Helsinki

as an Open and Intercultural City

Final Report

A report by

to the City of Helsinki

March 2010
Helsinki as an Open and Intercultural City

Contents

1. AIMS OF THE REPORT ..............................................................................3

OUR APPROACH................................................................................................. 3
OUR CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................ 4
OUR RECOMMENDATIONS ...................................................................................... 5

2. IMPRESSIONS OF HELSINKI ....................................................................8

ROOTS ........................................................................................................... 8
TOLERANCE...................................................................................................... 9
EQUALITY ...................................................................................................... 10
ORDER AND DISORDER ...................................................................................... 10
DRAWING POWER AND LIVEABILITY ........................................................................ 11
OPENNESS TO COMPETITION ................................................................................ 12
SOCIABILITY AND FRIENDSHIP .............................................................................. 13

3. THE OPEN, CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE CITY........................................15

WAVES OF CHANGE AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES.......................................................... 15
OPENNESS AND DESIGN THINKING ......................................................................... 16
WICKED PROBLEMS........................................................................................... 18
THE ORGANIZATIONAL SETTING FOR OPENNESS AND COSMOPOLITANISM ............................. 19

4. TALENT ATTRACTION AND RETENTION ..................................................20

THE CITY OR THE JOB ........................................................................................ 21
THE HELSINKI RESPONSE.................................................................................... 22
NEW INDICATORS FOR SUCCESS............................................................................ 24

5. THE DIVERSE AND INTERACTIVE CITY ...................................................25

MIGRATION AND CITIES ..................................................................................... 25
THE DIVERSITY ADVANTAGE FOR CITIES .................................................................. 25
CHALLENGES .................................................................................................. 27
PRECONDITIONS AND INGREDIENTS OF THE INTERCULTURAL CITY ..................................... 28
QUESTIONS UNDERLYING AN INTERCULTURAL STRATEGY ................................................ 29

6. TOWARDS AN INTERCULTURAL CITY STRATEGY FOR HELSINKI ............31

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1. Aims of the Report
COMEDIA has been engaged by the City Council to conduct a major study on how the
city of Helsinki can be seen to be an open and cosmopolitan city and by so doing to
further build its global reputation. Helsinki recognizes that ‘openness’ will increasingly
be the primary quality that can help guarantee its future success economically,
culturally and socially and recommendations for its future policies and development
follow.

One conclusion can be stated immediately. We welcome the both the wisdom and the
courageousness of Helsinki in opening itself out to an examination of its openness.
Few other cities have yet come to grips with these issues. The fact that Helsinki is
asking itself a question about its openness shows how open it is.

A key assumption is reflected throughout, it is: The creative and innovative capacity
is the crucial attribute a city needs to help future proof itself and to provide adaptive
resilience. It relies on a high degree of openness.

The central question addressed therefore follows: How can Helsinki become a city for
which increased openness as well as growing cultural diversity is both a driver of
international competitiveness and a source of well-being and prosperity for all its
citizens?

‘Openness’ is illustrated in many ways: How the city welcomes in foreigners, how it
addresses cultural diversity, how it attracts skills and talent, how open its business
climate is, how the city manages its affairs, the extent to which different sectors and
institutions collaborate, the degree to which the city works in an interdisciplinary way
and how the city in all its facets encourages the development of a creative ecology.
‘Openness’ manifests itself too in how the physical fabric is put together: How
permeable, connected and accessible are the buildings and built structure as well as
the city as a whole, how does the city signal its openness through its sign and symbol
system and how it projects itself internally and to the world.

Our Approach
The research began in March 2009 and the conclusions were presented to a
conference on 22nd April 2010. This report is based on a variety of sources:

• Interviews with about 50 people in a wide variety of roles within the city

• A survey of the Finnish English-language media

• Three feedback seminars involving roughly 90 people in total

• An analysis of Helsinki’s own research and policy making

• A review of 30 examples from outside Finland

• Reflecting on COMEDIA’s previous work embodied in three major texts: The

Creative City, The Art of City-Making and The Intercultural City.

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 • Drawing on COMEDIA’s work with the Council of Europe and the European
Commission which has adopted ‘the intercultural city’ notion as the inspiration
for a transnational programme1.

• Previous experience over the last 15 years in working with the city of Helsinki.

The report makes a series of recommendations covering three main areas:

• How the ‘openness’ agenda can be connected to the World Capital of Design
2012

• How ‘openness’ can be fostered more intensively in the workings of the city as
a whole

• How the increasing cultural diversity of the city can become an asset

This report has a certain style. Whilst it recommends it also asks questions, it seeks
to open minds, to stimulate thinking and to encourage debate.

We have approached this in four ways:

• To assess the city’s overall level of openness and resulting creative and
innovative capacity

• To establish a link between the city’s diversity of talent, its creative milieu and
its innovative capacity;

• To review the attractiveness and openness of Helsinki to foreigners and resident

ethnic minorities;

• To establish the basis for an Intercultural City Strategy for Helsinki;

Our Conclusions
The main conclusions of our research are:

• Four debates are currently occurring in parallel in Helsinki with little overlap, yet
they are inextricably connected and need to come together. ‘Helsinki: An open
and cosmopolitan city’ seeks to do this.

o The first discusses the level of openness of institutions and actors in the city
and their collaborative capacity. It asks whether strict sectoral or departmental
working can deliver the innovation Helsinki aspires to.

o The second is concerned with talent and skills, linked to the competitiveness
and innovation agenda. It asks how Helsinki can make itself more
internationally attractive to the investment, ideas and people that will enable it
to compete economically and technologically.

o The third debate is concerned with migration and cultural diversity. It asks
how Helsinki can integrate record number of foreign migrants and takes place
in an international climate of opinion which is becoming increasingly cautious
and even negative.

1
Intercultural Cities, see www.coe.int/interculturalcities

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 o The fourth involves the city’s spatial, physical and social settings and their
influence on its liveability and attractiveness. It asks how Helsinki can become
a creative milieu where the interaction and mixing of different people and
ideas can become more frequent and rewarding.

• Helsinki is in some respects very open, but in other respects somewhat closed. It
is relatively easy to connect with people and organizations and the distance
between the citizen and authorities can be short. Helsinki’s innovative companies
such as Nokia or the new raft of smaller companies emerging are adapting to the
new organizational paradigms based on open innovation and co-creation.
However, notable exceptions aside, the internal structures of many organizations,
especially within the public sector, find it difficult to operate in a collaborative and
interdisciplinary way. Departmental thinking still dominates. This will cause future
problems, reduce the capacity to achieve joint insights and so reduce
effectiveness.

• Helsinki has a admirable record in education recognized in a variety of

international assessments and studies. It may, however, be important to assess
the extent to which the educational system sufficiently encourages creative and
independent thinking.

• Helsinki is moving closer to the experience of other major European cities in terms
of its openness to migration and cultural diversity but there is a growing distance
between it and much of the rest of Finland. As social and political attitudes harden
towards diversity in Finland, and the economy becomes more difficult, it may be
necessary for the city of Helsinki to pursue a different policy agenda which reflects
its own reality. It may also be necessary for Helsinki’s political, business and
community leaders to be more publicly visible, united and outspoken in support of
the city’s determination to maintain its course of becoming an increasingly
cosmopolitan city.

• Too many people in Helsinki who consider themselves to be open to diversity

regard ‘tolerance’ between citizens of different ethnic background to be a
satisfactory and ultimate goal. Such ‘benign indifference’ is simply not good
enough. Cities that wish to realise the full advantage of openness and diversity
need to pursue a dynamic policy agenda based upon active engagement and co-
operation between people in education, neighbourhoods, public space and the
economy, in which all groups.

• Greater interaction between different values, attitudes and lifestyles brings the
risk of greater conflict as well as the prize of greater innovation. Helsinki
institutions must rise above their natural inclination to avoid potential conflict.
They must face up to the risk of conflict, but can also minimise this risk by taking
seriously and acquiring the competences and strategies to negotiate difference
that have now been widely adopted in other parts of Europe.

Our recommendations
Our main recommendations are:

1. Helsinki should develop an ‘Open Helsinki Platform’. This is an integrated

and orchestrated set of actions to embed openness, the advantages of
diversity, creative thinking, and imaginative problem solving and inventive
opportunity generation into the genetic code of the city region. The wider aim
is for Helsinki to be globally recognized as an open, cosmopolitan region that
encourages creativity and innovation.

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2. The ‘Open Helsinki Platform’ should be set up as a tight, lean organization
that is made of public, private and community interests. It should be given
authority and a budget to ensure that is it does not only focus on strategy and
policy but can also encourage and implement tangible actions. It should be
time dated to ensure its performance is monitored and so that it does not
ossify organizationally. Its aim should be to raise awareness of the potential
benefits of openness, diversity and creativity for Helsinki as a whole. It should
spell out the organizational implications of operating in this new way and how
assessing the city through an intercultural lens will change the dynamics of the
city. It will promote practical examples from across Europe and beyond.

3. Link the evolving achievements of Helsinki’ work related to openness, diversity

and creativity to the World Capital of Design 2012 and design a programme
related to these concerns. Promote and discuss the results of this research in a
public way starting in 2010 and reaching a climax in 2012. This should include
innovative and interactive consultative mechanisms to both raise awareness
and to gather suggestions as to how things can improve.

4. To avoid being placed on the defensive by anti-diversity sentiments, the

City must take the initiative. A long-term city-wide debate on the implications
of openness and interculturality for Helsinki should be held (along the lines of
those held in cities in Switzerland and Norway).

5. Establish an Observatory for looking afresh at the city through an

intercultural lens. This could be achieved by establishing a permanent
research function within Tietokesus (in association with the Office of
Immigration Affairs) dedicated to monitoring the changing face cultural
diversity and interculturality within the city.

6. Helsinki should explore Amsterdam’s integrated policy on welcoming

outsiders ranging from its one stop Expat Centre to its marketing campaigns,
publications and internet presence combines addressing the talent and
diversity agenda simultaneously.

7. In assessing the good practices elsewhere consider how Helsinki might be able
to build such a reputation that people want to be associated with the city
even though they might not live there. Barcelona in its prime had an
ambassadors programme, which in essence was part of their cultural
diplomacy. This helped reinforce the resonance and presence of the city.

8. Make intercultural competence a regular part of professional development

and training and of the school curriculum.

9. There should be a special initiative to create experimental intercultural

spaces and places in the inner city through experiments in urban design,
architecture, planning regulation, management and security and event
promotion.

10. Helsinki should undertake a detailed study commissioned to a mixed team of

specialists who understand both culture, the software of the city and urban
design to assess how the larger extended university area can, through
is built fabric and activity base, become and feel like a ‘creative learning
zone’. The very area where it ought to be exuding these qualities around the
main university is problematic.

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 11. Institute a biennial peer group assessment of Helsinki’s openness,
diversity and creativity and combining an internal and external assessment
starting in 2012.

12. Assess the most difficult and complex problems Helsinki is facing and by
2011 develop a targeted programme to assess how open thinking, a focus on
diversity and creative new ideas, mechanisms, initiatives and innovations can
help solve them. Often known as ‘wicked’ problems they include issues such as
maintaining levels of social service provision and healthcare with increasing
demands and shrinking budgets

13. Explore and assess within 2010 how the regulations and incentives regime
in Helsinki can act as a stimulus to openness. Instigate a broad ranging
initiative to assess the extent to which the various bureaucracies within
Helsinki can become more open and creative both in their internal operations
and ideas as well as in their collaborative relationships. Assess the institutional
framework and consider whether a tipping point has been reached where it has
become too complex.

14. Initiate a scheme in 2010, starting in the public sector, to incorporate

openness, diversity and creativity criteria in job applications and
performance assessments

A further set of secondary recommendations is provided in the section

‘Towards an Intercultural Strategy’ for Helsinki in section 6.

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2. Impressions of Helsinki
We began our project by interviewing a wide diversity of people and a number of
important themes have emerged. They represent deep cultural and social factors -
some pose profound challenges for Helsinki’s aspirations others provide tremendous
strengths and opportunities. After our observations we raise questions which
hopefully will stimulate ongoing discussion.

Roots
Finland was for many years isolated by geography, climate and language from the
main centres of European population. Even within Finland, the dispersal of a largely
rural population was a dominant factor until about 50 years ago. The urban
experience is therefore relatively new. In some senses Finland has been catapulted
into a new era and the shift from rural to urban thinking and behaving cannot be
expected to happen quickly. Being contained, self-reliant and self-sufficient, yet also
responsive to others in need, is a common trait of this heritage. These are positive
qualities yet they carry with them a residual attitude which is guarded, protective,
restrained, held in check and perhaps even suspicious of difference and change.
Dealing with and communicating with the outsider in that context may not come
naturally.

Transpose these attributes to today’s organizational structures and work patterns,

particularly in the public sector, and it is possible to understand why the tendency to
work in self-contained departments is prevalent. This creates a challenge for the
unfolding world where openness is seen as essential.

The phrase Tämäa ei ole mistään kotoisin is known to every Finn. It means: ‘This isn’t
from anywhere’. Finns say it is far from complimentary. It questions to some extent
the intrinsic value of the person or thing to which it is directed. Finns, perhaps more
than most nations, draw their identity less from an abstract concept such as a
religious faith, the state or their job or profession and more from the place and those
people from whence they came. This is deeply wedded to the soil, the forest and
regional distinctiveness and remains strong in spite of the loss and uprooting which a
torrid history of invasions or, more recently, urbanisation have wrought.

This sense of national solidarity is born out of battling weather, and occasionally
predatory neighbours as well as physical and linguistic isolation. It has created
admirable cultural traits, not least in the concept of sisu or ‘persistence in adversity’
which lies at the root of many Finnish achievements on the world stage.

On the other hand, it can imply an immutable exclusiveness, such as “once a Finn
always a Finn and also once a foreigner always a foreigner”. It is not arrogant or
chauvinistic (as arrogance strikes us as a profoundly un-Finnish attribute) and indeed
carries with it a degree of humility. We have encountered a sense of: “I’m a Finn and
you’re not and that’s the way nature intended it. It doesn’t make me superior or
inferior to you but it does make us different, forever. Leave me in my Finnishness and
I’ll leave you to be what you are. I’ll respect you for learning to speak Finnish but
even then, you’re not from anywhere here”.

The phrase suggests a scepticism of people who may be of mixed or indeterminate

origin. Hybridity is seen somehow as not as authentic or even trustworthy as purity.
But Finland is rapidly having to come to terms with the reality of intercultural union.
Currently there are 55,000 couples of mixed racial origin and 14% of all new

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marriages in 2007 were mixed, the figure rising to a remarkable 26% in Helsinki
itself. It is estimated there are already over 160,000 children from intercultural
unions. Since Lola Wallinkoski a Nigerian-Finnish woman became Miss Finland in
1996, the country has been unable to ignore this phenomenon2.

Adherence to an exclusive view of roots was profoundly strong in the generation who
lived through the War and the one after. Is it as strong now amongst the more
cosmopolitan younger generation of the capital city? If it is what does that mean for
those people who may be of second or third generation migrant origin who consider
themselves to be Finns?

Tolerance
Finnish tolerance is almost as famous as Nokia. It draws from the ‘live and let live’
mentality and that no one has the right to pass a value judgement on another. It
means that Finns will not draw undue attention to any aspect of a person that may be
different from the norm be it the colour of their skin, their dress sense, behaviour or a
disability. This is positive. Finns will give anyone or anything a hearing without
prejudice. It explains perhaps why Finns are often early adopters of new technology
and are successful international traders. It also probably makes Finland one of the
most egalitarian societies on earth (more of which later).

There may be a less helpful side to this tolerance. The British and Dutch are also
renowned for tolerance but this has done nothing to prevent, and in all probability has
contributed to, the fact that forms of ethnic and cultural segregation have emerged
there. ‘Live and let live’ prevails to the extent that some communities are said to live
completely ‘parallel lives’ knowing virtually nothing of each other - never meeting in
school, at prayer, in work, at the shops or in the street – and feeling no empathy.
One thing the British are rather more tolerant of than the Finns is inequality of
income. This explains why rich white and poor black enclaves proliferate there and
not in Helsinki. However, we have been to northern Kontula.

Some people told us that Finnish tolerance would now be better renamed ‘political
correctness’. They say Finland is failing to come to terms with its cultural diversity
because no-one is prepared to raise the topic of difference in the ways people behave
and think. For example, in planning and building new parts of the city there is no
acknowledgement that people of a different backgrounds might have different
requirements in housing, religious or recreational facilities. Again, the message is not
as in some other countries ‘You must assimilate totally and do as the majority do’.
Rather the message is ‘in order to protect our equality we all have to make some
compromises and accept a one-size-fits-all approach’. It is argued that both city
officials and ethnic community leaders have accepted this status quo and no-one is
prepared to ‘rock the boat’ for fear of what might be released. It has led to something
a long way from tolerance; a resigned acceptance that nothing will ever change, and
a cynical loss of faith in the ability or will of leaders and officials to do anything
creative or courageous.

Compromise, we noted, is at the heart of a democratic intercultural city but so is

active engagement and working through potential conflict to find new innovative
solutions. Contrast this to the stasis of a status quo position. Could this mean that
tolerance could become a problem, creating a barrier to more active engagement
across cultures whilst actually obscuring the emergence of seething underground
resentment? What are the limits of consensus, in what circumstances should it be
sidestepped and in which should it be insisted upon?

