Local Government as a Promoter and Regulator of the Dispersing Settlement Structure in the City's Countryside
Abstract
One main feature of recent change in the Finnish settlement system outside the national metropolitan area in the south has been the growth of a few strong but internally decentralizing city regions. The first part of this paper refers to the different settlement forms and socio-economic mechanisms of this partial decentralization in one of these growing city regions (joensuu). The local redistribution of population from the city itself to the surrounding rural municipalities has been mediated mainly by the new construction of single-family houses, first in planned satellite agglomerations (commuter villages), but today even more in scattered settlements . The prime aim of this paper is to evaluate the dual role of local government both in promoting and regulating dispersal of residential development in the city's countryside. The limited support for effective environmental policy in the urban-adjacent rural municipalities reflects the myth of a 'green' Finnish countryside, on the one hand, and the decisive role of the landed interests in Finnish policy-making, on the other. Only recently have we been able to identify some expressions of a growing environmental awareness in these areas, too. This seems inevitable, since the same municipalities see, ideally at least, favorable environmental qualities as the main attraction for new affluent residents.
References
Brindley, T., Rydin, Y. and Stoker, G. (1989) Remaking Planning. The Politics of Urban Change in the Thatcher Years. London: Unwin Hyman.
Bryant, C.R., Russwurm, L.H. and McLellan, A.G. (1982) The City's Countryside. Land and its Management in the Rural-Urban Fringe. London and New York: Longman.
Cloke, P. and Little, J. (1990) The Rural State? Limits to Planning in Rural Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Cloke, P., Phillips, M. and Rankin, D. (1991) Middle-class housing choice: Channels of entry into Gower, South Wales. In T. Champion and C. Watkins (eds.) People in the Countryside. London: Paul Chapman, pp. 38-52.
Cox, K.R. and Mair, A. (1991) From localised social structures to localities as agents. Environment and Planning A, 23:197-213.
Harvey, D. (1989) From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: The transformation in urban governance in late capitalism. Geografiska Annaler, 71B:3-17.
Kontturi, O. (1990) Konivaaran oikeustapaus-valtakunnallisen harjujensuojeluohjelman ennakkotapaus? [The Konivaaran case: A precedent for the National Esker Conservation Programme?] Ymparisto ja terveys [Environment and Health], 20:502-517.
Kopra, P. (1992). Haja-asutusalueen rakentamisen ja asumisen kustannukset. [The building and housing costs in scattered settlements.] Ymparistoministerio, Kaavoitus- ja rakennusosasto, selvitys [Ministry of Environment, Physical Planning and Building Department, Survey] 6.
Kumpulainen, M. (1992) Maallemuuttajat-tutkimus Joensuusta ymparistokuntiin suuntautuvista muutoista. [Urban-to-rural migrants-A study of the Joensuu city region.] University of Joensuu, Research Reports in Human Geography and Planning, 3.
Logan, J.R. and Molotch, H.L. (1987) Urban Fortunes. The Political Economy of Place. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Massey, D. (1991) The political place of locality studies. Environment and Planning A 23: 267-281.
Naess, P. (1991) Environment protection by urban concentration. Scandinavian Housing and Planning Research, 8:247-252.
Nordberg, L. (1988) Oversikt och jamforande analys av plan- och byggnadslagstiftningen i de nordiska landerna. [An overview and a comparative analysis of the planning and building legislation in the Nordic countries.] Nordisk Ministerrad [The Nordic Council of Ministers], Nord 1988:72.
Paasi, A. and Vartiainen, P. (1981). Keskuksen ja ympariston valinen muuttoliike: tapaustutkimus Joensuusta. [Migration between centre and rural communities.] Terra, 83:57-72.
Pacione, M. (1990) Private profit and public interest in the residential development process: a case study of conflict in the urban fringe. Journal of Rural Studies, 6:103-116.
Pahl, R.E. (1965) Urbs in rure: The metropolitan fringe in Hertfordshire. London School of Economics, Geographical Papers 2.
Thomas, D. (1990) The edge of the city. Transactions, Institute of British Geographers N.S. 15:131-138.
Thrift, N.J. (1987) The geography of late twentieth century class formation. In N. Thrift and P. Williams (eds.), Class and Space. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 207-253.
Vartiainen, P. (1989a) Counterurbanisation: A challenge for socio-theoretical geography. Journal of Rural Studies, 5 :217-225.
Vartiainen, P. (1989b) The end of drastic depopulation in rural Finland: Evidence of counterurbanisation? Journal of Rural Studies, 5: 123-136.
Vartiainen, P. (1991a) Kommunen som strategisk territoriell cuhet. [Municipality as a strategic territorial unit.] 12:e Nordiska Symposiet for Kritisk Samhallsgeografi [The 12th Nordic Symposium on Critical Social Geography], Dalaro, Sweden, 26-29 September 1991.
Vartiainen, P. (1991b) Seutuistuminen yhdyskuntasuunnittelun haasteena. [The city-region-based development of the settlement system: A challenge to local planning.] Terra, 103:75-86.
Vartiainen, P. (1992a) Residential mobility and housing policy in the city's countryside: The case of Joensuu, a middle-sized city region in Eastern Finland. Scandinavian Housing and Planning Research, 9: 165-179.
Vartiainen, P. (1992b) Pyhaseluan kunta: yhdyskuntarakenteen ja maankaytn kehittamisen suuntaviivat. [The municipality of Pyhaselka: Perspectives on the development of settlement structure and land use.] Joensuu: Joensuun yliopisto, Maaseutuinstituutti [University of Joensuu, Institute of Rural Studies].
Vogel, R.K. and Swanson, B.S. (1989) The growth machine versus the antigrowth coalition. The battle of our communities. Urban Affairs Quarterly, 25 :63-85.
- The contributor(s) (authors) warrant that the entire work is original and unpublished; it is submitted only to this Journal and all text, data, figures/tables or other illustrations included in this work are completely original and unpublished, and these have not been previously published or submitted elsewhere in any form or media whatsoever.
- The contributor(s) warrant that the work contains no unlawful or libelous statements and opinions and liable materials of any kind whatsoever, does not infringe on any copyrights, intellectual property rights, personal rights or rights of any kind of others, nor contains any plagiarized, fraudulent, improperly attributed materials, instructions, procedures, information or ideas that might cause any harm, damage, injury, losses or costs of any kind to person or property.
- The contributor(s) retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- The contributor(s) are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- The contributor(s) are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
- Geography Research Forum may disseminate the content of the publications and publications’ Meta data in text, image, or other print and electronic formats to providers of research databases (e.g. EBSCO, GeoBase, JSTOR) to facilitate publications' exposure.
