The cornerstone of unity

15 PARTICIPATORY URBAN CULTURE 
A new participatory urban culture has sprung up in Finland 
– and especially Helsinki – that has even spread 

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abroad through the Internet and social media. Though the phenomenon is new, doing things together and 
helping neighbours have been part of Finnish culture in the past too. This tradition partly disappeared due to 
urbanisation but has reappeared in a new form. Due to the short history of Finnish towns and their small size, 
they haven’t had much urban culture, but all the more has sprung up in recent years, and it typically originates 
from the citizens themselves. 
The best known example of the new urban culture is the event called Restaurant Day, which started in 2011 
as an initiative of Helsinki citizens. The idea behind the event is to enable anyone to set up a popup restaurant 
for a day. In addition to being fun, the event also seeks to criticise the difficulties involved in starting a normal 
restaurant. Although Restaurant Day was originally started without permission from the authorities, it soon 
received official approval. The event takes place four times a year and has become popular all over Finland. It 
has also spread abroad, especially to Russia and Central Europe. 
Another event that has become very popular, Cleaning Day, started a year later, in 2012. Twice a year, tens 
of thousands of people have time and again sold and bought used things on streets and in parks all over Finland. 
One of the countries to which the phenomenon has spread is Japan.
The 2010s have also seen the beginning of a new wave of urban neighbourhood activism. This began in 
2011 with an initiative to make Helsinki’s Kallio neighbourhood a better place for all its inhabitants. This Kallio 
Movement is not an official registered association, and it has no formal administration. Through social media, 
however, it has been able to find many volunteers for its activities. It has organised, for example, the annual 
Kallio Block Party, which has brought up to 20,000 revellers into the streets. The Kallio Movement and the Kallio 
Block Party have also inspired many imitations all over Finland. 
Characteristic of the new participatory urban culture is the sharing of resources and their use in new ways. 
Urban space is appropriated for the common use of everyone, but private spaces are also made public. 
Examples include living room art exhibitions, events called home theatre festivals, and even living room 
debates or “living room meetings” with political candidates invited into one’s home. The first Helsinki Sauna 
Day took place in 2016 and called on citizens, businesses, clubs, societies, and other associations to admit 
outsiders to their saunas free of charge. 
There are many factors behind this new participatory urban culture, but technology is the most important one. 
Without the rise of social media, most of the projects would not have been carried out. A single Facebook post 
can now do what in the past required days and weeks of work.
But social media is not the only cause of this development. It is made possible by Finland’s atmosphere of 
equality, which is the foundation of anything done together with others. Equally important is the high degree of 
trust Finns have in others, which is why many don’t see a problem in buying food from a popup restaurant on the 
street or in opening up their homes to complete strangers.
Finland is not the only country that has seen this sort of development. W
hat is exceptional in Finland’s 
new participatory urban culture is its amount, extent, and uniqueness. What is also special about Finland’s 
situation is its rapid change. Less than ten years ago, many restrictions made it difficult for Helsinki citizens 
to be active in public whereas the city nowadays supports such activities and even uses it in its marketing.
Jaakko Blomberg, cultural researcher and event producer,
co-founder of the non-profit Common Ground (www.yhteismaa.fi)