2
Figures from the Duo Project www.familiaclub.fi

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Equality
Egalitarianism, it is said, is the sine qua non of Finnish society. It is an attractive
principle, particularly to a Briton who has seen inequality grow and social mobility
decline in the UK in the last two decades. It derives from a profound sense of respect
that Finns hold for neighbours and a sense that sacrifice (through taxation) for the
good of the collective is economically rational and morally uplifting. It has not
prevented Finland producing top products and selling them hard or creating world-
beating individualistic athletes. It has inspired the Finnish approach to integrating
migrants – ‘these people are amongst us and they must share in the fruits of our
society’. It has produced a system of population distribution which seeks to prevent
concentrations which differ from the norm in terms of race, religion or income level
and which expects individuals to sublimate their personal choices to communal good.
This has prevented the worst excesses of ‘white flight’ seen in some other countries.

The guarantor of equality is the state. This often comes as a refreshing surprise to
migrants who may originate in a land where the state apparatus may be indifferent or
even criminal. What is hard for migrants to understand is the lack of space in which
small scale private enterprise or voluntary associations might flourish. They miss the
variety and diversity that such ‘unplanned’ interventions create and they find the
uniformity of state provision inflexible and uniform. The bountiful welfare system is
doubtless a Godsend for people arriving in a condition of distress. Yet the majority are
often perplexed by a state which decides upon and distributes so many things that
elsewhere would be the responsibility of the individual, the family or the group.

This was summed up in one clear and powerful question from one of our respondents
“What is Helsinki, a city or a pharmacy?”

Even in countries with a less extensive welfare system than Finland, there are cases
where too much state benevolence has actually stifled the self-motivation and
undermined the self-confidence of migrant groups. Over time it has started to create
resentment from indigenous working class communities.

Another possible disadvantage, we noted, of a too rigid adherence to equality, lies in

a different quarter. Helsinki knows it must now compete on the world stage with other
cities to attract international experts, academics and students if it is to achieve its
ambition of being an international knowledge hub. Other cities, such as Amsterdam or
Singapore, have set up special plans and systems to ensure foreigners are able to
settle in their new home as easily as possible. To give such ‘special privileges’ to a
specific group in Helsinki would be seen as breaking the tradition of equality of all and
so is discouraged.

Is there a point at which the country’s proud tradition of equality ceases to be a social
benefit and starts to become an obstacle to Finland becoming a truly international and
open society?

Order and disorder

Finland has been described to us as the last bastion of true city planning. Compared
to many other parts of the world where the market, anarchic individuality or self-
interested bureaucracies define the way in which cities develop, Helsinki is a rational,
understandable and democratically-accountable place. The commitment to equality
and collective good requires such a system and it works remarkably well in many
ways. The story of cities, however, is one of constant struggle between order and
disorder, or planned and organic growth. It is also the story of oscillation between
centralisation and devolution of activity and power. In our experience problems begin

10
if one is allowed to be too dominant. We are concerned that presently Helsinki too
strongly towards been over-centralised and over-planned.

Whilst Helsinki is fast becoming a city of many cultures, in its style and the aesthetics
of public planning, design and architecture it is almost oppressively uniform, wedded
to a modernist functionalism – a style that is associated with its nation building
period. Our question to Helsinki is (using a motoring metaphor): ‘Do you have the
courage to loosen this vice-like grip on the steering wheel and allow some freedom for
the vehicle to leave the main highway and follow some unusual byways? Is it possible
for parts of the city to be allowed to develop in ways that are more organic, less
sanitized and less predictable? Is the centralizing urge something that can be
softened? Is it possible to plan more flexibly?

Take, for example, the Hämeentie between Hakaniemi and Sörnäinen. This is an area
of mixed residential, commercial, leisure and industrial usage which is undergoing
demographic and economic change. African, Chinese and Russian store-frontages
jostle with older Finnish establishments such as the market and the Kotiharjun Sauna.
Here you might encounter people or experiences not available elsewhere in the city. It
has an ambiguous reputation and some parts, such as Kurvi, have acquired a
notoriety concerned with crime and illicit drug use. It is the kind of marginal, edgy,
bohemian area that one would expect to find in any large city. We have looked at
Hämeentie and compared it with similar locations which now occur in most other
larger European cities. Take, for example, Schiedamsweg in the Dutch city of
Rotterdam. Both are wide streets that carry road traffic, a two-way tramway, and an
underground metro. They both offer an eclectic mixture of commercial and residential
usage, and a ethnically diverse population. They are both close to the water and
include some areas of important heritage value. Why, if they seem so similar, does
Schiedamsweg look and feel more inviting and engaging than Hämeentie? The
obvious thing is that the Finnish street is an inhospitable canyon utterly dominated by
the car and tram. In Rotterdam, by contrast, pedestrians feel able to move along and
across it with ease. At a more detailed level it is clear that Dutch planners have
allowed much greater scope for ethnic shopkeepers to express themselves in their
storefronts than have their Finnish counterparts. On the other hand, looking at
Hämeentie we start to understand why there are so many successful Finnish Formula
One and rally drivers!

In Schiedamsweg all of Rotterdam’s residents, of all backgrounds, and its visitors can
meet each other. Helsinki needs more places like this – but does it know how to
achieve them?

Drawing power and liveability

Cities need brainpower and talent to remain competitive. Yet talent is fickle and
mobile, so cities can no longer simply rely on the old certainties to stay successful.
Leading edge companies in growth sectors offering high salaries remain important,
but international knowledge workers, academics and students are considering other
factors of equal importance in deciding where to relocate themselves and their
families whether it is Singapore, Boston or Helsinki. A trouble-free process of arrival
and settlement is vital, as is a high quality of life. Here we received mixed messages
about Helsinki.

The city scores impressively on several international comparison indices. For example,
Finland has been ranked as the best business environment in the world for the last
five years by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The same organisation has also
calculated that Helsinki ranks seventh out of 140 cities for its liveability and
commends particularly its strong investment in infrastructure, and high public

11
spending on education, transport and recreation. Confounding the assumption that
high welfare environments are not good for enterprise, the ECER-Banque Populaire
survey of 37 European cities pronounces Helsinki to be the most attractive place to
start a new business, particularly because of the presence of agencies dedicated to
the support of entrepreneurship and the public support for research3.

All this despite the fact that the cost of living and the price of accommodation
continues to race ahead of most other cities and that, according a study of the Finnish
Cultural Foundation, the teaching of Finnish language to foreigners is inflexible and
inadequate and that, according to Akava, graduate unemployment is approaching an
all-time high.

Our interviews have suggested a concern that some institutions in Finland are too
complacent about attracting and keeping talent, either because they assume
continuing success, or they have never accepted the importance of attractivity in the
first place. It is clear that the government is alarmed because the Foreign Minister
has appointed Jorma Ollila to lead a high-level delegation to develop a national brand
for Finland by the end of 2010.

In other quarters however, we detect a suspicion or indifference to such matters. We

are told that the University of Helsinki has no firm idea of how many foreign
academics and students it has and that there is no comprehensive strategy for
attracting them because different faculties cannot agree. The Student’s Union (which
is probably the wealthiest and most politically well-connected organisation of its kind
in Europe) is opposed to any special action to attract foreigners to the university as
this would breach its belief in equality of treatment for all.

Furthermore co-operation between the University and other key agencies concerned
with Helsinki’s image and attractiveness is still at a rudimentary stage. The forum of
Rectors of the leading university has now begun to meet with the 4 mayors of
metropolitan Helsinki and co-operation on attraction and management of foreigners is
said to be a priority, but there are no staff dedicated to this.

So we must ask the city whether it is satisfied with extent to which various of its
institutions are committed to and collaborating with the attractiveness agenda.

Openness to competition
The flip-side of making a city more attractive to outside talent is the challenge it
presents to the local, be that Finns seeking places on graduate courses, academics
seeking promotions, professional services seeking contracts, workers chasing jobs,
artists looking for gallery space or simply the need to book a reservation at a good
restaurant. The presence of more people creates extra competition for those who
were already there.

It has been put to us quite strongly that certain sectors such as architecture do not
welcome such competition and may actively shun it. Far from foreigners bringing in
new ideas and enlarging the ‘gene pool’ of creativity, they can be seen as a threat to
stylistic monopolies, ideological orthodoxies and business cartels that may have
existed for decades. The introduction of a new climate of critique and debate, which
elsewhere is a breeding ground for innovation can, in Helsinki, be regarded in a very
different way. Some Finns, we were told, take constructive criticism as personal insult
and this can lead to a stultifying atmosphere of politically-correct mutual back-
slapping.

3
from Helsinki Times

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Of course, we should not overlook the presence of a more serious and potentially
menacing form of closure to outsider. This is the threat of discrimination and racially
motivated violence which, whilst much less prevalent than in most other European
countries is, nevertheless, a live issue to which all must be vigilant.

Combined with the difficulty of making social contacts in Finland (see below) this can
make it almost impossible for outsiders to penetrate professional networks. They have
the choice of whether to keep struggling or to establish themselves outside the
mainstream and in new markets.

Is this experience unique or is it typical of other sectors of Helsinki society? Is the city
overlooking and squandering new talent in order to protect cosy cliques?

Sociability and friendship

To say Finns are not the most gregarious people is an easy cliché, which we are trying
to avoid. It is not backed up by our own experience. In this project the great
majority of Finns we met have been as open and talkative as any other European. At
the same time it was been persistently reported to us by people of migrant origin –
and especially those with experience of many other cultures – that it is harder to
make friends and acquaintances outside the workplace in Helsinki than in most other
countries.

Western society, it is said, has taken a ‘cultural turn’ where individuals, companies,
cities and even nations must be aware of their ‘softer’ sensual and emotional sides as
well as of how they interact with outsiders and its symbolism. In cultures where
individualism is more prevalent this has led in extremis to the cult of celebrity and
consumption. Yet it has many positives too. As mobility brings people of radically
different backgrounds into contact with each other we need an enhanced sensitivity in
the way we present ourselves to others and how we interpret their attempts to
communicate with us.

Finns it is said have a rather direct and utilitarian approach to communication – say
enough to get the message across, but any more is unnecessary or even frivolous.
Finns have a softer side of course but figure there is a time and a place for this.
Unfortunately, Finnish conversational economy and seeming lack of emotional
engagement can, to the outsider, be interpreted as carelessness or even callousness.
In most cases it is not. What can be done? Change will happen slowly and in small
steps but we have been impressed by the attempts of some agencies to address
difficult issues of emotional intelligence and cultural competence. Not least the
Helsinki Police Department who have introduced training for all its officers.

A generation ago a third of the adult population of Finland were living in single person
households. This was the highest amongst OECD countries. In recent years it has
begun to fall. Many countries have overtaken Finland. In 2004 for example 29% of
Finns lived alone for the Netherlands it was 454. This collapses a prevalent myth that
Finns are the most solitary and, by extension, the loneliest people in Europe. Yet a
number of persistent points emerged from our interviews with migrants. They say no
matter how long and how well you know a Finn at work, you are rarely invited to their
home, still less could you be considered by them a true friend. We have heard an
intriguing explanation for this. It is not that Finns are deliberately being unfriendly,
but rather that most Finns make their ‘stock’ of lifelong friends early in life and so, by
the time they leave school, many have virtually stopped looking for any more.

4
Source: European System of Social Indicators (EUSI), Social Indicators Department, ZUMA, Mannheim

13
One enterprising foreigner has sought to overcome these traditional limitations on
sociability in Helsinki. The Jolly Dragon network is based on the simple idea of
connecting people with time on their hands with each other around activities and
incentivising it with discounts and loyalty bonuses. Through clever software
programming and enthusiastic promotion it now involves thousands of Finns and
migrants from 30 nations in over 40 activities a week. It is now being expanded into
the realm of business networking.

So our final question would be: will it always be necessary to devise increasingly
ingenious ways of artificially stimulating conviviality and sociability in Helsinki, or can
these things eventually evolve naturally?

14
3. The open, creative and innovative city
Helsinki has achieved an immense amount and astonishing results over the last two
decades in terms of technological innovation and is recognized as a global leader in
this domain. Yet this productive phase of innovation and success is under challenge
from larger global forces including the shift of many advanced manufacturing
processes to China and elsewhere. This has led to searching questions as to where
the next phase of innovation will come from and what the skills, behavioural attitudes
and cultural requirements will need to be.

The overall aim for Helsinki in this context it is now recognized must be for the city to
generate more openness from which creativity and then innovations can occur. It is
recognized that success depends on the capacity of places to identify, nurture,
harness, support, promote and orchestrate and mobilize their creative resources and
talents from whatever source. For instance, one source of potential creativity are the
new populations coming from abroad and another source lies in the skills of public
sector workers whose potential can be thwarted by operating in rigid perhaps too
hierarchical structures.

Waves of change and their consequences

There is a curve that shows the movement over time from the agrarian to the
creativity driven economy. We were an agrarian society for millennia, an industrial
one for 200 years, a society whose wealth creation was primarily driven by
information for 30 years, we now talk of the knowledge and innovation driven
economy and increasingly a creative economy. Ever more speedily we have moved
through phases where the dominance of a particular driving asset has changed.

Each metaphor such as the ‘the innovation economy’ or ‘the creativity driven
economy’ provides a helpful lens from which to understand and gauge the shift in the
primary means of wealth creation, the basis of competition, the social and cultural
priorities and the measurement of success or failure. Now we have reached a stage
where creativity and the capacity to imagine is seen as key. The world it is also said is
increasingly made up of more ‘imaginative intensive industries’, which include in
Helsinki companies from Tero Saarinen to even Kone which has reinvented the
experience of going up in a lift.

Every shift in the means of economic wealth creation creates a new social order, new
ways of learning and things to learn and new settings in which learning takes places
and the demand for new kinds of facilities. It requires different cultural capabilities.
The capabilities to set up A Ford Motor Company or a Wal Mart are different from
those to create an Apple or a Google or a Kaos Pilots educational centre in Denmark
or a Forum Virium in Helsinki.

The ‘innovation or knowledge economy’, for instance, is largely associated with

technological innovation and the skills, attitudes and qualities of technologists,
software engineers and other engineering skills or scientifically oriented people.
Without wishing to generalize too much or fall into clichés the personality
characteristics of these groups is more logical, linear, rational, analytical and
systematic and they of course have elements of creativity as well, but less adapt at
social issues. A survey of 103 engineers in the European Journal of Engineering

15
Education5 notes that engineers need to pay greater attention to interpersonal skills,
communicative abilities and cultural literacy.

There was a level of predictability about the foreseeable results of the former phases.
Predicting exactly the ‘emerging advantage’ from creativity will be less easy. Or put
another way we are moving from ‘managing the known’, to a design and innovation
approach, that is ‘building the unknown’. Yet what is possible is to build capability and
encourage the mindset for communities to have the foresight to identify the
‘advantage’ when it starts to emerge, and so to have the creative capacity to respond
accordingly. This requires a governance ethos, management and learning system
aware of these needs and willing to adapt to these new demands. For example, the
manner in which Helsinki managed the complex demands of the Eurovision 2007
event in an inclusive way shows how breaking down organizational barriers within the
city structure and flexible approaches to multifaceted problems can be very effective.

Openness and design thinking

The contours of the new wave are becoming much clearer are already as the nature
and processes of technological innovation themselves are changing and the
watchword ‘open innovation system’ encapsulates this movement. ‘Collaborative
service design’ or ‘co-production and co-creation’ are other central themes rising in
importance. These underlying trends in the development of knowledge intensive
economies are evolving at a dramatic pace with user driven product development and
co-creation having a particular focus. The development of new IT platforms and web
3.0 with its immersive, interactive, ubiquitous and experiential focus will exacerbate
this shift to co-creation. It changes how products and services are conceived and
designed and how value added is created. It has implications for both the public and
private sectors. For instance, the recent proposal by the city of Helsinki to get local
people to come up with new ideas for public urban spaces fits this thinking perfectly.

These trends will have powerful impacts on the desirable qualities in individuals and
on the culture of organizations and how they need to work. The various private and
community sectors and public administrations in Helsinki need to ask themselves
whether they are sufficiently present. The type of mental dispositions and skills
required to be successful and rising to the fore more strongly include openness,
creativity, communication ability, collaborative interdisciplinary working, cultural
literacy and lateral and holistic thinking. In organizational terms it means far more
integrated working, the capacity to value the combined insights of different disciplines
and the need to operate as task oriented teams as distinct from operating in silos.
This is not to decry the strengths of the specialist or subject expert, however to make
the most of possibilities or to solve complex problems mostly requires the ability to
work across boundaries and knowledge domains, especially since the structures and
departments we usually operate with have come from a period where different
priorities and a different global dynamic operated.

In this context the World Capital of Design 2012 becomes highly significant as ‘design
thinking’ is seen as instrumental in coping with these shifts. To understand the crucial
importance of this to Helsinki’s aim in becoming an open, cosmopolitan and
intercultural city we need to be theoretical for a brief moment. Design thinking
involves an ability to combine rationality, creativity with empathy in meeting needs.
As a process it ‘builds up’ ideas and judgments are withheld for as long as possible
and thus more ideas and possibilities are generated and fear of failure is reduced. In

5
H. T. Van Der Molen a; H. G. Schmidt a;G. Kruisman b European Journal of Engineering
Education Volume 32, Issue 5 October 2007 , pages 495 - 501

16
principle this can increase lateral thinking and creativity. In contrast analytical
thinking, which predominated in the former phase of innovation and perhaps is
Helsinki’s means of operating, is more linear and tends to break issues up into
component parts in order to understand its essential nature and inner connections
and relationships. It is the world of ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’, ‘why’, ‘how’.
Without wishing to denigrate these qualities on their own they will not bring about the
solutions to evolving problems or emerging opportunities.

