The Helsinki and Stockholm Regions in Context: Structural Characteristics, Recent Trends and New Challenges

Abstract

As the preceding chapter illustrated, it is important to first consider the specific institutional context of the Nordic welfare state and its political system of decentralized centralism (the hourglass model) if we want to carry out a truly context sensitive and multilevel analysis of governance transformations in Helsinki and Stockholm. Furthermore, I have shown that recent socio-economic upheavals certainly make for another crucial contextual dimension as well. In this chapter, I will argue that we have to take into account two additional contextual characteristics before we will finally turn to the actual comparative analysis of current forms of urban and metropolitan governance. Firstly, we should briefly consider the distinct pathways of urbanization and metropolitanization as they have recently unfolded in Finland and Sweden (chapter 6.1.). Secondly, it is important to explore the most important structural features of the Helsinki and Stockholm region-such as their monocentric or polycentric nature, or the possible discrepancies between the ‘functional’ and ‘administrative’ region. An overview of these vital characteristics will serve as an important precondition to define and systematically compare the overall setup and boundaries of these two Nordic capital regions (chapter 6.2.). On the basis of this characterization of metropolitan Stockholm and Helsinki, chapter 6.3. will finally introduce the most pressing policy challenges and problems that have recently emerged there. As such it should be understood as a ‘transition chapter’ that sets out the agenda for the multilevel analysis of urban and metropolitan governance arrangements that will follow in chapter 7.