ABSTRACT
Helsinki has the appearance of a planned city with only minor problems created by uncontrolled urbanization. Throughout Finland, including Helsinki, landowner’s rights are well protected and, at the same time, special emphasis is given to public interests. These two factors, together with the Scandinavian tradition in urban planning and the strong position of private property ownership, are the main characteristics of Finnish urban development. Furthermore Finnish cities are of recent origin due to rather late industrialization, and are mainly post Second World War. For this reason and because of peripherality Finland has been little affected by external influences in spite of being an open, export oriented economy.