Key proponents of this new thinking include Roger Martin, the dean of the Rotman
School of Management, Bruce Mau the designer, Daniel Pink, the author and the
Californian company IDEO. Martin, notes for instance: the value of:

the designer's approach to solving problems is the integrative way of thinking

and problem-solving that can be applied to all components of an
organization... businesspeople will have to become more 'masters of heuristics'
than 'managers of algorithms.’

By this he means that public or private managers will have to become flexible
problem-solvers rather than sophisticated number-crunchers to be successful. Or put
another way the ‘administration’ of an organization is not enough. Organizations have
to be designed, since design is not only associated with the design of objects and
appearances. Design is increasingly understood in a much wider sense as the capacity
to plan and produce desired outcomes. So a cosmopolitan city is something that
Helsinki can design.

Or as Pink notes:

The logical and precise gave us the information age .......the conceptual age is
ruled by artistry , empathy and emotion.

Or in IDEO’s words we need to:

Combine vertical thinking, the analytical, with horizontal thinking, which is the
intuitive, empathetic and experiential’.

In other words we need to combine left brain and right brain thinking.

Central to all these arguments is the notion of ‘abductive reasoning’. We are all aware
of deductive and inductive reasoning. A process is deductive when its conclusion is a
logical consequence of premises and inductive reasoning is reasoning that builds up
from facts to general principles. Abduction first introduced by Charles Sanders Peirce,
by contrast is a method of thinking which comes prior to induction and deduction.
Colloquially it is known as having a ‘hunch’ or ‘intuition’. Adductive thinking suggests
that there is something that might be worth exploring. Here we start by considering a
set of seemingly unrelated facts and we have an intuition that they are somehow
connected. By exploring this we ultimately build up hypothesis and move on to the
way we conventionally think.

Another reflection of this shift are new ideas about organization and management and
again design thinking plays a part. As Andrew Jones in ‘The Innovation Acid Test’
notes:

‘For generations, management thinking and management education have

rested on the intellectual framework and assumptions of three core disciplines:
Mathematics (plus engineering), economics and psychology. Money and
markets have been explained respectively by mathematics and economics,
while human behaviour in business has been explained by psychology. These

17
 disciplines have served business well and have helped create the foundation of
contemporary management practice.......a new management paradigm is
emerging, one wherein the disciplinary assumptions shift from those purely
analytical and calculative disciplines to the action-oriented, experienced-based
disciplines of Design, Architecture and Anthropology’.

It is the more innovative, human-centred activities that tend to focus on a

collaborative and iterative style of work that use these latter forms of knowledge.

These trends have dramatic organizational consequences. It implies the need to break
down silos, to work in an interdisciplinary way and to be able to think culturally. Some
commentators call this the Fast Company Generation and in fact the underlying shift
to design thinking is largely generational with the 30 and 40 year olds demanding
work styles and arrangements more in line with design thinking. This will create a
crisis for those more used to and comfortable with hierarchical structures. Roger
Martin summarizes this well:

FEATURE FROM TRADITIONAL TO

FIRM DESIGN FIRM

Flow of work life Ongoing tasks Projects

Permanent assignment Defined terms

Source of status Managing big budgets & Solving ‘wicked problems’

large staffs

Style of work Defined roles Collaborative

Wait until its right Iterative

Mode of thinking Deductive Deductive

Inductive Inductive
Abductive

Dominant attitude We can only do what we Nothing cannot be done

have a budget to do Constraints increase the
Constraints are the enemy challenge & excitement

Wicked problems
To turn to the practical the need for creativity should be seen in the light of new
complex problems, such as intercultural understanding and dealing with diversity or
greening and sustainability or tackling obesity, which if treated seriously, will need to
reshape how we think, behave and organize. Some refer to this as the rise of wicked
problems. Many public policy problems, such as understanding diversity cut across
economic, cultural and social issues and are severely complex. Called wicked
problems they are seemingly intractable, made up of inter-related dilemmas, issues
and interweave political, economic and social questions. Wicked problems cannot be
tackled by traditional approaches where problems are simply defined, analysed and
solved in sequential steps. They have characteristics that make traditional
hierarchical, top-down thinking less adept at solving them. There is no definite or
unique “correct” view of formulating the problem; and different stakeholders see the
problem and solutions differently, often with deeply held ideological views. Data is

18
frequently uncertain, difficult to acquire or missing. They are connected to other
problems and every solution reveals new aspects of the problem that needs adjusting.

The greatest impact of design thinking and creativity comes when it finds a way of
solving wicked problems.

The organizational setting for openness and

cosmopolitanism
Openness is encouraged by physical and organizational environments, settings and a
management ethos. Many organizations, institutions or cultures inadvertently kill their
creativity by crushing their employees’ intrinsic motivation - the strong internal desire
to do something based on passions and interests. Environments, firms or places, that
encourage individuals or organizations to become open and therefore to foster
creativity have a number of features, including: giving people the freedom and
authority to act by delegating authority; presenting the right scope of challenge that
is achievable but stretches people enough; providing sufficient time, human and
financial resources to allow for trial and error as well as to make mistakes; creating a
supportive team context where people are committed to the project, to each other
and where ideas and different opinions can be shared to develop the potential of an
idea, process or product; managerial and organisational support by creating an
environment that publicly values and rewards openness, diversity of opinion and
diversity of cultures. Clearly this impacts on how the public sector, companies,
schools or universities operate.

Openness, creative capacity and innovation are related. They connect but they are
not the same. The openness, creativity and innovation agendas are aligning especially
in considering how they are to be measured. Innovation thinking has moved from
simply focusing on inputs to a systemic approach as it is clear that, for instance,
levels of R&D on their own do not by definition involve creativity or lead to
innovations. Wider conditions, namely the creative climate, it is recognized,
determine the capacity of a place to be innovative within which specific attributes are
necessary components such as good education and skills or research expenditure.
Current discussions on innovation indices now include ideas such as ‘total innovation’
or ‘hidden innovation’. This draws attention to how innovation needs to pervade a
whole environment.

To capture the dynamics of innovation, analysts talk of a fourth generation of

indicators, which stress the interactions and relationships of actors in the innovation
system from firms to universities or public agencies, to the culture, whilst bearing in
mind the relative usefulness of formerly popular measures. The development of
indicators usually lags behind how we understand the dynamics of reality. This is why
the importance of a culture of openness and the creativity agenda were not seen.

The discussion of openness is not about a free for all. As a city strives to become
more innovative and successful, it oscillates between two processes that must be
carefully aligned. Firstly, the birth of new ideas requires a climate of relative
openness, non-conformity and the free interaction of countervailing opinions.
Secondly it needs a reality checker that will subject ideas to rigorous and
heterogeneous examination before they can become practical. Both these processes
work best when you have a wide variety of minds and aptitudes applied to them.
Otherwise you run the risk of groupthink, self-delusion and ultimately stagnation.

19
4. Talent attraction and retention
The ability to develop, retain and attract the right people is the key competitive
advantage for cities and regions in the 21st century. Practically every city that is
strategically aware is thinking about the talent agenda. The key indicator for urban
success is their talent churn, the ratio of skilled people being retained or brought in
versus those leaving. The skills and talent assessment should assess the range of
high level as well as vocational skills. Few cities measure their churn nor assess the
city perceptions within these talent groupings and what their needs and desires are.
Yet if they are so significant responding to their views is key to the success of a city.

Most cities deal with these concerns by projecting themselves in conventional

marketing terms. For instance, they seek to brand themselves as ‘hot spots for
technology’ or ‘vibrant places for the arts’ hoping thereby to lure inward investors and
talented people. ‘Berlin Partners’ is a case in point, which acts as a one-stop shop for
inward investors. Like in many other cities there is also a Creative Berlin site which is
focused only on the creative industries. However, very few have brought together the
different elements related to talent and established an integrated collective ‘thinking
brain’ and strategy that acts for the city. This would include those public/private
partners concerned with economic development, knowledge development, culture,
education, migration and relocation issues, creativity and promotion.

The exceptions include a set of cities that are punching above their weight like
Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bilbao, Melbourne, Singapore and even Dubai. All have
practical, long term think tank organizations focusing on the long term horizon
constantly monitoring the best initiatives in the world and trying to go beyond them.
Helsinki is part of this group and Tietokeskus is a noteworthy organization. There are
others, such as Manchester who have initiatives like the ‘Manchester Knowledge
Capital’ or its ‘ideopolis’ project, which are focusing on talent without a dedicated
organization. In addition CEO for Cities based in Chicago has a ‘talent dividend’
programme which is touring the States seeking to persuade cities to invest in talent.

In our opinion within this group, the ‘I Amsterdam’ programme6 and associated
activities that lie behind it and its publications, such as ‘Proud’ or its ‘I Ambassadors’
initiative is the most coherent and well developed from which Helsinki can learn most.
‘I Amsterdam’ is a co-production of the City of Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Partners
Foundation, Amsterdam Tourism and Convention Board (ATCB), Amsterdams Uitburo
(AUB), amsterdam inbusiness, and the Expatcenter. There is a sophisticated website
with segments such as: ‘From Anywhere to Amsterdam – I am Creative’ – profiles of
foreigners who have come to Amsterdam to live, work and fulfil their dreams’.
Bringing these partners together is usually difficult in larger cities since they are
usually competing with each other. Clearly the portal is only the marketing aspect of a
much larger set of programmes including Amsterdam Top City, whose aim is to use
and attract talent, to stimulate and facilitate companies to start and grow; to
generate an atmosphere of hospitality, freedom and service and to enhance
Amsterdam’s international reputation. There are three types of activity: removing
obstacles, such as giving optimal assistance to expats. Second, setting up activities
that will make a difference, such as the idea of Harvard on the Amstel or assisting
people in developing creative crossovers or the Talent Factory and thirdly marketing
Amsterdam’s qualities.

There is also a Creative Amsterdam project again focused on the creative economy,
but with some features that are exceptional such as its connected Bureau

6
www.iamsterdam.com

20
Broedplaatsen (a “broedplaats” is a hatchery or breeding ground). This helps young
hopefuls can find affordable working spaces and studios.

Singapore7 and Bilbao8 each have dedicated programmes to attract and effectively
buy specific talents companies or the city as a whole identifies as important. Yet
where Amsterdam does better is to communicate its intent and ambition in a clear
way.

The city or the job

In a survey in 2006 the US mayors’ organization CEOs for Cities discovered that now
64% of more educated people choose the city before the job9. 15 years ago a similar
survey found that 80% of people chose the company or the job before the place. This
finding has dramatic implications. This means that Helsinki needs to ask itself what do
its ambitious or talented people with choices want from a place and these could be
Finns or outsiders. A variety of surveys suggest they want places that are distinctive,
attractive, stimulating, have great quality and are well designed. This encourages
serendipity so chance meetings, face-to-face contact occur easily and so you can
‘bump into the fun’. In their own words our interviewees in Helsinki reinforced these
points.

A place becomes ‘sticky’ when these new forces of overall competitiveness are taken
into account, linking quality of life, well-being and economic possibilities. This
increases their ‘drawing power’. The consequence of Helsinki achieving this will show
itself in generating economic, political and cultural power – the ability to shape things.

A particular target group is the 25-34 year old graduates (the ‘young and restless’) as
they energy and ambition, and are flexible and adventurous. They are likely to help
cities or regions be successful. They are late nesters. They are in high demand and
short supply. Focusing on this group represents an investment in future prosperity.

Interestingly there is an ethical dimension to the talent agenda as a significant

proportion among the highly educated under 40’s have a profound yearning to be
creative and innovative for the world. They want to give back. The notion of values
driven development whereby personal interest can be combined with the public good
is seen as an important location factor. This means environmental and social justice
issues rise to the fore. This is one reason why companies are increasingly driving the
climate change agenda in order to ensure their reputation is high in order to attract
the best.

Within this segment of people and beyond it an important grouping every city needs
to develop is creative professionals. They are those who have wide discretion in their
job to use accumulated knowledge to develop, design, and deliver new products and
services. These people are likely to be leading the transition to the new economy.
Creative professionals look for places thick with people like them.

To enable many people in an organization to have wide discretion over their job
implies a flatter, less hierarchical organizational structure that works across
boundaries and often in task specific, flexible teams that bring a diversity of talents
together. If Helsinki wants more of creative people the openness discussed in section
one of this report is essential.

7
www.pmo.gov.sg and search under talent strategy
8
www.bizkaiaxede.org and www.bm30.es which is Bilbao Metropoli 30
9
www.ceosforcities.org/news/entry/271

21
The particular challenge is for the public sector to attract talented people. Whilst in
Helsinki and Finland the standing, credibility and self-confidence of the public sector
remains high relative wages between the public and private sector are under
pressure. This is because of the ‘cost disease’. Many activities especially within
advanced manufacturing can increase productivity dramatically through IT
improvements or inventiveness and therefore justify salary increases. Making more
with less is effectiveness in these contexts. In services and personalized services
which is largely the domain of the public sector productivity increases by contrast are
more difficult to achieve. If a teacher increases their productivity by having classes of
20 rather than 10 we deem this to be a loss of service. The same applies to a nurse
or a social worker dealing with more patients or clients. Yet, their relative skill and
wage expectations are the same as those working in advanced manufacturing. This
upward cost pressure is the cost disease. For the public sector there are few choices.
They will inevitably have higher salary demands and probably lower investment. This
means they have to be open to new ways of operating and have to be imaginative in
re-inventing services in order to make its resources work harder.

For a region to function well it needs a wider diversity of skills and so far the talent
agenda in Europe and beyond has been discussed in narrow terms usually focusing on
areas like business to business services, investment bankers, entrepreneurs or
academics as important as these are. Yet a city or region needs a vastly wider range
of skills to be successful including: Good administrators in public service who both
execute well and can be strategic; these should cut across all areas of relevance to
life from traffic and transport to planning or environmental services. In this regard we
heard criticisms that the public administration in Helsinki remains somewhat inflexible
with a jobs for life mentality that is constraining new people and new ideas.

Bringing these elements together cities now compete by harnessing their asset base –
their people, the place and the reputation - and project and orchestrate this
‘iconically’. Very few cities understand this. The aim is to pull attention to the city, to
create a richness of association and recognition and to grab profile. This is what ‘I
Amsterdam’ has done so well. Icons are projects or initiatives that are powerfully self-
explanatory, jolt the imagination, surprise, challenge and raise expectations. You
grasp it in one. They may be large or small. Most memorable are the physical ones.
Yet an icon can be tangible or intangible: A building, an activity, a tradition, having a
headquarters of a key organization in the city, the association of a person with a city,
a plan or an event can be iconic. A city itself can even be iconic when it has an
associational richness that builds upon itself into a powerful composite picture.

The Helsinki response

In thinking through talent needs Helsinki knows it cannot rest on its laurels as a
global high tech centre if it is to remain at the forefront of innovation and creativity. It
knows it needs to feed off the best thinking it can gain access to in order to create
new products and services. This may be developed within Finland or come from
abroad, yet given Finland’s population base it must get skills from outside to maintain
its position. The long term development programmes, such as the Centres of
Excellence initiative or SITRA’s Wellsprings of Finnish Vitality programme and Forum
Virium activities are all attempts to broaden the base of Finnish creativity and provide
new applications in the real world. In addition the merged Aalto University is another
example of preparing Helsinki to maximize its intellectual resources.

Other ambitious cities face exactly the same dilemmas and thus there is increased
competition between cities to keep and attract the brightest. Some even refer to the
‘war for talent’ first coined in a McKinsey report a decade ago. As a consequence the
world of cities has changed dramatically and with ever increasing speed over the last

22
15 years. Cities of every size in every location face periods of deep transition largely
brought about by this vigour of renewed globalization, the mobility of skilled people
resulting in changes in the world’s urban hierarchy, the rise of global production
networks and their associated supply chains which spread like tentacles throughout
the world. Crucially, there is not one winner in this overall urban and regional
competition. There are significant roles and niches that 2nd,3rd, 4th and 5th level
cities can play.

Every ambitious city like Helsinki wants to capture centrality for themselves and by
controlling low cost activities from a distance and attracting high value ones such as
research centres and headquarters to itself. What are the niches where Helsinki can
play a global role that have not as yet been occupied by others? Where would the
skills need to come from? Europe, Africa, Asia, America? What are Helsinki’s
comparative advantages?

The ‘open innovation’ paradigm is changing the internal operations of many

companies and making them more permeable to the outside world. Operating in this
way does not require people to physically be based in Helsinki, they can relate to the
city virtually. Yet at some points being in Helsinki is key, whether short or long term.
What is the experience of open innovation for Helsinki so far - not only in the private
sector, but also in the public domain such as Forum Virium’s Apps for Democracy
initiative? This raises important questions, such as whether Helsinki feels like a place
where you can connect both virtually and physically. Some of our interviews,
especially with the expatriate community, felt this was difficult.

‘Territory’ and presence can now also be captured in the imagination, which is why
the way Helsinki is perceived in the outside world is crucial. ‘Local buzz and global
pipelines’ encapsulates the sense of how leading cities describe their distinctiveness
and diversity. What are the current perceptions of Helsinki both internally and
abroad? What are the weaknesses and strengths?

