Espoo best city in Finland in 2060 – City Planning Department’s workshop series envisions desirable future for Espoo

During 2022, city-wide master planning work, the Espoo Master Plan 2060, was launched in Espoo. The master planning work will result in a long-term strategic land use plan that guides more detailed planning and construction.

The City Planning Department has a range of methods for organising residents’ interaction in planning, but when work on the new master plan was launched, the department wanted to experiment with new ways of participating. It is important to consult different groups already at the early stages of the planning process.

“Since the Espoo Master Plan 2060 aims, as the name suggests, far into the future, we wanted to experiment with a new, forward-looking method for gathering the views of residents and other interested parties,” says Heli-Maija Nevala, Service Manager at the City Planning Department.

In 2022, the Espoo City Planning Department participated in Sitra’s partnership programme, which helps organisations utilise the Futures Frequency(external link, opens in a new window) in their own operations. The Futures Frequency is a workshop method developed by Sitra for building different futures. It guides the participants in their thinking about the future and helps them envision a desirable future.

“We created a series of future workshops to support the target phase of the master plan, in which we applied the Futures Frequency method in the context of city planning in Espoo. We received visions from different target groups about what the future of Espoo should be,” says Susanna Nurmi, coordinator of the project.

First, future workshops were organised for residents, young people and business and commerce operators. The visions of the future that emerged from these workshops were eventually submitted to a future workshop for the city’s decision-makers, who discussed how the visions could be included in the objectives of the master plan and how the master plan could guide the future of the city in the desired direction.

The workshops were an excellent way to find out what kind of Espoo participants would like to see in 2060. The workshops involved a lot of concrete future thinking exercises to envision the future.

At the beginning of the workshop, the participants asked “what if?” questions to identify future threats and opportunities. Next, they formed small groups that created a shared vision statement for the group, that is, their wish for what Espoo should be like in 2060. Finally, this vision statement was turned into a future news item showing what Espoo would look like if the group’s vision became reality.

“The workshops had an inspiring atmosphere and the participants were willing to let their imagination run wild and play with ideas for the future. It was great to see how, in all the workshops, the participants’ hopes and fears for the future were shaped piece by piece into a concrete, shared vision,” Nurmi says.

The workshops provided information on the future visions and wishes of the participants for Espoo and city planning. The documented material was displayed at the decision-makers’ future workshop, and it has also been compiled for city planners.

Based on the workshops for residents and young people, the Espoo of the future should pay attention to the smooth flow of services and traffic, the preservation of green spaces and recreational opportunities. Community spirit and the vitality of the city were also highlighted as important themes. The residents’ workshop emphasised opportunities to meet and spend time with other Espoo residents. The young people also came up with ideas for the kind of facilities the city should offer its residents. 

“Surprisingly similar requests and ideas came from both young people and adults, naturally from their own points of view and with their own examples,” Nurmi says.

The workshop organised for business and commerce operators highlighted, for example, hopes for the development of technological competence. The participants also considered what kind of opportunities different sustainable solutions and choices could bring to Espoo. The workshop participants hoped that the Espoo of the future would be an innovative and good place for companies and, on the other hand, an ecological pioneering city where a dense urban structure enables the sharing economy. 

Nurmi also notes that the issues raised in the future workshops were well in line with the results of the Our Espoo 20x0 event series, on which a report(external link, opens in a new window) was compiled at late 2022. In the event series, too, Espoo residents spoke the most about nature, community spirit and smooth everyday life.

The City Planning Department is pleased that Espoo was able to utilise the method developed by Sitra. The method and its results benefit the organisation in a variety of ways. The Futures Frequency method will hopefully continue to provide means for interaction. There is always a need for new and creative methods, for example to support the participation of young people.

It is also part of Sitra’s partnership programme that the participating organisations share their experiences of the method with others for further utilisation. Accordingly, the City Planning Department published a model(external link, opens in a new window) of how the Futures Frequency was utilised in Espoo. The model describes the implementation and results of the workshops in more detail (in Finnish).

“We hope that other organisations can benefit from our work. We have cooperated with the municipality of Raasepori, where the Futures Frequency was utilised in the context of land use but in very different ways. Together, we have considered that we could also present the method to other municipalities and actors in the land use sector,” says Nevala.

The Futures Frequency, Our Espoo 20X0 and the residents’ events and survey organised in autumn 2022 produced information during the start-up phase of the Espoo master plan. The information collected from residents will continue to play an important role in the preparation of the plan. When preparing the draft plan, the City Planning Department will organise more interaction with residents and other stakeholders. You can follow the progress on the plan on the website of the City of Espoo.