Finland - from car dependency to oil dependency?
3.10.2011
"Finland has a car-dependent urban structure," stated Professor Raine Mäntysalo at the fifth Sino-Finnish Innovation Forum held at Dipoli in late September.
"But does that necessarily have to translate into a dependency on oil?" he immediately adds.
In his speech, Mäntysalo addressed how innovative cities recognise their dependency on oil and how to eliminate it, so that they can truly represent sustainable development free from carbon dioxide emissions.
The path to dependency only goes one way.
Dependency on cars has also made Finns dependent on oil. According to the Finnish Petroleum Federation, a majority of Finnish petroleum products—47%—is consumed as fuel for transportation. On the other hand, in the opinion of many researchers, we have already passed the point of 'peak oil'.
The urbanisation of Finland and fragmentation of cities into increasingly smaller and more distant units has resulted in a situation, where routine trips are constantly increasing in distance and the entire society is rapidly adopting the private motoring model.
Unfortunately, public transportation is considered slow, inflexible, uncomfortable, even demanding and extremely frustrating. And, for example, where big, new shopping centres are constantly being built along the Ring roads, which results in an accumulation of services, motorists follow, thus increasing the use of private vehicles.
This situation has created what researchers refer to as a path to dependency, in which one thing inevitably leads to the next. Mäntysalo's research team at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies (YTK) has studied the concept of dependency paths, and discovered how self-perpetuating they are.
"It's as if things are locked into going in a certain direction," says Mäntysalo.
"The increase in private motoring is the result of several factors: the influence of political and governmental actions, things stemming from general customs, the symbolic value of things, the development of vehicles, political and economic goal-setting, and even a cultural concept of time.
All of us are complicit in promoting private motoring through these."
Give up oil? Cars in Finland?
The final conclusion reached by the research team is that the dependency on oil that results in a dependency on cars must be eliminated, one way or another. A variety of solutions to this can be sought in, for example, the Eco Urban Living project.
Mäntysalo presented scenarios proposed in 2009 by American researchers, Dennis and Urry, as examples of recent thoughts concerning the subject: what happens after the car?
According to Dennis and Urry, one possibility, at least in metropolitan areas, is that there could be petroleum-free forms of transportation, while another involves intelligently planning the combined use of bicycle, car, bus and metro transportation, using digitally transmitted data. A third possibility envisioned by the researchers involves the planning of more closely-knit community structures that encourage social interaction.
"In order to ensure that these don't remain merely utopian ideas, the importance of various trial platforms is immense. Each and every Eco Urban Living project brings these things closer to reality," states Mäntysalo.
Text and photos Eeva Pitkälä
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Raine Mäntysalo of the Aalto University Centre for Urban and Regional Studies (YTK) spoke at the fifth Sino-Finnish Innovation Forum, "Low Carbon City Development World Forum".
In addition to the founding organisations of the Eco Urban Living project, the event was also attended by city officials and researchers from Asia and Europe.
The Eco Urban Living project was launched in 2010 by the City of Espoo, Fortum, Nokia, Valmet Automotive and Synocus.
See also
Centre for Urban and Regional Studies (YTK)