Helsinki’s attractiveness is key for existing talents to stay and new talent to arrive.
Ideally the city should feel like a seamless experience that enriches and triggers
multiple registers. Chance encounter, continuous learning, exploration and serendipity
would be part of the norm. Yet one part of Helsinki’s physical picture is blighted. In
terms of place Helsinki has many delights and highpoints but whether it yet feels like
a ‘learning zone’ or knowledge environment is questionable. Ironically the very area
where it ought to be exuding these qualities: around the main university is
problematic. Whilst Senate Square has its historical charm some surrounding areas
are quite hostile as many colleagues in Helsinki already know. The university buildings
around Fabianinkatu and Yliopistonkatu feel closed, they lack permeability, many
streets are quite stark and there is no planting to soften the hard faced buildings.
There is little sense of seamless connectivity. Kaisaniemenkatu moving back into
Kaivokatu is not the best Helsinki has to offer and the link from Caisa back into the
centre towards Kiasma becomes an obstacle near the station fragmenting the city
core into two. This is an urban design challenge if this part of Helsinki is to be seen as
a cosmopolitan learning campus and creative milieu.

The dynamic we have described requires companies and cities to develop capacities
internally and to scour the world for skills and talent to ensure they remain a global
node. Keeping your best and attracting good people is increasingly difficult. There is a
broadening choice of destinations to which people can go, thus a city like Helsinki
needs to offer an enticing set of conditions and must effectively communicate its
credentials.

23
New indicators for success
These combined trends require new measures for assessing urban success: The
emerging thinking consists of four elements:

• Talent churn: The capacity to identify, nurture, harness, promote, attract and
sustain internal and external talent and to mobilise ideas, resources and
organisations. Is Helsinki monitoring the in and outflow of the varieties of talents
it has?

• Creativity and innovation potential: The ability to create soft and hard
conditions in a city within which people can think, plan and act with imagination.
Is Helsinki monitoring both its creativity capacity as well as its innovations? The
latter are more frequently assessed than the former.

• Connectivity internally and externally, through physical infrastructure, face to

face and virtually. Cutting edge places need to ride a paradox and be intensely
local and intensely global.

• Distinctiveness. Once a city has baseline facilities, ideally benchmarked with the
best, ranging from transport systems, education, health care, retailing it is
difference, diversity and distinctiveness that matters.

24
5. The diverse and interactive City
Migration and Cities
People have moved from one place to another in search of a better life throughout
history. Recently, however, there has been a step change in the scale of movement.
Some European countries such as France, the Netherlands and the UK have been
experiencing post-colonial immigration since the 1950s. Now at least 20 European
states have foreign born populations of around 5% or more, and in the case of some
states (such as Ireland and Spain) this change has been recent and rapid, and even in
several accession states the proportion of foreign-born is no longer a negligible
figure.10

Finland is no exception. During 2008 over 29,000 people immigrated to Finland from
foreign countries. The net surplus over the number who emigrated from the country is
the highest since the War11.

The regulation and policing of inter-relationships and flows is usually one of the
functions of the nation state. It is easy, therefore, to see ethno-cultural diversity as a
purely national issue, but this would be mistaken. It is increasingly a local issue as
most migrants settle in Europe’s towns and cities in their search for housing and jobs,
legal recognition and protection, religious, cultural and political expression, education
and welfare services. Over the coming years key decisions will be taken in cities to
determine whether Europe will be a place at ease with its cultural diversity – or at war
with itself. In addition, the 21st century is the century of the city – since 2007 more
than half of the world’s population live in urban rather than rural settings.

Most cities in Europe will have to face up to cultural diversity. COMEDIA’s approach is
founded on the principle that increasing migration and ethnic diversity present a
profound challenge but also a huge opportunity to cities - which they can and should
grasp. In fact, the extent to which they allow diversity to be their asset or their
handicap will be a defining factor in determining, over coming years, which cities
flourish or decline. National and supra-national bodies will continue to wield an
influence, yet increasingly the choices that cities themselves make will seal their
future.

The Diversity Advantage for Cities

The first serious encounter with migrants of another culture in many countries,
Finland amongst them, is with asylum seekers and refugees. Born of the most noble
intentions and it has generally inspired acts of great warmth and hospitality. On the
other hand it can breed a mentality that somehow the migrant is always needy,
inadequate or a victim. An exotic charm that brightens the monotony of modern life
they may have, but they do not represent a phenomenon that might enhance or
fundamentally change the host society.

By adopting a different mindset it is possible to envisage many reasons – beyond

philanthropy - why cities should be attracted to migrants and why migrants are
attracted to cities.

10
Key figures on Europe: Statistical Pocketbook. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European
Communities, 2006
11
Figures from Statistics Finland

25
Complementary skills
Migrants bring knowledge and skills which the host community can use, perhaps the
highly-prized talents of the technology entrepreneur or the surgeon. Often migrants
perform vital functions the hosts need but no longer care to perform themselves.
Migrants also bring aptitudes different to those of the host and which may, if
managed well, prove complementary to, and add value to, the skills of the host
community. A study of American cities showed that in those receiving high immigrant
numbers, native workers saw their wages grow more than those of their counterparts
in low-immigration cities12.

Access to markets and capital

When immigrants arrive in a new city they usually do not sever links with their
homeland and retain connections which can be exploited for trading. This is often to
supply familiar food and cultural goods to the settler, yet the ramifications can be far
wider. The opportunities available to German exporters in the emergent Turkish
market or the greater ease with which British companies are able to interact with the
booming Indian high technology market is a case in point. On top of this, migrants
also are a new market for local companies in the host city.

Aspiration & entrepreneurship

People who leave their home to seek a better life are more likely to be motivated,
future-oriented, self-employed and more entrepreneurial than their hosts. When they
resettle in cities experiencing stagnation or decline they may add a welcome boost to
a flat or low-aspirational local economy, whilst their stronger social networks may
revive a disintegrating neighbourhood. The mayor of Toronto David Miller, as an
instance, acknowledges that immigrants are the mainstay of his city’s economy and
are essential to any future growth. The former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone,
said:

Londoners believe the capital’s mix of cultures, languages and ethnicities is

one of the best things about living in it. This enormous increase in the range of
possibilities open to people will lead to more exchange and interaction as
people choose from what is best in different cultures. This is increasingly
important for Londoners’ jobs and incomes.13

Cosmopolitan brand
Cities compete at a number of levels to attract a share of global financial flows,
foreign direct investment, trade, business and leisure tourism, or for major events,
tournaments and expos. Those looking to invest their time or money in one city as
against another are now swayed by a number of factors and growing in importance is
the sense of openness of a place. Places which are uniformly monocultural or seem
unwelcoming of difference will lose out to those places with a cosmopolitan ‘buzz’.

Creativity & innovation

The modern economy prizes new ideas and rewards process and product innovation.
Leading edge companies are adopting the ‘business case for diversity’ as they
recognise they must search far and wide for the best people. The best environments
which might spark the inventiveness will give them a competitive advantage. Steve
Miller, former CEO and chairman of Royal Dutch/Shell, the world’s fourth largest
company says:

12
Ottaviano, Gianmarco and Peri, Giovanni (2006) The economic value of cultural diversity: evidence from US cities.
Journal of Economic Geography, 6/1, pp 9-44
13
Quoted from http://www.poptel.org.uk/scgn/story.php?articleID=23609

26
 You begin to find that you get some really neat ideas generated from creating
a culture where people of different ethnicities, cultures, backgrounds, [and]
countries… come together. They will come up with an answer that is different
from what any one of them would have come up with individually14.

When the Italian Stefan Marzano took over product design for the Dutch electronics
giant Phillips in the 1990s he found a competent but rather staid organisation. He
deliberately introduced diversity and cultural hybridity into his department of 500
staff, eventually ending up with 33 nationalities on his team. Marzano says it was
radically shifting the staffing mix which put Phillips products back at the cutting edge
by the end of the decade.

Civic innovation
Economic advantage aside the combination of new and old skills, resources and
energies can spark social inventions which can revive ailing communities or
reinvigorate creaking welfare systems. What might a future health service or
educational system look like if it were able to combine the best of the local knowledge
with new insights brought from outsiders? We may never know what these
possibilities are unless we know how and where to look and put the right
preconditions in place. Rarely do such ‘convergent innovations’ happen by chance.
There is certainly little chance of them emerging from environments in which
migrants are obliged to assimilate or where they live parallel lives of mutual
indifference with their host community.

Challenges
But making the most of diversity is not easy. We do not need to look very far to see
cities – whether with the best of intentions, or through crass mismanagement – that
have found growing diversity a bitter pill to swallow. Think of the violent riots that hit
the streets of Britain in 2001 and France in 2005; the ritual murder of polemical
filmmaker Theo VanGogh in the Netherlands, or the countless incidents of low level
discrimination and counter-discrimination that rarely go reported. It can often feel
that growing diversity raises more questions than it answers for a society.

Assets or people?
One threat lies within the very advantages rehearsed above. This is the temptation to
start valuing migrants simply as assets and nothing else. The credentials of the
cosmopolitan, multi-lingual technology PhD are more immediately apparent than
those of the former peasant. Does this mean there are ‘good’ migrants and ‘bad’
ones? Are migrants simply a reserve labour force for topping-up skill shortages in
sectors of the economy, and to be discarded later when no longer required. In the
current economic downturn this is a key question for all the western cities which
hungrily absorbed migrants during the boom of the last 15 years. The Gastarbeiter
system proved to be a short-sighted fix that has created long-term headaches for
many, especially the failure to educate workers who never returned home and so
became an underclass. Advocates of ‘high skill migration’ may hope to side-step this
but the underlying problem remains. A society that only views the outside world
through the prism of economic exploitation is going to be ill-suited to thrive in a
complex, hyper-connected world.

Facing up to conflict
An intercultural city must face up to the possibility for conflict one of the most difficult
side effects of diversity. Wherever there are people with different ways of seeing the

14
Quoted in Johansson, Frans (2004) Creating the Medici Effect: breakthrough insights at the intersection of ideas,
concepts and cultures. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, p. 80

27
world there is the potential for discordance. This can, as evidence shows, be managed
creatively, or produce strife. No city actively seeks strife, yet often urban policy is
distorted by the perceived need to avoid the possibility of conflict at all costs.
Understandable in the short time, over the longer term a policy of avoidance of
difficult issues only aggravates grievances. It can exacerbate convulsions that are
likely to come.

So the intercultural city is not always an easy place to be. Being an active citizen
demands you engage and interact; that you question and are prepared to be
questioned by others, that you listen and are listened to; and that you are not afraid
to disagree but will go the extra distance to work through and solve conflicts to reach
common solutions. It implies too recognizing that managing conflict is a skill which
can and should be acquired, not only by a few specialists but by everyone who plays a
role in the routine operations of the city.

Some cultures have adapted to this better than others. In Italy intercultural mediation
and conflict management are highly prized skills practiced by an extensive network of
professionals in schools, hospitals, neighbourhood management and other public
services. Some say northern European cultures find it less easy to face up to conflict
as they are more concerned with consensus. Yet putting off conflict may risk making
things worse for the future.

Being proactive
An intercultural urban policy based on different cultures actively mixing and
exchanging will advocate disputing and debating, co-operating and learning, adapting
and improving and ultimately growing together. We start from the following
definition:

Interculturalism goes beyond equal opportunities and respect for existing

cultural differences, to the pluralist transformation of public space, institutions
and civic culture. Cities need to develop policies which prioritise funding for
projects where different cultures intersect, ‘contaminate’ each other and
hybridise. City governments should promote cross-fertilisation across all
boundaries, between ‘majority’ and ‘minorities’, ‘dominant’ and ‘sub’ cultures,
localities, classes, faiths, disciplines and genres, as the source of cultural,
social, civic and economic innovation15.

This boils down to a simple formula Cultural Diversity + incentives to succeed +

opportunities to mix = diversity Advantage. We call it The Intercultural City. And
furthermore, we believe tt is possible to design an urban policy around these
principles and over coming months we hope to work alongside Helsinki City Council in
order to do this.

Preconditions and ingredients of the intercultural city

Any city wishing to realise the benefits of intercultural co-operation must lay the right
policy foundations.

Governance and leadership

An important precondition is that all citizens have democratic rights, particularly
equality before the law, access to political participation, freedom of worship and legal
protection from discrimination and harassment16. Such legislation is generally a

15
Bloomfield, Jude & Bianchini, Franco (2004) Planning for the Intercultural City. Stroud; Comedia.
16
The Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) provides the most authoritative guide to how different states perform
in regard to six key policy areas which shape a migrant's journey to full citizenship, http://www.integrationindex.eu

28
responsibility of the national state and therefore largely beyond the sphere of
influence of a single city. Yet, there is much a city can do to ensure the law is
effectively implemented and policed at local level. There is now an emerging trend
where cities, such as Madrid, are beginning to take matters into their own hands such
as conferring new forms of sub-national citizenship on migrants.

Beyond this democratic substructure local leaders need to change their mindset.
Cities need to ask themselves: ‘If our aim is to create a free, egalitarian and
harmonious society but also one in which productive interaction and co-operation
between ethnicities exists, what do we need to do more of or do differently?’ In
particular, what kind of leaders (political and communal) and citizens will this require?
What new institutions, networks and physical infrastructure would it suggest?

The kind of vision and values underpinning an intercultural city strategy is vital. The
intention to transform relationships and interaction city-wide, means the vision and
values cannot be those of city authorities alone. It needs to be collective; built up
together, shared and owned by a wide variety of individuals, institutions, groups and
communities across the city. We call this intercultural vision ‘looking at the city afresh
through an intercultural lens’17.

Applying the intercultural lens

Building an intercultural city vision is complex and should be for the longer term – a
decade or so. It should stretch so it poses a challenge and stimulates fresh, innovate
thinking and approaches to addressing city issues. It should not be too ambitious so it
demoralises and saps energies. It should be achievable and so within a city’s grasp.

A good intercultural vision inspires, motivates and is not couched in bureaucratic

language or hedged with qualifications that make it meaningless. It needs richness
and ‘texture’ so giving people a sense of what it will be like to ‘live’ the vision.

Applying an intercultural lens involves going through various exercises with

individuals, groups and communities to help them re-envisage their city from within a
different mindset. For example: Imagine that you return to your city after an absence
of ten years, get out at the station and walk through it. What would you expect?

• What will it look like? What will you see, hear, smell and feel on the streets?
What sorts of activities will you see going on? What won’t you see?
• What sort of people will you see? Where will you see them?
• Where will they be working/ living/ socialising? How will they relate to each
other?
• What would you expect to have remained the same? What would you hope to
have changed?

Intercultural vision building is not a one off exercise. Revisited regularly it should help
us learn how viable it is when implemented and refined in the light of experience. In
this way the intercultural vision becomes a ‘living’ vision rather than a document that
is forgotten about.

Questions underlying an intercultural strategy

The process of formulating an intercultural city strategy begins by asking a series of
questions, such as:

17
From an idea we have expounded at length in our book: Wood, Phil & Landry, Charles (2008) The Intercultural City:
planning for diversity advantage. London; Earthscan.

29
Intercultural leaders and innovators
• Who are the city’s principal opinion formers on the subject of migration and
diversity?
• Do political, economic, social and cultural leaders reflect the city’s diversity?
• Do leaders represent constituencies which straddle ethnic and cultural
boundaries?
• What action does the city take to broaden the cultural knowledge and
competence of civic leaders and officials?

Structures and institutions

• How open are the political and civic structures of the city to newcomers or
outsiders?
• What agencies do the most to enable interaction and understanding between
cultures?

Processes
• What rights and opportunities are available to minorities to influence and
participate in the city’s decision-making processes?
• To what extent do participation and consultation exercises encourage citizens
to interact across ethnic lines?

Spaces and places

• Who uses the city’s important public spaces and places and who does not?
• What could be done to make important public spaces and places open to all?
• Where are the places and spaces in the city where different types of people
interact and why do they work?
• Could future public spaces and institutions such as schools be located,
designed and animated differently to make them more intercultural?

Incentives and regulations

• What action does the city take to discourage prejudice or divisive activity?
• What action does the city take to encourage activity which builds greater
understanding, interaction and co-operation?

Indicators and Measurements

• What indicators should the city adopt to track its progress towards becoming
intercultural, such as levels of inter-ethnic marriage, membership cross-
cultural networks and so on.

In summary it is now widely accepted that cities need to be international and

cosmopolitan in their outlook and open in their attitude to thrive in the current world.
National governments will exert widespread influence through their policies on
immigration and citizenship but there is much the city can do. A number of hard
economic factors such as the presence of key industries, companies, employment and
infrastructure will continue to figure strongly in the factors which attract and hold
people in cities but softer factors are becoming more significant. Diversity advantage
is attainable but cities must work and adapt to reap a reward. Newcomers must be
helped to adapt and encouraged to integrate, but the host population must also adapt
and compromise. Tolerance of difference, though admirable, is not enough. Only as
individuals reach out – neighbour to neighbour and workmate to workmate – will
relationships of equality, mutuality and empathy be formed. Collectively, there is
much the city can do to facilitate this, whilst the price for inaction may be severe.

30
6. Towards an Intercultural City Strategy for
Helsinki
In this final section of the report we have set the building blocks upon which a
strategy for an intercultural Helsinki may be established.

