: Hämeenlinna, Heinola,

Pori, Hanko and Porvoo. With regard to their cultural

heritage and urban biodiversity, these cities are very

different from one another. Turku, the former capital

of Finland, submitted its application last year and its

new national urban park, which includes the north-

ernmost oak forests in the world, will be added in this

year of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable

Development (Rio+20).

Finland, infill housing within sparsely built parts of many urban

areas has grown dramatically since the 1990s. This process of

creating more compact settlements has raised a common concern

in Finland about the need to preserve biodiversity and cultural

heritage, both within and in proximity to urban settlements.

The Finnish national urban park concept, which is part of the

Land Use and Building Act, has proved to be a successful tool for

solving this problem. A national park may be established to protect

and maintain the beauty of the cultural and natural landscape, biodi-

versity, historical characteristics or other special townscapes, as well

as the social or recreational values of an area within an urban envi-

ronment. So in a sense, the national urban park is a certificate that

ensures a beautiful and experiential environment with buildings,

parklands and other natural areas. The national urban park concept

is unique, since it does not differentiate between the natural and

cultural heritage, but considers them as a whole. National urban

parks are also tailored to the specific characteristics of each city,

hence, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions

Special criteria for identifying potential national urban parks have

been prepared which state that these should be:

• Natural areas that are important for the preservation of urban

biodiversity

• Cultural milieus, for example, including buildings important for

understanding the nation’s or city’s history, as well as parks and

green areas of architectural or aesthetic significance

• Extensive and continuous

• Able to facilitate an ecological corridor that will contribute to

species movement and interaction, while creating direct links

Porvoo National Urban Park is a mix of urban natural and cultural heritage with early settlement dispalys from the Middle Ages

Image: Ministry of the Environment, Finland