Reviving Abandoned Places in Finland

Abstract

Europe, other modern economies like USA, Australia, etc, along with various developing and underdeveloped countries are seeing this trend of people moving to urban areas in search of better life and career opportunities. This leads to rural declines and excessive urban migration, which increases pressure on urban infrastructure and resources. Finland presents an anomaly to it by having places that were revived from being completely abandoned (like Pulsan Asema), or sparsely populated (like Oravi Village). And these revivals were done via grass-roots, entrepreneur led efforts, which can be learnt from and possibly replicated across regions and countries. The central theme of this research is reviving of places, and how different types of entities can help reviving abandoned places. The report primarily looks at places in Finland which were successfully revived to learn from their revival stories. This was done through various interviews with relevant stakeholders that included entrepreneurs who had successfully revived abandoned (or close to being abandoned) places in Finland, people who worked in relevant areas (tourism entrepreneurs, community workers, heritage experts, journalist, etc) where there were efforts being made to revive similar places. It looks at various factors that can possibly influence such revivals, like social, economic, political and institutional factors. The report then looks at how universities can go beyond their conventional role in society, and become catalysts for such revivals. Universities can offer practices and skills that are practical and needed by entrepreneurs and students to help aid such revivals, positioning them in a central role between entrepreneurs and government entities. They can be the provider of knowledge and skilled manpower, both of which are scarce in sparsely populated regions. Not only that, they can also be the hub for upskilling for entrepreneurs who wish to embark on such a journey of reviving similar places/projects. The research was done by conducting in-depth, qualitative, multi-case study analysis. Data for analysis was collected through semi-structured interviews of eleven relevant key individuals (as mentioned above). Information from such interviews were collected from the perspective of PESTEL (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal) framework to give some structure to the interviews, and also allow free flow of discussions to happen around these and any other factors that may influence such revivals. Findings of the interviews and literature review revealed that revivals are not just dependent on one factor, but a variety of factors coming together. The key factor was the passion and 'sisu' (Finnish grit) of individual entrepreneurs, accompanied by a growing interest of travellers for authentic and unique travel destinations, and places that allow travellers to feel close to nature. Using technology strategically for marketing and operations also played a key role in helping these individuals with their key tasks and growing their businesses. Financial and investment support from local and EU organisations, with reliable and accessible public infrastructure like schools (for families of employees and entrepreneurs) and transport modes (road, rail, air or water modes) were seen as important pillars of support to recruit and retain key personnel to aid such revival efforts. It was seen that there still are significant barriers that exist, like archaic building codes and financing challenges for projects in rural and semi-rural areas, and unnecessary and complex bureaucratic process, but persistent entrepreneurs are trying and sometimes succeeding, as is seen from examples highlighted in this report. While entrepreneurs are persisting, universities that are looking to evolve, are providing opportunities and platforms to such entrepreneurs and ambitious students to help with such revivals. This is being done with the understanding that revivals help the greater good by bringing in much needed economic and human resources that are seen as pivotal for any region to survive and thrive. The origin of this thesis itself is a prime example of this, wherein the student persisted to study this anomaly of revivals being seen in unique tourism businesses and how they were helping sparsely populated regions. The report further goes to cover ‘Joko Project’ that is a learning project being developed by researchers at Xamk University to help provide practical curriculum to entrepreneurs and teach relevant skills to help them upskill, and also provide skilled students to such entrepreneurs by imparting practical knowledge to them that will aid in helping revive local economies in various regions of Finland and beyond. The conclusion in this report shares actionable steps that can be taken by entrepreneurs, government bodies and universities to bring about such revivals. Some of the recommendations suggest flexibility in heritage structure renovation laws, unique financial support systems for financing projects in such sparsely populated areas, and integrating practical learning modules in curriculums of universities to help upskill students and entrepreneurs for the future and enrichment of such regions.