We set out 10 Steps to the Intercultural City (adapted from our book of that name)
and apply it to the unique conditions of Helsinki. We argue that a city should:

o Make a public commitment to being Intercultural

o Review itself ‘through an Intercultural Lens’
o Address conflict and how to resolve it
o Look at language as the basis of communication
o Consider the role of the media in intercultural relations
o Become an international in outlook
o Develop greater knowledge of itself
o Build intercultural competence
o Consider the welcome it gives to strangers
o Show good leadership, governance and citizenship

We explain what we mean by each of these and the questions that Helsinki should ask
itself to establish its own position. We give examples of good practice in each area
from around the world and then we consider the areas in which Helsinki is already
strong, and areas where there are room for improvement. We conclude each section
with recommendations for action.

1) A Public Commitment to Interculturality

OUTLINE
A city may contain many examples of interculturality but these may remain isolated or
hidden from the general awareness of the general population or the outside world. An
optimum Intercultural City would be one which has taken a self-conscious decision to
seek out, identify and acknowledge such cases, as well as to establish a policy objective
of consolidating and building upon them; as well as a developmental strategy which has
appropriate resources to support it. The city would also have made a formal statement
sending an unambiguous public statement of its commitment to intercultural principles
and would be actively engaged in persuading other key stakeholders in the city to do
likewise.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• How can the city let local people know that being ‘intercultural’ is not just a word
but a new way of doing things?
• How can the city signal to different sections of the community that they each have
a role to play?
• What incentive will encourage people to behave more interculturally?
• How can public institutions demonstrate their attachment to interculturalism?

31
ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER
• Make a symbolic gesture that atones for a past misdeed
• Designate a day devoted to intercultural understanding.
• Awards or other schemes to reward and acknowledge single acts or lives devoted to
building intercultural trust and understanding.
• Adoption of a declaration at the highest political level (Mayor, City Council) to
acknowledge the value of cultural diversity and a pluralist city identity.
• A campaign to raise awareness of the demographic reality of the city’s cultural
diversity, debate citizens’ concerns about issues such as security or the quality of
public services, and raise citizens’ understanding of the advantages associated with
a diverse population.
• Adoption of an official slogan for the city which evokes it intercultural identity

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• The project Neuchàtoi (a play of words for Your Neuchâtel) which ran for over 9
months in 2006, involved hundreds of events (conferences, plays, exhibitions,
posters….and many other types) and partners inviting people to question their
customary idea of the city’s identity and develop a more pluralistic idea of
Neuchâtel, a city with around 25% foreign residents. It was repeated successfully
in 2009 www.neuchatoi.ch
• The city of Oslo declared itself an open and inclusive city in 2001. The policy is
named OXLO – Oslo Xtra Large. The declaration “Oslo –a city for all” passed by
an unanimous city council, states: “Oslo is a city where all citizens are of equal
value. The citizens of Oslo are its future and its most cherished resource. We are
citizens with different ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds, and have all the
same fundamental rights, duties and responsibilities. (..) The municipality of Oslo
aims to mirror the diversity of its population, among its public servants and
leaders, and in the services it provides.” www.bydel-
grunerlokka.oslo.kommune.no/enhet_for_mangfold_og_integrering/oxlo
• A number of cities now make awards to highlight intercultural behaviour. The city of
Bern launched an annual Integrationspreis in 2004 to the individual who achieves
the most in cultural integration each year www.bern.ch/stadtverwaltung/bss/ki/IP

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• Helsinki has declared itself a ‘multicultural metropolis’ in its International Strategy,
stating it will ‘develop as a tolerant, safe, attractive and service-minded city for
which multiculturalism and immigrant’ skills are a key success factor.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• There is a growing and increasingly outspoken climate of scepticism and opposition
to the idea of Finland as a diverse society.
• Helsinki’ civic and economic leaders have so far been relatively low key in their
espousal of diversity and interculturality and risk leaving themselves exposed to
accusations of political correctness and of failing to back their opinions with action.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To avoid being placed on the defensive by anti-diversity sentiments, the
City must take the initiative. A long-term city-wide debate on the
implications of openness and interculturality for Helsinki should be held.

Establish an annual programme of prizes for the individuals and institutions
who have done the most to foster intercultural dialogue and co-operation in
Helsinki

32
2) Review the main functions of the city ‘through
an intercultural lens’
OUTLINE
Too often, city policy on diversity is influenced by or responding to serious and extreme
issues (such as threats to the law or civil order) which are, nevertheless, comparatively
uncommon. Meanwhile the day-to-day work which constitutes the vast majority of the
city’s activity can be overlooked. However at the heart of the Intercultural City thesis is
the notion of taking the important – but often mundane – functions of the city and re-
conceiving and re-configuring them in an intercultural way.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• How to establish an understanding that interculturalism is not just the responsibility
of a few race equality or migration specialists, but all the professional disciplines
within the city?
• How to assess the impact of changing policies and demonstrate progress.
• How to identify people’s real understanding of, and wishes regarding intercultural
relations?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Conduct a reappraisal of the policies of the council (and other public agencies) asking
the question: ‘if greater cross-cultural interaction was a priority for this city, how
would we run our services differently?’
• Organise a series of public consultations to find out how people living in the city
envision public space, policies, institutions and projects in an intercultural perspective.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• In 2001, the Stuttgart City Council adopted the Pact For Integration involving policies
and initiatives developed by a coalition involving public, private, and civil society
interests and focusing on participation and equal opportunity for everyone, peaceful
cohabitation and social cohesion, and the capitalization of cultural diversity as a
community and economic asset. A strong motivation for the Pact came from the
recognition that successful integration was necessary to attract and retain migrants as
well as foreign investment and ultimately essential to the city’s economic
development. Stuttgart now has the lowest crime rates of any city in Germany and
the lowest unemployment rates for people with migrant background.
www.demographiekonkret.aktion2050.de/Stuttgart_Standortfaktor_Integration.170.0.
htm
• Barcelona has had an intercultural action plan since 2002 and in 2009 the second
action plan was adopted. Interculturalism is now an element of all policies of the city,
from economic planning, security, social services, to culture. This approach has been
developed and implemented through continuous debates on and a practice of
interculturalism, and by means of a partnership involving the main city institutions
and the neighborhood actors. Indicators for the success of this future plan are being
developed but will most likely involve mixed cultural projects and events, real effort to
bring diverse participants and audience in cultural activities, participation of foreigners
in mainstream associations such as commercial associations or parents associations;
the proportion of mixed marriages; the ethnic backgrounds of municipal employees,
etc. www.bcn.cat/novaciutadania/arees/en/dialeg/dialeg.html
• The city of Tilburg undertook a complete reassessment of the offer and performance
of public services in the light or citizens’ expressed wishes and needs. The result was

33
 public services which are much more flexible, client-centred, result-oriented,
evidence-based, responsive and effective.
• The UK Government has developed a tool for assessing the impact of community
cohesion and community conflict prevention policies, see:
www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/communitycohesiontool.pdf

2 (a) Education through an intercultural lens

OUTLINE
Attitudes about culture and race can be formed at an early age. School has a powerful
influence here and has the potential to either reinforce or challenge prejudices in a
number of ways: through the social environment that it creates, the guidance it provides
and the values and knowledge it instils.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Is the school experience helping young people to build cross-cultural relationships or
is it reinforcing cultural separation?
• Is ‘intercultural competence’ part of the school curriculum?
• Are school teachers trained in intercultural competence?
• Does the ethnic profile of schools reflect the diversity of the city or is there a trend
towards polarisation and monocultural schools?
• How can an intercultural school have an influence on its wider community?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Establish a few schools and colleges as intercultural flagships, with high investment in
staff training, intercultural curriculum, co-operative learning models, closer links with
parents and community, twinning links with mono-cultural schools, and citizenship
education.
• Ensure a regular exchange of experience between intercultural flagship schools and
other schools and training of teachers by colleagues from intercultural schools.
• Encourage schools to expose objects and decorative elements (kilims, paintings etc.)
from other cultural contexts as a sign of recognition of the cultures of children from
migrant families.
• Appoint intercultural mediators in the most multicultural schools or train some of the
staff in intercultural mediation
• Involve migrant communities in school projects not only as participants but also as
initiators and leaders
• Avoid an early selection into academic and vocational tracks which often penalises
children from migrant origin.
• Enlarge possibilities for all-day schooling and homework support for all but especially
migrant children.
• Consider providing supplementary classes in out-of-school locations (sport, arts,
university centres) which are attractive for children.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• Creating a genuinely inclusive learning environment doesn’t just happen in the
language classroom, it requires a comprehensive commitment to diversity. By
approaching the issue of diversity as an opportunity, the Toronto District School
Board (TDSB) has gone beyond instructional methods and curriculum to achieve
significant results. According to data from the Program for International Student
Assessment (PISA) the TDSB has successfully closed the average achievement gap
between second generation students of immigrant origin and their Canadian peers.
The TDSB governs over 550 schools. In some of these schools, the proportion of

34
 “new Canadians” is as high as 80 to 95 percent, with more being enrolled each day.
More than 36 percent of these students come from economically disadvantaged
families where the income is less than 70 percent of the median income. Over 49.9
percent of Toronto residents were born abroad. For half of them, neither French nor
English is their native language. Yet, the reading competence of students in Toronto
tested in grade 9 is as high as the overall reading performance for Ontario, which,
with its much lower proportion of immigrants is ranked among the best in the PISA.
All stakeholders have a role in promoting integration across the school system as
part of a mainstream approach that is reinforced daily and through routine school
practice –from the School Board though to principles, teachers, children, parents and
migrant associations. In addition to ensuring the school curricula reflects the diversity
of the student body, the TDSB supports efforts to involve parents, neighbourhoods
and ethnic communities. In locations with a particularly high number of immigrants,
integration advisors (settlement workers) at the schools are helping parents with
education and other issues concerning integration. The Settlement Workers in
Schools (SWIS) program is a partnership of settlement agencies and boards of
education supported by Canada’s national department of Citizenship and
Immigration, now available in schools across Canada. Other specific actions that the
TDSB has implemented to achieve these results include: providing low-achieving
students with individual support in the classroom and access to language learning in
their student’s native language.
www.tdsb.on.ca/wwwdocuments/about_us/director/docs/urban%20diversity%20strat
egy.pdf
• Against a background of growing numbers of middle-class families leaving inner city
districts with ethnically diverse populations, the Canton of Zürich recognized that
educational reform was required to reduce inequality in education, to integrate all
students into schools and promote social cohesion. In 1996, the canton initiated a
school improvement project “Quality in multi-ethnic schools”(QUIMS) that would lead
to the gradual development of an area-wide model of quality assurance in multi-
ethnic schools as well as send a powerful political message against social segregation
and for a common public primary school. The QUIMS project aims at raising the
standard of education in these schools for all students, so that they will be equally
attractive to Swiss middle class parents and pupils and their non-Swiss peers.
Secondly, the project strives to close the gap between the achievements of different
social groups (as reported by international PISA scores). A third goal is to improve
students’, parents’ and teachers’ satisfaction with the school environment. QUIMS
starts by dealing with teachers’ concrete requirements and problems in the classroom
and moves on to sensitize the teachers to issues of ethnic and social inequality and
stereotyping. The QUIMS program reaches beyond the challenges of linguistic and
cultural diversity in the classroom, to look at how power structures in the overall
organization of schooling can contribute to discrimination. It starts to analyze the
structural barriers, for example, that might prevent a child from an immigrant
background with a good school performance from attending a secondary school for
higher achievers. QUIMS demonstrates the potential to address broad systemic
change in Zurich’s educational system and in the community-at-large. That is an
important accomplishment. Since its start as a pilot project in a few Zurich high
schools in 1996, the QUIMS program is now available in almost 100 schools in the
Canton of Zurich, where it has been scaled up into law since 2006.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mttv_3RC1UQ
www.vsa.zh.ch/internet/bi/vsa/de/Schulbetrieb/QUIMS/Wissen.html
• In 2005 the city of Subotica formed a Team for the inclusion of Roma children in the
school system consisting of experts, the members of the Roma Educational Centre
and two Roma high school students. This team prepared the Strategy for the
inclusion of Roma children in the school system. According to the data of the Roma
Educational Centre (REC) from 2006 already 61% of Roma children between the age
of 7 and 14 (primary school) were included in the school system, which exemplifies
the partnership of the REC and local government. http://www.ec-

35
 roma.org.rs/en/index.htm

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• All young immigrants of compulsory school age (aged 7–17) permanently residing in
Finland has the right to the same basic education as Finns.
• Finland has one of the highest incidence of foreign language teaching at the primary
school level

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• Finnish national education policy states that no school should have an immigrant
population in excess of 20%. However this will be increasingly difficult to achieve in
Helsinki where immigrant children may represent 25% of total intake in about a
decade. There is growing tension between national and Helsinki perspectives and the
city must be allowed to pursue its own course.
• How can the city avoid falling into a negative mindset of perceiving the issue as a
‘problem’ for ‘good and bad’ and ‘black and white’ schools.?

RECOMMENDATIONS

Set up a programme to encourage ethnic minority graduates to consider
teacher training and consider positive action to increase the number of
minority teachers in Helsinki schools

The high quality of language provision in Helsinki schools needs to be
matched by teaching of intercultural competence for all pupils.

Schools should be allowed to breach the 20% minority barrier if this reflects
their catchment area. These schools should be properly resourced to ensure
high standards and that they remain attractive to all ethnic groups.

Designate 3 primary and 3 high schools as Flagship Intercultural Schools

Introduce professional intercultural mediators into key schools.

2 (b) The public realm through an intercultural

lens
OUTLINE
Public spaces and facilities (including transport) are important for several reasons. They
are places which most citizens are obliged to use from time to time therefore raising the
possibility for chance encounters between strangers. They may also reinforce cross-
cultural solidarity. for example in cases of aroused public interest around the proposed
development or closure of a facility. Well managed and animated spaces can become
beacons of the city’s intercultural intentions. Conversely badly-managed spaces can
become places of suspicion and fear of the stranger

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Do the city’s main public spaces and institutions reflect its diversity or are they
monocultural?
• How do different groups behave in the city’s public places: do they seek or avoid
interaction? Is the atmosphere positive, indifferent, or tense?
• What is the status of the public realm in the city? Is it protected, safe and well
maintained, is it becoming privatised, is it deteriorating or unsafe?
• Are the city planning and built environment professionals trained in intercultural
competence?

36
• Is social interaction considered a priority in the planning guidance for new public
spaces?
• Does the pattern of transportation routes in the city enable encounter between
different groups or does it reinforce patterns of separation?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Identify a number of key public spaces (formal and informal) and invest in discrete
redesign, animation and maintenance to raise levels of usage and interaction by all
ethnic groups;
• Develop a better understanding of how different groups use space and incorporate
into planning and design guidelines.
• Ensure planners, architects, construction managers and similar professions within the
city council receive good training in cultural competence.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• Sense of Place in Manchester is a new form of community planning which draws
upon a much wider and deeper range of cultural factors to inform city planners on the
future development of neighbourhoods, see
www.manchester.gov.uk/site/scripts/download_info.php?downloadID=548
• The London Borough of Lewisham has pioneered a new way of looking at city
planning through an intercultural lens,
www.lewisham.gov.uk/Environment/Regeneration/DeptfordAndNewCross//DeptfordTo
wnCentre/InterculturalCity.htm
• The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is the most diverse part of London. It is
replacing all its libraries and transforming them into spaces of community interaction.
The objectives of the Council are: … to bring the community together and to empower
individuals to help themselves, whether it is learning to read, pursuing hobbies,
expanding their knowledge or seeking a job. An Idea Store is an ideal place to browse
and borrow books, read a newspaper or magazine, learn new skills, surf the net or to
relax and meet friends over a coffee in a fun and stimulating environment. The
physical presence of an Idea Store is striking. Firstly, it does not have a defined
threshold between street and library so one is drawn inside without the feeling one is
crossing any kind of boundary. This helps to create the sense of neutrality of the
space which encourages users to interact. www.ideastore.co.uk/
• Ottakring is a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Vienna, with more than 50
nationalities including many Pakistanis, Turks, Maghrebians, Egyptians, which make
up 36% of the total population of 8,000. At its heart is the historic Brunnengasse
market. During the late 90s the once popular market faced a chronic decrease in
visitors. Most of the bordering ground floor retail premises also became vacant and
were used for storage or occupied by industries with no relation to the market, such
as betting shops. In response the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and City Council
decided to allocate all empty shops to artists rent-free. Dozens of artists blended into
the life of the neighbourhood and ran numerous projects in association with the locals
shopkeepers and residents, ranging from providing services (sign painting, etc.) to
innovative and unusual projects. On the other hand, the annual “Soho” festival in
Ottakring mobilises a hundred or so artists and completely transforms the dilapidated
image of the neighbourhood, while managing to avoid the phenomenon of
“gentrification”.
• The Dutch Urban Design laboratory Stadslab is developing new concepts for
intercultural urban parks to reflect the growing diversity of European cities. Its current
project is in the Ukrainian city of Melitopol.
www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/culture/Cities/Newsletter/newsletter9Melitopol_en.
asp
• Much of the urban design and public space in Helsinki seems intended to challenge
and confront nature rather than work with it. This uncompromising approach is
particularly felt in winter and particularly by foreigners who are not accustomed to the

37
 climate. In Canada the approach to winter in the city is to try and work in harmony
with it:
www.physicalactivitystrategy.ca/pdfs/Living_Harmony_Winter.pdf
• Travel and active recreational activities provide an often overlooked opportunity for
community building and local immigrant integration policies do not need to be 'stand
alone' policies. In Copenhagen bicycling is particularly popular so the Danish Red
Cross volunteers teach newcomer adults how to cycle, the rules of the road, and how
to repair bicycles. The classes are free for immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees.
Most of the participants are older immigrant and refugee women who come from
countries where women do not traditionally ride bikes. The classes are also an
opportunity for Danes to share their skills and culture with newcomers and provide a
chance for both groups to socialize and share this national past time.
www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,501869,00.html
• The familiar scene outside many schools now is of parents depositing and collecting
their kids in car – which is bad for traffic, bad for health and offers no opportunities
for people of different backgrounds to meet, as they once did, at the school gates. To
tackle this problem in New Zealand a few parents started the Walking Bus. This is a
group of children who walk to and from school together supervised by neighbourhood
adults. Like a real bus, it “travels” at a set time and the children come out to join at
stops situated close to where they live. Established in 1999, there are now over 300
“Walking School Bus” routes operating in neighbourhoods throughout the Auckland
region. Each route is coordinated through the local school, with over 1800 volunteers
supporting the program city-wide. This means that more than 5,000 students use a
Walking School Bus every day. Research from the University of Auckland has
confirmed that particularly for new immigrants, this initiative creates community
cohesion, provides an opportunity to socialize with other parents and develop a
relationship with the school. The research also showed that having this relationship
between home, community and school results in better outcomes for students - they
tend to do better and as a result, stay in formal schooling for longer.
www.walkingschoolbus.org

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• The city moved quickly and decisively to respond to the Swiss referendum on
minarets, with Deputy Mayor Hannu Penttilä and Head of Planning Tuomas Rajajärvi
declaring any application to build one in Helsinki would be seriously considered.
• The Helsinki metro is very important in connecting different communities to each
other. The metro stops are valuable hubs of activity and interaction, particularly youth

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• The area around the University, which represents the greatest concentration of
foreigners in Helsinki, is badly designed and animated and does little to encourage
social interaction.
• Kaisaniemi Park, the public park with the greatest potential for cross-cultural
interaction has been allowed to become a place which is feared and avoided by many
• The way in which the Hakaniemi/Kallio/Sornainen district is planned and maintained
does nothing to acknowledge or enhance its reality as a centre of ethnic richness and
mixing – indeed the city seems to want to deny it.
• Helsinki does note cope as well as some other northern cities in maintaining spaces
for conviviality during winter weather

RECOMMENDATIONS

Initiate a series of experiments in designated public spaces to encourage
greater ethnic mixing and intercultural identification.

