Helena Leino puts people and nature at the fore of sustainable urban planning

At the millennium, the discussion sparked by the amended Land Use and Building Act motivated Helena Leino to research how citizen’s participation is enabled in urban planning projects.  She completed her doctoral dissertation on the dynamics of citizen’s participation and urban planning at Tampere University in 2006. 

Leino finds that participation has evolved significantly since those days. Municipalities and cities are now utilising new methods to gather residents’ views on urban development in both public meetings and online.

“There is now a stronger belief that citizens’ proactivity is not just an extra step in planning but that residents can genuinely contribute brilliant ideas,” Leino notes.

City officials, building companies and researchers want to know how people wish to live, and in what kind of urban environments they prefer to work and reside.

Citizen-centric approach changes knowledge production

The research approach Leino uses is action research, which also comes close to citizen science. The aim is not just to conduct participant observation or interviews but inviting citizens to come together to brainstorm sustainable urban ideas.

“My research aims to create positive conditions for people who are interested in urban development. We share a common interest, which does not always have to be a problem because we can also brainstorm some nice activities in the city,” Leino explains. 

In Hiedanranta, a sauna was built together. (The link opens to a Finnish-language page). Professor Leino finds it clear that some residents will not attend planning meetings or public events even when given the opportunity. Not everyone finds it natural to express their views publicly, which is why Leino emphasises diverse participation and data collection methods. In Hiedanranta, passers-by participated without an invitation. Some may have observed the activities first, joined in, and found suitable tasks in the common action without having to worry about their building skills.

When studying complementary construction possibilities in the Tammela area, Leino and her colleagues spent 10 days at the neighbourhood’s marketplace. The researchers rented an office container and collected residents’ ideas. Through that experimentation, not only did they gather a proper medley of views, but Leino also realised that one participation model does not fit all.

Starting from people’s everyday needs  

The project Dwellers in Agile Cities (2016–2019) led by Leino and funded by the Strategic Research Council of RCF put residents’ needs first. The starting point was to emphasise citizens’ and communities’ active role in the processes of sustainable urban living. When residents participate in producing ideas for new environments, they become drivers of urbanisation instead of bystanders.
 

Photo: Jonne Renvall/Tampere University

The concept of the Nordic superblock originated from similar collaboration. When the City of Tampere began developing the Hiedanranta neighbourhood, researchers organised planning workshops with the city. Leino recounts the residents’ good ideas, one of which was the superblock concept further refined by the researchers. The idea of shared spaces, energy production and local services evolved into a ‘city of encounters’, which won the SAFA architecture competition in the housing development ideas category in 2019. 

“Everyday living must be human-sized. We must start thinking that shared spaces can truly generate common good. The concept successfully integrates the goals of an ecologically and socially sustainable city,” Leino says.

Now the concept is being furthered by the Business Finland-funded Nordic Superblocks project where such companies as SKANSKA, KONE, Tietoevry, Granlund, JIS-Automation, three research groups from Tampere University and Synocus are developing the superblock concept. Professor Leino is a member of the group led by PhD Markus Laine, a university lecturer in sustainable urban development. 

Diversity of urban nature as part of urban development

In her research on land use planning and policy processes, Leino has observed how the public is being persuaded to support the future visions of the city through the images used in the process. The Visions of the City project (2023–2026) delves into the visual storytelling of land use planning.

Leino and Laine are collaborating with Professor of Visual Studies Asko Lehmuskallio. The researchers explore how visual elements influence land use planning and public discourse. Is the area to be developed as green as depicted in the visualisations? What kind of future visions do the images convey and in which contexts are they used? The research ties into Leino’s interest in the transparency of land use policies and citizens’ participation.

The INNATURE project (2025–2029), starting later this year, will investigate socially sustainable and inclusive nature solutions in urban areas, which involve the residents. The Horizon Europe project is led by Professor Sofie Pelsmakers from Tampere University’s School of Architecture. Professor Leino is responsible for the dissemination of the project's research outcomes and is closely involved in implementing the Tampere sub-project, in which meadows are planted in urban neighbourhoods with citizens. 

Leino is enthusiastic about the idea of integrating the biodiversity perspective more closely into the urban planning procedure. When residents and associations engage in practical activities in their local environment, such as planting meadows, it highlights the added value that people can derive from nature in their daily lives.

“Nature is thus proactively protected by creating and maintaining new green areas together. Local, native species support biodiversity and pollinator habitats. In the INNATURE project, this is done together with citizens,” Leino says. 

Photo: Jonne Renvall/Tampere University

The pursuit of sustainable development has paradoxically produced unforeseen and undesirable consequences. When researchers use the ecogentrification concept, they refer to a situation where a residential area becomes alien and too expensive for current residents because of the development of positive factors such as green spaces, services, and public transportation. 

The researchers initially wrote about this phenomenon in Finnish and later in an international publication. From the societal impact perspective, Leino finds it important that the observations about the phenomenon were communicated in Finnish to urban planners. Leino also visited a meeting of Tampere City’s Planning Unit to discuss the phenomenon.

Leino has conducted her research as a member of the Politics of Nature and the Environment (Ponte) project at Tampere University.  

“I want to foster an atmosphere of trust within the group. It is valuable to present ideas for the group so that those ideas will develop. Collaborative brainstorming and openness have always advanced scientific research in my experience,” Leino points out.