METKA - Sustainable Structure for the Metropolitan Area
Overview
Background & policy context:
Finland needs a strong and thriving metropolis. The growth and expansion of the region poses challenges for land use, environment and transport that will require wide co-operation amongst the authorities. The future structural development of the larger Helsinki area and its impacts on the ecological, socio-cultural and economic sustainability has been studied in a development project called METKA (Sustainable Structure for the Metropolitan Area).
The direst challenges of the Helsinki metropolitan area concern the need to harness climate change, especially by reducing the dependency on private cars, improving the global competitiveness of the metropolitan area and enhancing the quality of the living environment.
Objectives:
The aim is the sustainable development of Helsinki Metropolitan Area, according to the defined objective-oriented area structure. As an aid, alternative models, comparisons and influence estimations are used. The results are utilised in the making of Regional Land Use Plans and traffic system plans. As a final result, the developing paths are defined in the area structure plus the target area, which is illustrated by a visual map presentation.
Methodology:
The METKA-project was divided in three working phases:
- Analysis of present situation in the wider metropolitan area and definition of indicators for sustainability,
- Definition and assessment of alternative models for regional structure, and
- Creation and assessment of the METKA-model.
The process included two working seminars. The structure of the metropolitan area has been studied by combining the national information system for monitoring land use planning with regional plans and data on transport systems. The analysis is based on a specifically developed GIS-methodology that generates alternative regional structures and calculates their effects on sustainability.
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