Train all members of the city planning department in cultural competence.

Introduce experimental zones in the city where normal planning regulations

38
 may be relaxed in order encourage areas to develop a more distinctive ethnic
atmosphere.

2 (c) The Public Services through an intercultural

lens
OUTLINE
An optimum intercultural city would see an equal reflection of the population in the
ethnic/cultural background of public employees – at all levels of seniority. More than this
however, it would recognise that as the population changes, the very nature of the public
service must be reviewed and possibly revised. It must be open to the possibility of new
ideas and innovation brought by minority groups rather than imposing a ‘one size fits all’
approach.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Is the city taking action to ensure the ethnic/cultural background of public employees
reflects that of the population as a whole?
• Has the city reviewed or changed the structure, ethos or methodology of its public
service deliver in order to account of the ethnic/cultural mix of its citizens and staff.
Does the city take action to encourage intercultural mixing in the private sector labour
market?
• What is the role of the police in regard to cultural diversity? To maintain peace between
groups, to enforce immigration laws, to maintain the status quo?
• To what extent are the police willing and able to take a more proactive role and
community bridge-builders between groups?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Provide training for intercultural competence of all front-line staff.
• Make special provisions for specific cultural communities if this is in the interest of
providing a better service.
• Rethink the role of frontline police officers in key areas to act as primarily as agents of
intercultural integration.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• One of the original actions Barcelona has developed in relation to integration is the
anticipation of the arrivals of people through family reunion. Family reunion
applications are screened and applicants are asked by social workers about the needs
of the coming family members (educational and training needs, language learning, and
psychological support, in particular in terms of husband/wife and parents/children
relationships following a period of separation). Social service provision is planned on
the basis of the identified future needs, the numbers of care professionals are
increasing. www.interculturalitat.cat/eng
• The Multicultural Health Fair is a free community event that brings together
representatives and volunteers from ethnic communities across Vancouver to provide
health care information to new immigrants in fun and easy to access ways. The focus
of the fair is: accessible information. As a result, all exhibitors are required to have
interactive health screenings and/or displays at their booth, all printed information
must be available in English and at least two of the selected fair languages: Punjabi,
Spanish, French, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Farsi or Taglog. Although not required,
exhibitors are strongly encouraged to also have booth representatives that can speak
one of the selected fair languages. A 2005 study by Statistics Canada found that while

39
 immigrants generally arrive with better health than the Canadian born, as time passes
this “healthy immigrant effect” tends to diminish. In part these health problems may
be due to the stress of immigration itself which involves finding suitable employment
and establishing a new social support network. However, the ability of the newcomer to
effectively identify and access preventative care also plays a role in this decline.
• Health promotion to ethno-cultural, linguistic and religious minorities requires
intercultural training for all parties -from medical staff through to community members
and leaders. The Ethno-Medizinisches Zentrum (EMZ) in Hannover has developed
the award winning “MiMi - With Migrants for Migrants” programme (Mit Migranten für
Migranten - MiMi). The programme recruits, trains and supports individuals from within
immigrant communities to become cultural mediators who can help navigate new and
different ways of dealing with traditions of health and illness and the body. The goal of
the program is to make the German health system more accessible to immigrants,
increase their health literacy while simultaneously empowering immigrant communities
by prompting their direct participation in the process. This two way dynamic is one of
the unique aspects of MiMi. The programme targets socially integrated immigrants as
candidates for intercultural mediator training and then recruits recent immigrants to
participate in the community group sessions that are led by MiMi mediators drawn from
their own community. The MiMi approach is based on the belief that migrants are
experts in their own causes and that as a community, they have experiences and
resources that need to be better leveraged. Look for unanticipated outcomes and
community impact: the focus of the MiMi program is increased health literacy, but their
community-based approach has also resulted in increased community leadership and
participation, especially for immigrant women. www.ethno-medizinisches-zentrum.de

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• According to research by the Väestöliito Family Federation, the 3,500 people who were
adopted as children to Finland from abroad generally have a positive experience with
little racism.
• There are about 3000 mixed-race marriages (26% of all marriages in Helsinki) in
Finland each year and 3.7% end in divorce. The Duo Project has been set up to protect
the interests of children at the centre of multicultural divorces
• The city centre's services for multicultural youth focus on Malminkatu 28 which houses
the Youth Information Centre Kompassi, Comprehensive development project for
employment, Asemanseutu (the Multicultural Living Room), Katuluotsi (Street Pilot)
and the NevoDrom project for aiding young Romany people. Special support for young
people of African origin is also based here.
• The Youth Department has establishment 100 internships within the local authority for
minority youths, particularly those who are in Finland without families.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• Perfect fluency in Finnish language is a prerequisite to many jobs in the public service
which is unnecessarily excluding many skilled people
• There appears to be an intention to cluster many of the public services for migrants in
the Kaisaniemi district on the grounds of efficiency. This is misguided and will lead to a
stigmatising of the area and the people who use it. Integration is more important than
efficiency.

RECOMMENDATIONS

There should be a review of whether the insistence on perfect fluency in
Finnish language as a prerequisite to many jobs in the public service is really
necessary.

Reverse the move to cluster all immigrant services into Kaisaniemi.

40
2 (d) Neighbourhoods and Housing through an
intercultural lens
OUTLINE
There is a great variation across European cities in the extent to which patterns of
residential settlement are connected to culture and ethnicity and there are also varying
opinions on whether the state should intervene or if the market and personal choice should
be the prime determinants. An optimum Intercultural City does not require a ‘perfect’
statistical mix of people and recognises the value of ethnic enclaves, so long as they do not
act as barriers to the free flow of people, ideas and opportunities both inward and outward.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Does the city have residential areas which are defined along ethnic lines?
• Does the system for allocation of public housing and/or the private housing market
contribute to ethnic concentration?
• Do local community facilities encourage greater ethnic interaction or are they mainly
monocultural?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• designate facilities as intercultural community centres, containing key services such as
health, maternity, childcare and libraries.
• Encourage (for example through fiscal measures or the provision of community
facilities) the setting up and action of culturally mixed community groups and
organisations acting as catalysts of neighbourhood activities and mediators.
• High publicity campaigns for public housing allocations which give ethnic groups
confidence and information enabling them to consider taking housing opportunities
outside their traditional enclaves.
• Encourage small-scale initiatives that enable migrants to act as a link between
individuals or families and the services.
• Projects that show young migrant people that their parents and grandparents are
respected by the community by giving them spaces and occasions to contribute and
show their skills.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• For a review of good practice in the UK see Ethnic diversity, neighbourhoods and
housing at: www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/foundations/110.asp
• Many examples of practices and approaches to ensure cultural mixing in housing
estates and neighbourhoods are quoted in the CLIP network study Housing and
Integration of Migrants in Europe.
www.eurofound.europa.eu/pubdocs/2007/94/en/1/ef0794en.pdf
• The Citizens Foundation Neukölln is the only German citizens foundation that is
explicitly positioned interculturally. It was initiated by personalities of the business
world, culture, church and politics of Neukölln and founded in 2005. 102 founders got
engaged each with financial contributions from 500 EUR onwards. The foundation is a
platform for people that are dedicated to their borough. It aims at the participation of
all inhabitants in shaping the quality of life in their neighbourhood and in supporting a
respectful togetherness. In cooperation with the migrant communities it wants to
establish new multiethnic community structures. Therefore the foundation explicitly
invites migrants to participate in the work and become co-founders.
www.stiftungzukunftberlin.de/en/neuk%C3%B6lln-model
• Collingwood Neighbourhood House is a multi-functional local service centre that has
united a diverse and formerly run-down quarter of inner-city Vancouver
www.cnh.bc.ca/

41
• There are buildings or institutions you would like to explore or people you would like to
know in our neighbourhoods, but we are too shy or reserved to approach them, or
maybe we are worried about causing embarrassment to them or yourself by making a
social or cultural mistake. Marjolijn Masselink had these feelings about the Feyenoord
district of Rotterdam, so she created a new company called City Safari. It is directed
at Rotterdamers themselves and says to them ‘Be a tourist in your own city’. As an
individual or a group of friends you can tell Marjolijn what kinds of things you are
interested in and she will design a personalised tour of the city visiting 5 places you
could never normally go to – the house of a migrant, the house of a local, of a
transvestite, a mosque, a church, whatever, in order to know and understand them
better.
http://www.citysafari.nl
• The Chicago Federal Reserve noticed that hardly any Muslims were applying for
finance to purchase homes or business and that this was largely due to religious
sensitivities. Over the last few years, several Islam-friendly lending programs have
been created by the Chicago Federal Reserve to help solve these problems. Mainstream
financial institutions are starting to use financial instruments to offer creative loans
that comply with the laws against riba (receiving interest) by creating joint-owner
partnerships or charging lease fees in place of interest. Since then the bank has
recognised that other minorities may also have cultural issues which prevent them
accessing finance, so it commissioned an extensive study from the Brookings
Institution: www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20060504_financialaccess.pdf

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• The general standard of public and private housing is higher than in most large
European cities. Homelessness of migrants is also comparatively low although starting
to rise
• Certain districts are now reacting against the homogeneity of the suburbs by
establishing distinctive brands and local programmes of activity, eg Power and Drive to
Mellunkylä, and its programme of four major festivals, reflecting the growing diversity.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• Prevailing rhetoric holds that if there are areas of segregated migrant housing in
Helsinki it is because the migrants have chosen to ‘self-segregate’. This obscures the
fact that deeper structural factors are leading to ethnic Finnish and minority enclaves.
• Only 1% of people of migrant origin own their own home and there can be prejudice in
the private rented sector leading to their concentration in public sector housing
• There is a lack of open discussion about ethnic spatial concentrations in Helsinki. The
emergence of ethnic enclaves is a taboo subject. There has not been a debate on the
pros and cons of clustering and this void can be occupied by extremist viewpoints
• Many people operating public services in the outer suburbs complain of a concentration
of public funding and resources in the centre making it harder to maintain intercultural
activities

RECOMMENDATIONS

There should be a dedicated programme of investment in the outer suburbs
(both in infrastructure and in events and attractions) to make them into
attractive places for ethnic Finns to visit, live and work in.

42
2 (e) Business and the labour market through
an intercultural lens
OUTLINE
Large parts of the economy and the labour market may be beyond the remit and
control of the city authority, but they may fall within its sphere of influence. Because
of nationally-imposed restrictions on access to the public sector labour market, the
private sector may provide an easier route for minorities to engage in economic
activity. In turn, such activity (eg shops, clubs, restaurants) may provide a valuable
interface between different cultures of the city.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Is there a business umbrella organisation which has among its objectives to
promote diversity and non-discrimination in employment?
• Does the city have a charter or another binding document against discrimination in
the workplace?
• Does the city take action to encourage intercultural mixing in the private sector
labour market?
• Does the city take action to encourage businesses from ethnic/cultural minorities
to move beyond localised/ethnic economies and enter the mainstream economy?
• Has the city taken action to encourage ‘business districts’ in which different
cultures could more easily mix?
• In its procurement of goods and services does the city council give priority to
companies with a diversity strategy?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Take extra effort to ensure migrants find jobs appropriate to their skills,
• Help migrants get recognition and accreditation of their foreign qualifications;
• Explore trade opportunities through diasporic networks of local migrants;
• Assist migrant businesses to break out into multi-ethnic markets.
• Design special programmes to fight discrimination in employment.
• Involve successful migrants to provide role models for migrant young people

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• In Bologna the authorities have made special efforts to ensure migrant
businesses do not fall out of the mainstream. The Spinner Consortium focused on
the 1300 isolated Chinese businesses, using intercultural mediators to convey
information on tax and employment law and to better understand Chinese culture,
leading to a bilingual manual. Radio proved a very effective communication
medium.
www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2195213,00.html
• The City of Boston identified more than 4,000 small and mid-size light industrial
and commercial businesses that operate within the city’s boundaries but away
from the main areas. Mainly run by minorities these “Backstreet” companies
generate more than 100,000 jobs (one in five jobs in Boston) and pay over $30
million annually in taxes and represent a key lever to the city’s economic
development and success. The Back Streets Program sets out to integrate them
into the mainstream economy and overcome cultural misunderstandings in four
main areas: real estate, work force, business assistance and resources and
partnerships. www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org
• Businesses in Neuchâtel have launched, in co-operation with social services,
Speranza 2000 a recruitment and training project for marginalised young people.
Then the young people are trained for 12 weeks and then offered a contract of

43
 unlimited duration. Following the project’s first year, all 48 young people have
remained in the enterprises. Only 30% of them only were Swiss nationals.
http://www.ne.ch/neat/documents/formation/formapro_4574/4574_5236/5236_5
237/INformation_No11.pdf

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• It is easy and cheap for a migrant to start a new business in Helsinki in
comparison to much of Europe

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• In comparison to other major international cities and knowledge hubs, the labour
market in Helsinki is considered to be dysfunctional. Discrimination (both casual
and institutionalised) against non-fluent Finnish speakers is common. This is
deterring many knowledge workers (particularly outside the traditional technology
field) from making the city a relocation option.
• Many aspects of the service economy (where new migrant businesses usually
start) are dominated by exclusive cartels or professional associations, making it
difficult for newcomers to enter the market.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The City Council should initiate a thorough research study of the existing
conditions of ethnic minority business and its future potential for the
prosperity of the city.

2 f) Sport and arts through an intercultural lens

OUTLINE
The time which people allocate to their leisure may often be the best opportunity for
them to encounter and engage with people of another culture. Equally however, if
patterns of leisure are structured along ethnic lines (e. g. a football league of teams from
only one culture) it may be a powerful reinforcer of separation. The city can influence this
through its own direct activities and through the way it distributes resources to other
organisations.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Are most cultural and leisure groups in the city constituted on mono-ethnic or multi-
ethnic lines?
• Do the city’s professional sports and arts organisations explicitly encourage ethnic
mixing?
• Are there funding and training schemes to support talent from ethnic minority
background?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Initiate tournaments and festivals which bring together young people from different
parts of the city and train multi-ethnic youngsters as sports and arts leaders.
• Encourage arts organisations and arts colleges to train and involve people from
migrant/minority background.
• Support migrant/minority arts and culture organisations and events which present
works from a mixture of cultural backgrounds.

