Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2013 | Page 17

Core Concerns
City centres must reinvent themselves – or risk being
forgotten altogether

T

he problem with revitalising efforts is
that it is easy enough to transform the
downtown area in a city where the business is booming – but quite hard to pull it off
if local economy is suffering and money is

Photo: City of Seinäjoki / Seppo Kari

City centres have
traditionally held
an important role in
society, but motorisation
and emergence of
shopping centres away
from city centres has
meant that downtown
is no longer the only
game in town. However,
the city centres are not
badly armed in this
fight: authenticity and
history work in the
favour of downtown
hubs. Still, shopping
centres have succeeded
in offering a wellbalanced mix in a
compact setting, and
city centres are under
constant pressure to
keep evolving.

scarce to begin with. Also, there are a range
of players in the city centres – property owners, tenant companies, residents, city planners, customers – and it can be exceedingly difficult to see eye to eye on some issues.

Tekes-funded Kautas project sought
to find out, what makes city centres tick –
why do people go there (or why don’t they)?
Through involvement from University of Jyväskylä, University of Tampere as well as
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