Workshop protocolCase Kuopio

Raine Mäntysalo, Vesa Kanninen& Marco te Brömmelstroet

Centre for Urban and Regional Studies YTKAalto University

Introduction

• The ’implementation gap’ of the respective Planning Support Systems (LUT PSS) between theory and practice.

• In Finland, the “Kuopio Three Urban Fabrics Model” has created a successful local platform for communication between the different fields of planning and design, and related political decision making, and has thus functioned as a transdiscursive planning tool.

• The Kuopio case has been studied using a theoretical concept ‘trading zone’, developed by Peter Galison in the field of social studies of science and technology.

• The analysis suggests that the success of an integrative LUT planning instrument depends on the degree to which it is able to generate a local communicative platform, a narrowed down “pidgin language” between the different planning perspectives (e.g. land use and tranportation planning).

Trading zonePeter Galison (1997): Image and Logic. A Material Culture

of Microphysics

• While the concept has been well established in the field of sociological studies of science and technology, its applicability in the realms of environmental planning and policy-making has been gaining increasing interest.

• ‘Trading zone’ refers to infrastructures and concepts that function as “exchange languages” for the mutual “out-talk” between members of different sub-cultures.

• A platform where highly elaborate and complicated issues can be transformed into “thin descriptions” for the purposes of exchanging information – in a certain locality.

• Originally developed to describe inter-cultural coordination between different groups of scientists (e.g. theorists, empiricists and instrumentalists in microphysics)

• Analogy to anthropological linguistics studies of pidgin and creole languages• Related to the ’boundary object’ concept (Star & Griesemer 1989) but more

dynamic.

• Developed by the city planner Leo Kosonen and his colleagues locally in the city of Kuopio (97.000 inhabitants), in eastern Finland, during the last 20 years.

• Motivated by the need to manage the urban growth of Kuopio with means that would have better responsiveness to problems of urban sprawl and increasing car-based mobility.

• The core idea of the model is a radically simplified conception of the urban system (inspired especially by Newman & Kenworthy):

The Kuopio Three Urban Fabrics Model

Walking City

Transit City Car City

Transit city as a ”string of pearls” with elaborated guidelines for both strategic and detailed land use planning as well as transportation network planning and detailed street design.

The Kuopio Three Urban Fabrics Model

Saaristokatu Project

The generation of the Kuopio Three Urban Fabrics Model – a trading zone

Walking City

Transit City Car City

• A ‘thin description’ of the urban system for the mutual coordination of planning between the different sectors of public planning and administration

• The model resonates with the citizens’ everyday experience of the functioning of the city. Therefore the local lay politicians can rather easily grasp the planning principles – fostering balance between the different city types - that the model portrays.

• During the evolution of the model, new elements and actor groups have been integrated and new more sophisticated tools of planning and analysis have been developed.

Research project:Car-dependent urban structure & its alternatives

The Three Urban Fabrics Model

developed into a GIS-based urban planning

tool in cooperation with local planners

Walking City

Transit City Car City

YKR: The data system for analysing and monitoring the development urban and regional structure

• GIS-based data utilizing data from Statistics Finland

• Independent of municipal boundaries

• Information of long term trends (since 1980): developmental analyses and comparisons between regions

• Comparative knowledge (in time and location) of urban structure: housing, jobs, services, greenery and connections between them

• Basic tool for monitoring, analysing and planning

• Balancing different modes of mobility and counter-acting the expansion of the Car City and related car dependency

• Steering urban growth on the basis of Transit City growth fingers• Increasing the attractiveness of the city centre on the basis of Walking

City

Planning goals in Kuopio Three Urban Fabrics Model

Walking City

Transit City Car City

Accessibility measures in Kuopio

• Walking City• Zone 1 (blue): the commercial centre

and surroundings within a 1 km circle, pedestrian grid

• Zone 2 (green): inner suburbs within a 1 km distance to Zone 1, with good pedestrian and bicycle routes to the centre

• Transit City – Zone 3 (red): outer suburbs along bus route “strings”, with housing “pearls” surrounding bus stop nodes within 250 m distance, bus frequency 10-15 min

• Car City - Zone 4 (yellow): other outer suburbs

Understanding changes in accessibility in Kuopio

Share of inhabitants living in areas with density of min. 20 res./ha, 1990-2005

Understanding changes in accessibility in Kuopio

Share of inhabitants living and/or working in car dependent zones, 1990-2005

Understanding changes in accessibility in Kuopio

Average distance to nearest grocery store in different mobility zones, 2000-2008

Population in different mobility zones, 1980-2005

Population density (res./ha) in different mobility zones, 1980-2005

Amount of jobs in different mobility zones, 1980-2005

Designing integrated strategies in Kuopio

• The Three Urban Fabrics Model adopted as a framework for other sectors of administration, too.

• The statistical district data and mobility surveys arranged accordingly.

• Adopted in different policy and planning measures, e.g. Kuopio Architectural Policy, the Healthy City Programme.

• Key projects: Saaristokatu, City centre pedestrian street grid

• Greatest challenge: Out-of-town shopping centre projects (e.g. Ikea-Ikano)