44
INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE
• Buntkicktgut (which translates loosely as fancy footwork) is the name of the
intercultural street football league in Munich. It was founded in 1996 by two social
workers at a refugee home, after they began to use street football (the most popular
activity among the boys at the home) as a means for identification and integration.
Today, the program includes over 150 teams with approximately 1,500 players. The
players are a mix of refugees and disadvantaged youth all from a variety ethnic
backgrounds. The participants get involved in the program through their housing
estates, daycare centres, on the suggestion of school social workers or from just
hearing about it on the street. The participants range from 8-21 years and include
both males and female players. The game year is divided into a summer and winter
season and games are held up to five times a week, as well as on weekend, at
venues throughout the city. Two cup events are held annually as well. Street soccer
in contrast to club football is also associated with autonomy, self organization and
self determination by the youth. The league encourages responsibility by having
teams register on their own and organize themselves. To qualify for the league, a
team must have six players and at least one coach. The kids are also responsible for
organising their uniforms (shirts), coming up with a team name and building
community support for their games. The teams also commit to playing year round
and attending all scheduled games.One of the primary goals of the project is the
prevention of violence. The project concentrates heavily on the peaceful resolution of
conflict within an intercultural context (i.e. racist prejudices and intercultural
misunderstanding). The participants are taught peaceful strategies for conflict
resolution, democratic negotiation and the idea of individual and group participation.
In 2006 Buntkicktgut became a truly global initiative when they hosted the
International Streetfootball League in Munich. Over 56 teams from around the world
came to participate in the event. www.buntkicktgut.de
• In Tilburg, a group of women from the Antilles asked the local government for
support to organise a carnival procession. Tilburg has also traditional carnival clubs.
The alderman promises his support under the condition that the two groups of
carnival clubs will present one plan for the carnival procession in August. From that
moment a strong cooperation began between the two different cultures. On 24
August 2008 the so-called T-Parade was held for the first time in the centre of the
city. The second edition boasted 60.000 visitors, 37 groups floats and 1.200
participants of Japanese, Dutch, Moroccan, Indonesian, English, Brazilian,
Venezuelan, Surinam, Moroccan, Antillean, Turkish and Chinese origins. The T-Parade
is now an independent foundation, financially supported by the city. http://www.t-
parade.nl
• The Raval Foundation of Barcelona is a co-ordination platform for cultural
institutions and social organisations working with children, women, people at risk
from exclusion, commercial organisations, trade unions and many other actors in the
neighborhood. Together they investigate the local area, create thematic and project
networks, communicate about Raval to the media and generate community projects.
A major activity is a 4-days festival involving 100 different entities from Raval, each
contributing their own know-how and activities. The festival has grown over the years
from a small local initiative and is becoming larger and more popular every year. The
different participating organisations are covering their own costs. People from other
neighborhoods come to Raval festival as well. Raval is in a way the intercultural
laboratory of Barcelona. There is a project “culture in situ” which encourages cultural
institutions present to reach out to the local community. It involves both social
organisations and cultural institutions and consists of visits to the cultural
institutions/associations, workshops for children, open doors only for people from the
neighborhood, communication through the local NGO. The opera has for instance a
special programme exclusively for Raval.
www10.gencat.net/probert/angles/cotxeres/cx32_miradesang.htm
• The X-Ray Youth Culture House is an example of the intercultural spaces where a

45
 new hybridised Oslo youth culture is being forged. Youngsters who started with
these projects are now starting to make their mark on mainstream Norwegian society
through achieving positions in the mainstream media and arts worlds, and they in
turn act as role models for future generations. http://www.x-rayukh.no

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• The Caisa international cultural centre has a high level of expertise in culturally
diverse arts and how this can be used to build intercultural dialogue (for example the
‘Our Song’ event.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• Sport is not given due consideration as an area for intercultural engagement with a
growth of segregation in sports events and much discrimination. Most foreign-born
football referees have quit due to racism, and minority players receive
disproportionately more severe disciplinary punishments. The racist taunt of ‘neekeri’
is widespread in Finnish sports grounds and is not outlawed.
• Ticketed cultural events are becoming increasingly expensive which excludes many
minorities

RECOMMENDATIONS

Caisa should leave its inadequate premises is Kaisaniemi and move to a
better equipped facility.

All cultural centres in the city should develop in-house expertise in cultural
diversity.

The emphasis in cultural policy should move away from cultural specificity to
mixing and hybridity.

3) Mediation and conflict-resolution

OUTLINE
Where groups of different cultural background and of social and economic status are
present in close proximity, there is always the potential for conflict over values, behaviour
or resources. This is natural – what is unnatural would be for city authorities to seek to
deny or ignore it. The process of anticipating, identifying, addressing and resolving
conflicts is a fundamental process of living together in a dynamic and communicative
community. Indeed the optimum Intercultural City sees the opportunity for innovation and
growth emerging from the very process of conflict mediation and resolution.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Is city policy strongly influenced by the need to avoid the possibility of ethnic conflict?
• Are city officials trained in mediation and conflict-resolution skills?
• Does the city have procedures and mechanisms for recognising and dealing with
potential flashpoints?
• Are their institutions in the city that can help communities resolve their differences?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Acknowledge the inevitability of conflict in mixed communities and develop the city’s
skills in mediation and resolution.
• Do not try to avoid or hide conflict – this risks creating frustration, disillusionment and
withdrawal. Open public debate is the best way to address fears, concerns and conflicts.

46
INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE
• UK Government guidance for local authorities on community cohesion contingency
planning and tension monitoring, see
www.communities.gov.uk/publications/communities/cohesionplanning
• Casa dei Conflitti in Torino is a place for resolving neighbourhood disputes, see
http://urbact.eu/themes/populations-of-foreign-origin/participation-and-
citizenship.html
• In Vic (Spain) a team of 10 “street mediators” which deal with minor neighbourhood
conflicts and seek to meet and talk to people on the streets and in public places about
their concerns related to the arrival of foreigners, the changes in the host community
and the role of the host population in the integration process.
• The Interfaith Kirklees partnership in Huddersfield offers opportunities for active
learning about the identity of faiths and for connecting communities. Housed in seven
Faith Centres, each in a local place of worship: Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim and
Sikh., it runs a programme of celebration and dialogue A Religious Education Syllabus
for schools in the district and a Handbook of resources for teachers have been
compiled. There is a Faith Centres Trail enabling people to visit places of worship. The
partnership also plays a vital role in defusing tension that may be caused by world
affairs or local incidents. www.interfaithkirklees.org.uk
• Reggio Emilia has established an Intercultural centre with trained mediators with a
variety of ethnic and language backgrounds who intervene whenever they feel a
problem might arise – for instance if kids in some schools tend to cluster too much on
ethnic basis.
• Office “Citizens help citizens“, Berlin Neukölln. A Turkish and an Arabic association
offer a lower threshold advisory service in the respective mother tongue for five days
of the week in the Town Hall of Neukölln. Especially for older migrants, who have
difficulties in learning the German language, this is a highly demanded service.
• In Oslo, an emergency taskforce was established in 2005, with representatives from
the municipality, NGOs, scholars and the police. The purpose is to respond quickly to
crisis where youth and violence are involved, and to problems of racism and neo-
nazism. The capacity to deal with minor episodes, however, is widely spread on the
level of schools and youth services. In the city districts, this work is coordinated
through the SaLTo-networks, where municipal youth workers, schools and the local
police participate. In dealing with localized conflicts, community leaders from NGOs,
churches and mosques are regularly consulted and engaged, as well as the local staff
of the state-run Mediation and Reconciliation Service.
www.salto.oslo.kommune.no/getfile.php/Salto%20(PROSJEKT-
SALTO)/Internett%20(PROSJEKT-SALTO)/Dokumenter/SaLTo%20-%20english.pdf
• In Tilburg there are volunteer neighbourhood mediators. It is necessary to intervene
as soon as possible before a bigger conflict starts with more people involved. This
project started in the impulse neighbourhoods, but now in every neighbourhood in
Tilburg these mediators are active. Eighty percent of the mediation volunteers are
migrant people, which is not only remarkable but also encouraging. At this moment 40
mediators in Tilburg leave no stone unturned to prevent or solve problems in the
neighbourhoods.

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• The Interfaith Dialogue Association Religious Forum, the Union for Christian Culture
and the Islamic Heritage House have established meetings.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• By the standards of most similar-sized cities there is a low level of formalised
intercultural and interfaith dialogue
• Equally there is little formal acknowledgement of the potential for conflict within
culturally-diverse communities and very low level of professional provision in mediation

47
 and conflict resolution.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The city and its partner agencies should develop a cross-departmental strategy
for rapidly responding to emerging social, political and religious conflicts.

There should be a comprehensive programme of training in mediation and
conflict resolution for all officials dealing with the public.

4) Language
OUTLINE
The learning of the language of the host country by migrants is key issue for integration.
However there are other considerations in an intercultural approach to language. For
example in cities where there are one or more national minorities (or indeed where there is
indeed no clear majority group) there is significance in the extent to which there is mutual
learning across language divides. Even in cities where recent migrations or trade connections
have brought entirely new languages into the city, there is significance in the extent to which
the majority are prepared to adopt these languages.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Is the translation of public information into minority languages an encouragement or a
hindrance to people gaining command of the majority language?
• Are there actions or initiatives in the educational or cultural fields aiming at promoting
recognition of minority/migrant languages in the community?
• Does the city have local newspaper/journal/radio or TV programs in the language other
than the language of the majority ethnic group?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Providing sufficient resources and teachers with the proper training to ensure new
arrivals can receive language tuition within a short time after arrival.
• Hold a public information campaign to portray multilingualism as an asset to individuals
and the city.
• Use language training as a vehicle to build relationships between strangers.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• In Frankfurt, through the “Mama Learns German – Papa Too” program, immigrant
mothers (and fathers) of children in primary schools and kindergartens join their children
in the classroom for two mornings a week. The mothers learn German along with their
children and receive real insight into the lives that their children will be leading in their
new country. The contents of the languages classes are very much focused on the
practical - the everyday words and expressions that the mothers need to navigate their
new life in Germany and to understand the activities of their children. It also forms the
basis for a cooperative relationship between schools and parents. With lessons
incorporated into the school day, parents are also relieved of the added burden of costly
child care. The classroom provides a forum for the mothers to connect and discuss
challenges, solutions and find support and friends in an environment that is free from
judgment and prejudice.
www.frankfurt.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=2889&_ffmpar%5B_id_inhalt%5D=352763
• The Barcelona Centre for Linguistic Normalization (CLN) welcomes over 17,000
students from 127 different countries. The classes are thus an active example of
diversity and the respect of difference. It is for this reason that the CNL has adopted

48
 intercultural dialogue as one of the strategic values of its educational project, in which
new arrivals are acquainted with the characteristic traits of Catalan culture, not in terms
of a single, homogeneous model but rather from the position of exchange, plurality,
interaction and the miscegenation and hybridisation of culture.

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• Finland has more than double the European average rate for multilingualism, and is one
of only four nations where all upper secondary students learn two or more foreign
languages.
• The campaign for Plain Finnish Selkokieli and News in Plain Finnish – Selkouutiset are an
important stepping stone for foreigners and can provide a meeting place, particularly for
the elderly and disabled.
• Familia Club fills an important gap in provision by giving courses and social contact for
non-working people such as mothers, the elderly and those awaiting residence permits

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• There is a widespread perception that Finnish is a language which is almost uniquely
difficult and impenetrable. This leads to prejudices, for example that non-fluent speakers
of Finnish are generally considered unemployable
• The provision of Finnish language courses is failing to keep pace with demand, and much
of what is available follows outdated pedagogic methodologies and lack practicality. It is
too easy for people to drop out and fall back on English

RECOMMENDATIONS

There should be a major enquiry into what are the true linguistic
requirements of posts in the public and private sector followed by legislation
to outlaw employment discrimination on the grounds of language.

5) The Media
OUTLINE
The media has a powerful influence on the attitudes to cultural relations and upon the
reputations of particular minority and majority groups. Much of this media is nationally or
internationally generated and therefore beyond the influence of city authorities. Nevertheless
there is still much the city authorities can do to influence and partner with local media
agencies to achieve a climate of public opinion more conducive to intercultural relations.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Does the local print and broadcast media have a strong influence on public attitudes to
community relations?
• Does the media have access to accurate information on cultural diversity.
• Does the city council have a co-operative relationship with the media?
• Is there a joint strategy for dealing with tension and misinformation in the community?
• Do the media organisations give training to staff in cultural competence?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Develop a long-term trust-based relationship with media by providing information
regularly, inviting journalists to projects and events, event at the neighbourhood level.
• Establish a joint strategy with local media agencies to gather and present news in a
responsible and intercultural way.
• Encourage media to publish stories about migrant’s lives showing the human aspect of

49
 immigration.
• Provide scholarships or other schemes to encourage young migrants to train as
journalists.
• Provide a directory of reference persons (NGOs, social services, mediators, community or
project leaders, etc.) for media to be contacted in case of incidents or issues in addition to
those who are usually asked to comment (police, experts).

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA) found
itself increasingly the target of extremist criticism and abuse in the local media. It
responded with a targeted communications strategy to present the ‘human face’ of
migration. Its success came from presenting a consistent and compelling alternative
message to the one usually portrayed by the media. To keep the story "alive" they had a
network of media ready community members who were able to speak on message to the
press. Their key message is ‘Don't be afraid of personal stories! It was the focus on
individuals that helped humanize the issue and interest journalists to go beyond the
usual policy focus. And, look to link a local issue or event to something happening on the
national or international stage - don't be afraid to "Think Big."
http://www.miracoalition.org
• Telenovela’s are hugely popular melodramatic television serials originating from Latin
America . Adapted to the USA The Grand Cafe follows the lives and hearts of four
ordinary women while teaching English and basic business skills to immigrant and
refugee women flexibly and from the convenience of their own homes. It is based on
C.E.O. (Creating Economic Opportunity) Women’s highly successful 16 week training
program that helps immigrant women develop entrepreneurial skills while they learn
English. Each 28 minute episode of The Grand Cafe will teach English, build basic
business skills including marketing, legal issues, negotiation skills, finance, public
speaking and networking. Farhana Huq, Founder, C.E.O. Women, said, “The goal is to
make the program much more interesting and accessible. The novellas will go straight to
DVD first and be distributed to women so they can start the program in the comfort of
their homes while accessing teacher resources.” Unlike other training DVD’s, The Grand
Cafe will appeal to women that might otherwise feel intimidated or reluctant to engage in
a training program. It will also reach those women who are not able to make it to the
classroom because of travel, time or competing work or family commitments -the
telenova comes to them. The video episodes are available through a combination of
DVD’s, broadcast, and online distribution and includes a companion work book for
independent study. With Since the DVD can easily be shared, the Grand Cafe lends itself
to viral marketing. May Oliveros graduated from the program last year and successfully
opened her own beauty salon where she often plays the Grand Cafe on the salon
television to inspire her clients.
www.youtube.com/watch?gl=CA&hl=en&v=zdulSlbbY_s&autoplay=1
• The Leicester Multicultural Advisory Group is a forum set up in 2001 by the editor of
the local newspaper, the Leicester Mercury, to coordinate community relations, with
members representing the council, police, schools, community and faith groups, and the
media. http://media4diversity.eu/en/content/leicester-multicultural-advisory-group

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• The Helsinki Times, Six Degrees and the online English language version of Helsingin
Sanomat provide a good services which ensures non-Finnish speakers access the media.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• There is very little representation of minorities in the broadcast and print media in Finland.
• There is an attitude in the Finnish media that to engage in dialogue with ethnic minorities
and the city around intercultural relations would compromise its objectivity and
independence. This is a failure to recognise that the media is never simply a detached

50
 observer in a city but an active and influential player.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Key media agencies in the city should enter into a formal process of dialogue
with the city and minority representatives.

6) An open and international city

OUTLINE
An optimal intercultural city would be a place which actively sought to make connections
with other places for trade, exchange of knowledge, tourism etc. It would be a place which
the stranger (whether business person, tourist or new migrant) found legible, friendly and
accessible, with opportunities for entering into business, professional and social networks.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• What is the external image of the city?
• Is it seen as cosmopolitan and open to outsiders? As a place to visit, to invest or do
business in?
• How many local people believe that foreigners bring advantage to the city?
• How many people think foreign influences threaten local culture?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Proclaim that the city is both open to ideas and influences from the outside world and also
seeks to outwardly project its own identity
• Establish independent trade and policy links with the countries of origin of minority groups

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• The city of Chicago felt the foreign policies of the United States did not fully reflect its
perspective as a city with a vast number of different ethnicities, languages and
connections to foreign countires, so it set up its own ‘foreign office’. See more about
Global Initiative Chicago at http://gichicago.org/
• Oslo has a Strategy for the international cooperation which is pursued through
agreements of cooperation, through international organizations, through networks and
projects and through visits and international profiling. The themes of integration,
diversity and tolerance are important to organizations and networks such as Eurocities,
Metropolic, ECCAR and the Baltic Sea States Sub-regional Cooperation, as well as to
agreements with cities as Gothenburg and St. Petersburg. There is an International
Office in City Hall, and the city administration is represented within EU by its European
Office in Brussels. In recent years, the city of Oslo has been profiled as a city of peace
and tolerance, through the Nobel Peace Center and the new Wergeland Center – COE’s
European Center for Intercultural Dialogue.

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• Currently, Finland has 11,000 international degree students and aims to increase this to
20,000 students in 2 years and Helsinki will be the focus of this growth
• The VALOA project, led by the University Career Services has joined 19 other
universities, city councils and entrepreneur organizations to create a framework to
transition these students into the local market.

51
HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS
• There is no matching growth in accommodation making life in Helsinki very expensive for
students
• Very high drop-out rate for foreign students

RECOMMENDATIONS

Amsterdam’s integrated policy on welcoming outsiders ranging from its
one stop Expat Centre to its marketing campaigns, publications and
internet presence are a useful example for Helsinki to explore

7) A city with intercultural knowledge and

intelligence
OUTLINE
A city cannot be intercultural if it is ignorant of its citizens, their diversity and
lifestyles and how they interact with each other. An intercultural observatory takes
existing data and interrogates it from an intercultural perspective. It also identifies
gaps in the city’s knowledge base and where necessary devises new kinds of data and
analysis to add depth and clarity to the ‘intercultural picture’.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• What does the city know about its own diversity and interculturality?
• Does it routinely collect information on the basis of ethnicity?
• What use does it make of such information to inform policy?
• How well-informed is the city of good practice elsewhere?
• How aware are local politicians and decision makers of how neighbourhoods and
communities are changing as a consequence of globalisation?
• Do officials know where to go and who to ask to find accurate information on what
is going on and what people think?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Set up an observatory or establish partnerships with a university or a research
centre to begin the process of:
• Gather and process local information and data on ethnicity.
• Conduct research into the state of cross-cultural interaction in the city
• Establish and monitor intercultural indicators
• Dispense advice and expertise to local agencies and facilitate local learning
networks.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• One of Europe’s leading Intercultural Observatories is in Torino, see
www.comune.torino.it/intercultura/
• Other good examples include: Interkulturelles Zentrum in Vienna, see
www.iz.or.at/ Observatorio de las Migraciones y de la Convivencia Intercultural de
la Ciudad de Madrid, see www.munimadrid.es/observatorio
• In Reggio Emilia, a partnership with the local university ensures monitoring of
integration and well-being of migrants, the public opinion and the effects of city
policies. (see also a paper by this university on the Reggio’s page on the
Intercultural cities web site). Also the Centro Interculturale Mondinsieme at

52
 www.municipio.re.it/Assistenza/migrare05/migrare.nsf/pagine/0BDA35418C1FAD
69C12570190031E84E?OpenDocument
• Every two years, a survey is held among the residents of Tilburg concerning
people’s attitudes to ‘tmulticultural society’. This includes the same ten
statements each time, so it is easy to compare the results. The city’s Research
and Information department also conducts monitor studies, like the Poverty
Monitor, the Integration Monitor, the Antilleans Monitor, the Moroccan Monitor,
etc. which inform the policy of Tilburg.
• How does a city know if their integration efforts are being successful? For
instance, what if a city needs or wants to know the percentage of children with
migration backgrounds that are attending the local kindergarten in order to
effectively track these numbers and decide whether the existing efforts are
successful or if they need to be adapted? Demographic data in this area is often
poorly maintained, incomplete, inconsistent or inaccessible. How can city planners
and community actors measure their progress or learn from one another without
access to standardized data in easy to use formats? With these concerns and
questions in mind, the Bertelsmann Stiftung partnered with the state of North
Rhine-Westphalia’s Ministry of Integration (MGFFI) and the GEBIT Institute in
Münster to create an on-line database which provides data on community level
integration and allows German cities to answer these and other demographic and
data related questions. This project known as, “Wegweiser Kommune” covers
approximately 85% of the German population and has become the first ever
nationwide resource with data, projections and ideas at the municipal level. The
site provides users with current data and facts about immigrant integration as
well as analysis of the effects that these demographic developments are having.
This data is available for all cities and municipalities in Germany that have 5,000
or more residents. www.wegweiser-kommune.de

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• Tietokeskus conducts a highly professional and comprehensive provision of urban
facts about Helsinki, including a growing expertise in migration and diversity-
related issues.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• Perhaps there is too great an emphasis in Finland on knowledge derived from
empirical research. There are many other forms of knowledge and these become
particularly appropriate when different cultures are trying to understand each
other.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Establish a department within Tietokesus dedicated to monitoring
cultural diversity and interculturality within the city.

8) A city of intercultural skills and competence

OUTLINE
Very few people can be expected to be experts in more than a few of the languages and
cultures of the many groups who live in a city. This is understandable. However, the
competent public official in an optimal intercultural city should be able to detect, and
respond to, the presence of cultural difference, and modulate their approach accordingly;
rather than to seek to impose one mode of behaviour upon all situations. Such sensitivity

53
and self-confidence in unfamiliar situations is not commonly-seen but it is a skill which can
be acquired through expert training, and must become as important to the officials as their
specific profession and technical skills.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• How many officials the city have been trained in cultural competence?
• Is there a reliance on a few ‘experts’ in the city to handle all matters relating to cultural
diversity or is it seen as the responsibility of all?
• Does the process of making policy in the city take into account the impact a new policy
may have on intercultural dialogue and co-operation within the city?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Initiate a programme of intercultural awareness training for politicians, and key policy
and public interface staff in public sector agencies. Encourage the private sector to
participate.
• Recruit municipality employees who represent the ethnic diversity mix of the community
– even if specific recruitment policies would often need to be designed in order to reach
some of the migrant or ethnic groups.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• The International City/County Management Association in the USA stresses the
importance of senior public officials developing their linguistic and cultural competence
http://icma.org/pm/8701/public/cover.cfm
• In the UK the Academy for Sustainable Communities has been established with the
specific objective of raising the level of skills of those working in the planning and built
environment professions. One of its priorities is improving skills for working in culturally
diverse situations. See Planning and Engaging with Intercultural Communities:
www.ascskills.org.uk/download/intercultural_communities.pdf and Promoting
Sustainable Communities and Community Cohesion:
www.ascskills.org.uk/download/general/research/sc_cohesion.pdf

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• The Police Service has adopted cultural competence training for all officers, learning from
international best practice, early anticipation of emergent problems etc.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• Aside from those officials who have a full time responsibility for dealing with integration
issues, there does not appear to be a systematic plan to raising the cultural competence
of city council staff
• There is little research into the differing requirements of different minorities in regard to
public services, eg in the design of public housing. It would contradict the ethos of
equality
• Planning and urban design policies seem unable to take account of the needs and
aesthetics of minorities in public spaces, retail quarters and streets.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Make amendments to the job descriptions of city officials requiring them to
take account of the intercultural consequences of their work.

Require all policy-making reports to the city council to outline their impact on
intercultural relations.

54
9) A Welcoming City
OUTLINE
People arriving in the city for an extended stay (whatever their circumstance) are likely find
themselves disorientated and in need of multiple forms of support. The degree to which
these various support measures can be co-ordinated and delivered effectively will have a
major impact upon how the person settles and integrates. What is often overlooked, but
which has a powerful impact on intercultural relations, is whether those from the host
community have been given any prior preparations or, on the contrary might they feel
surprised or alarmed by the new arrival.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• When foreign migrants arrive in your city do they have to fend for themselves or is there
a mechanism for guiding them through the system?
• How well-prepared and informed are established communities to receive neighbours of a
different culture?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Initiate welcoming initiatives and urban exploration projects whereby new arrivals
(temporary and permanent) but – equally importantly - local citizens, can visit parts of
the city they have not previously been, hosted by people of different cultures.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• In Bremen they recognise that successful integration involves practices that allow both
groups to adjust and build a genuine relationship. The value of this relationship building
is at the heart of the Bremen-based integration program called “Mentoren für Migranten”
(memi) or Mentors for Migrants. So far 130 German families have volunteered to
“sponsor” immigrant families as mentors in order to help them get started and adjusted
to their new lives. Along the way, both groups have the opportunity to learn about each
other and build their relationships. The strength of the Mimi program is that is measures
success based on whether the families build actual long term relationships with each
other
www.tjv-bremen.de
• Time Together, is a volunteer refugee mentoring initiative in London addressing the
often overlooked challenges associated with integration, as well as the practical issues of
English language and employment seeking. After new arrivals register they are matched
with a local volunteer who may, for example, take them on the London Underground for
the first time or visit local attractions such as museums. First both potential mentors and
mentees undergo training separately depending on their role in the pair, which can cover
concepts of integration, refugee issues, and the essentials to mentoring. It is at this
stage that people in the programme also become familiar with the mutual commitments
of mentors, mentees and the programme coordinator. After training, potential pairs are
introduced in a group environment, have the chance to read their partners written
profiles of interests and skills, and also hear from the coordinator about each person’s
needs and expectations in the relationship. Out of the study sample of thirty mentors
and mentees, twenty-two of the mentors had successfully enhanced the integration of
their mentees. This was judged through the help and advice they offered on practical
matters concerning everyday life in Britain, building and sustaining confidence in their
mentees, and contributing to their mentee’s English language
improvement. Furthermore, seven of the twenty-two mentors reported life-altering
experiences, which often formed the basis of strong, mutually-beneficial friendships.
www.timetogether.org.uk
• The city of Rotterdam has set up an integrated system for language tuition, housing

55
 and labour market integration for new arrivals, see Welkom in Rotterdam
www.welkominrotterdam.nl. It also provides ways in which citizens can explore parts of
their own city that might not otherwise visit such as the homes of people of different
ethnicity, through City Safari, see www.citysafari.nl/
• Peterborough has been allocated about 78 per cent of asylum-seekers dispersed to the
East of England region. Agencies who work with these new arrivals created the ‘New
Link’ project. The initiative is a one-stop shop of service providers. It is operating nine
projects over a three-year period to help integrate new arrivals. www.poor-refugee.org
• The Portuguese National Center of Culture edited a Guide to Intercultural Lisbon. It
enables a discovery of a metropolis increasingly marked by cultural and ethnic diversity
and contributes to the mutual knowledge and interaction between the different groups
present in Lisbon. Starting with a historical introduction, the guide presents a range of
places such as Chinese and Indian shops, eastern therapy centres, African astrology,
Bulgarian, Ukrainian or German religious institutions, among others, not relinquishing
the importance of community associations. www.cnc.pt/Noticias.aspx?ID=656
• In Cardiff the Police Service of South Wales has gone out of its way to build strong
connections with local refugees and asylum seekers. It partnered with language teachers
to set up Cardiff Police ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) and designed a
course to provide asylum seekers with an understanding of their respective rights and
responsibilities, while building a relationship of trust with them. The result was the first
police-led language classes for a newcomer community. The course was popular and
classes succeeded in strengthening their confidence in the Police, their comfort in the UK
and improving their written and spoken English. Cardiff Police now encourage increasing
numbers of officers to attend these classes and to share in the outreach experience.
www.learningobservatory.com/uploads/publications/784.pdf

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• All legal migrants have the right to a subsidised programme of integration measures
during their first three years of residency.
• The University has a three-stage process and dedicated officials for new foreign
members of staff including a welcome pack

• Improving the welcoming services to new arrivals in the city is considered the priority
action for the Immigration Division
• The Jolly Dragon website provides an excellent service for foreigners and local to
encounter new friends outside the workplace.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• There is no standard welcome pack available for all foreign new arrivals and the
University’s pack is far too bulky
• The University has no comprehensive records of who its foreign staff and students are
how well, or not, they may be integrating.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Conduct a thorough exercise to streamline the process by new arrival are
welcomed and integrated to the city in the first few weeks of arrival.

10) Governance, leadership and citizenship

OUTLINE
Perhaps the most powerful and far-reaching actions which a city can take in making a city
more intercultural are the processes of democratic representation and decision-making.

56
Clearly some of these may be determined nationally, but there is much that a city council
can do to influence the way in which diverse groups interact and co-operate around the
allocation of power and resources.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Are city leaders well-informed about the city in all its diversity?
• Are there clear procedures for taking multi-agency action in relation to community
relations issues?
• Does the city have an umbrella body to represent all ethnic minorities and which is
independent of the local authority?
• Does the local authority have a cross-departmental body for overseeing implementation of
the city’s policy on integration and intercultural relations?
• Does the city account take account of the improvement of intercultural relations when it is
designing and implementing programmes of public consultation?
• Does the city encourage actions (for example neighbourhood management forums) in
which neighbours of different ethnic/cultural background can participate together in the
development of their area?
• How do political and community leaders in the city emerge? How open is the system to
newcomers and outsiders?
• Do community leaders speak only for their own ethnicity or a broader interest group?
• Does the city nurture cross-cultural leaders who emerge outside the formal political and
community channels?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Establish an intercultural integration office with a broad transversal mandate, right to
initiative and an adequate budget to deal with integration and intercultural matters.
• Establish a representative body where community relations and issues can be discussed
and co-ordinated, multi-agency action taken, as an advisory or decision-making organ for
the intercultural integration office.
• Develop schemes to encourage participation and decision-making at the street or
neighbourhood level, including the allocation of financial resources by the local residents
for neighbourhood initiatives.
• In the absence of a formal right to local vote for foreigners, introduce alternative schemes
such as shadow or observer councillors elected by the foreigner communities.
• Give considerable space and support to individual and group independent initiatives, not
only to initiatives by formal organisations.
• Encourage (including through special funding or the provision of common office/meeting
facilities) migrant/minority organisations to develop joint initiatives.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• DiverseCity onBoard is an award-winning initiative that seeks to change the face of city
leadership by working to ensure that the governance bodies of public agencies, boards
and commissions as well as voluntary organizations accurately reflect the diversity of the
people who live and work in the Greater Toronto Area. It was launched in 2005, by
the Maytree Foundation to bridge the growing gap between the diversity of Toronto’s
population and its leaders, and to help connect public institutions to the talent they need
for competitive growth and urban prosperity. Using practical and direct initiatives,
DiverseCity OnBoard works to ensure that the governance bodies of public agencies,
boards and commissions as well as voluntary organizations reflect the diversity of the
people who live and work in the GTA. It does this by identifying qualified pre-screened
candidates from visible minorities and immigrant communities for professional
appointments on boards and committees. By professionalizing the appointment process,
the program seeks to prevent board tokenism by helping organizations committed to
diversity find the best candidates with the right skills - rather then simply people with
the right skin colour.
www.diversecitytoronto.ca/diversecity-onboard

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• In many parts of Europe migrants are disbarred from playing any part in national or local
election until they have been naturalized, and then can take years or even decades. As
part of its Plan for Convivencia and Intercultural Living, the City of Madrid has decreed
that anyone who has been a resident of the city for 6 months, regardless of whether
they hold Spanish citizenship, can take part in elections for local districts. And
furthermore they can stand for office to serve on local committees which take decisions
about and spend public money on their neighbourhoods. Giving people a responsibility
for and a stake in their own district is one of the most fundamental and effective way of
making citizens of people. Itndigenous people who have become complacent about their
own citizenship could learn much from these foreigners who breath new life and energy
into their adopted cities. www.munimadrid.es
• Going to a pharmacy to have a prescription filled, opening and accessing a local bank
account, using any public service including getting a library card - all of these require
identification - something that many immigrants don’t have. To overcome this hurdle,
Mayor John DeStafano has led the initiative to have the City of New Haven approve a
municipal ID card - the first of its kind in any American city. The card is universally
available to all New Haven residents regardless of citizenship status. The Elm City
Residence Card (named for the trees that once dominated the regional landscape) was
launched in July 2007. It was created to specifically address several specific areas of
concern in the immigrant community specifically: public safety, access to financial
services, access to government services, and knowledge about civil liberties and
individual rights. The card is not interchangeable with a drivers license or visa. However,
what it does is validate its holders as full fledged participants in civil society.
http://newhavenindependent.org/archives/2005/10/A_City_to_Model.pdf
• The UK-based Operation Black Vote (www.obv.org.uk) has set up a scheme in
Liverpool where young migrants can shadow established local politicians so they better
understand what the job involves and encourage them to engage in politics. In other
cities it has enabled migrants to shadow Members of Parliament and magistrates. It runs
training courses in ‘Understanding Power’ and is involved in the London Empowerment
Partnership and the London Civic Forum, which is a network of 1300 full member
organisations and associate individual members, from the capital’s private, public and
not-for-profit sectors which aims to increase and improve civic participation in London.
• The Intercultural Communication and Leadership School is active in France,
Britain, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands training young people from different
communities in European cities to become the next generation of cross-cultural leaders:
www.intercivilization.net
• The city of Subotica has all together 36 local offices out of which 17 are in the nearby
settlements. These offices have a council and a general assembly and this way the locals
can contribute to the questions or problems concerning their neighbourhood. In one of
the city’s neighbourhoods called Peščara live 500 Romas who came from Kosovo. Among
other activities the REC formed in this neighbourhood a Board of parents, this way
allowing them to have representatives in the school and on the local office as well. This
body also took part in the animation of the Roma and non-Roma community to find a
common priority question to be solved: building of a road in the neighbourhood. So we
can say that the road was the “instrument/tool” to bring the two communities closer and
make the communication better between the two.
www.ec-roma.org.rs/en/index.htm

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• Infopankki.fi is a comprehensive database for a wide range of people from established
minorities to those still anticipating migration to Finland
• The Helsinki Palvelukarttaan (Service Map) provides an easy means for all citizens to
access services in their neighbourhood
• Neighbourhoods in the increasingly diverse suburbs are demanding more local
democracy, eg councillors in Kontula are obliged to participate in local debates and
events.

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HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS
• Unlike the Ombudsman for Equality in Finland, the Ombudman for Minorities has no
formal authority to intervene in discrimination in the workplace
• The lack of a tradition of a third sector in Finland makes it difficult to maintain services
for less privileged communities as state/city provision is withdrawn. There is a desperate
need to develop citizen-led services
• Although the city is excellent at proving information to citizens, most of it is a one-way
process. There should be more opportunities for citizens to contribute to the databanks.
This would give a far richer picture of Helsinki as a city of diversity

RECOMMENDATIONS

Establish a formal representative body for minority ethnic groups and formal
processes of dialogue with public agencies and the city.

Initiative a campaign to encourage minorities to register to vote in local
elections.

Establish the status of “Citizen of Helsinki” even for those who have yet to attain
Finnish national status.

Establish neighbourhood governance structures with electoral processes,
decision-making powers and budgets.

Phil Wood and Charles Landry

COMEDIA
March 2010

philwood@comedia.org.uk
charleslandry@comedia.org.uk

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