Helsinki as an Open and Intercultural City

Final Report

A report by

to the City of Helsinki

March 2010

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Helsinki as an Open and Intercultural City

Contents

1. AIMS OF THE REPORT ..............................................................................3

OUR APPROACH.................................................................................................3 OUR CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................4 OUR RECOMMENDATIONS......................................................................................5

2. IMPRESSIONS OF HELSINKI ....................................................................8

ROOTS ...........................................................................................................8 TOLERANCE......................................................................................................9 EQUALITY...................................................................................................... 10 ORDER AND DISORDER ...................................................................................... 10 DRAWING POWER AND LIVEABILITY ........................................................................ 11 OPENNESS TO COMPETITION ................................................................................ 12 SOCIABILITY AND FRIENDSHIP .............................................................................. 13

3. THE OPEN, CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE CITY........................................15

WAVES OF CHANGE AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES.......................................................... 15 OPENNESS AND DESIGN THINKING ......................................................................... 16 WICKED PROBLEMS........................................................................................... 18 THE ORGANIZATIONAL SETTING FOR OPENNESS AND COSMOPOLITANISM ............................. 19

4. TALENT ATTRACTION AND RETENTION..................................................20

THE CITY OR THE JOB ........................................................................................ 21 THE HELSINKI RESPONSE.................................................................................... 22 NEW INDICATORS FOR SUCCESS............................................................................ 24

5. THE DIVERSE AND INTERACTIVE CITY...................................................25

MIGRATION AND CITIES ..................................................................................... 25 THE DIVERSITY ADVANTAGE FOR CITIES.................................................................. 25 CHALLENGES .................................................................................................. 27 PRECONDITIONS AND INGREDIENTS OF THE INTERCULTURAL CITY ..................................... 28 QUESTIONS UNDERLYING AN INTERCULTURAL STRATEGY................................................ 29

6. TOWARDS AN INTERCULTURAL CITY STRATEGY FOR HELSINKI ............31

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1. Aims of the Report COMEDIA has been engaged by the City Council to conduct a major study on how the city of Helsinki can be seen to be an open and cosmopolitan city and by so doing to further build its global reputation. Helsinki recognizes that ‘openness’ will increasingly be the primary quality that can help guarantee its future success economically, culturally and socially and recommendations for its future policies and development follow. One conclusion can be stated immediately. We welcome the both the wisdom and the courageousness of Helsinki in opening itself out to an examination of its openness. Few other cities have yet come to grips with these issues. The fact that Helsinki is asking itself a question about its openness shows how open it is. A key assumption is reflected throughout, it is: The creative and innovative capacity is the crucial attribute a city needs to help future proof itself and to provide adaptive resilience. It relies on a high degree of openness. The central question addressed therefore follows: How can Helsinki become a city for

which increased openness as well as growing cultural diversity is both a driver of

international competitiveness and a source of well-being and prosperity for all its

citizens? ‘Openness’ is illustrated in many ways: How the city welcomes in foreigners, how it addresses cultural diversity, how it attracts skills and talent, how open its business climate is, how the city manages its affairs, the extent to which different sectors and institutions collaborate, the degree to which the city works in an interdisciplinary way and how the city in all its facets encourages the development of a creative ecology. ‘Openness’ manifests itself too in how the physical fabric is put together: How permeable, connected and accessible are the buildings and built structure as well as the city as a whole, how does the city signal its openness through its sign and symbol system and how it projects itself internally and to the world.

Our Approach

The research began in March 2009 and the conclusions were presented to a conference on 22nd April 2010. This report is based on a variety of sources:

• Interviews with about 50 people in a wide variety of roles within the city

• A survey of the Finnish English-language media

• Three feedback seminars involving roughly 90 people in total

• An analysis of Helsinki’s own research and policy making

• A review of 30 examples from outside Finland

• Reflecting on COMEDIA’s previous work embodied in three major texts: The Creative City, The Art of City-Making and The Intercultural City.

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• Drawing on COMEDIA’s work with the Council of Europe and the European Commission which has adopted ‘the intercultural city’ notion as the inspiration for a transnational programme1.

• Previous experience over the last 15 years in working with the city of Helsinki. The report makes a series of recommendations covering three main areas:

• How the ‘openness’ agenda can be connected to the World Capital of Design 2012

• How ‘openness’ can be fostered more intensively in the workings of the city as a whole

• How the increasing cultural diversity of the city can become an asset This report has a certain style. Whilst it recommends it also asks questions, it seeks to open minds, to stimulate thinking and to encourage debate. We have approached this in four ways:

• To assess the city’s overall level of openness and resulting creative and innovative capacity

• To establish a link between the city’s diversity of talent, its creative milieu and its innovative capacity;

• To review the attractiveness and openness of Helsinki to foreigners and resident ethnic minorities;

• To establish the basis for an Intercultural City Strategy for Helsinki;

Our Conclusions

The main conclusions of our research are: • Four debates are currently occurring in parallel in Helsinki with little overlap, yet

they are inextricably connected and need to come together. ‘Helsinki: An open and cosmopolitan city’ seeks to do this.

o The first discusses the level of openness of institutions and actors in the city and their collaborative capacity. It asks whether strict sectoral or departmental working can deliver the innovation Helsinki aspires to.

o The second is concerned with talent and skills, linked to the competitiveness and innovation agenda. It asks how Helsinki can make itself more internationally attractive to the investment, ideas and people that will enable it to compete economically and technologically.

o The third debate is concerned with migration and cultural diversity. It asks how Helsinki can integrate record number of foreign migrants and takes place in an international climate of opinion which is becoming increasingly cautious and even negative.

1 Intercultural Cities, see www.coe.int/interculturalcities

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o The fourth involves the city’s spatial, physical and social settings and their influence on its liveability and attractiveness. It asks how Helsinki can become a creative milieu where the interaction and mixing of different people and ideas can become more frequent and rewarding.

• Helsinki is in some respects very open, but in other respects somewhat closed. It is relatively easy to connect with people and organizations and the distance between the citizen and authorities can be short. Helsinki’s innovative companies such as Nokia or the new raft of smaller companies emerging are adapting to the new organizational paradigms based on open innovation and co-creation. However, notable exceptions aside, the internal structures of many organizations, especially within the public sector, find it difficult to operate in a collaborative and interdisciplinary way. Departmental thinking still dominates. This will cause future problems, reduce the capacity to achieve joint insights and so reduce effectiveness.

• Helsinki has a admirable record in education recognized in a variety of international assessments and studies. It may, however, be important to assess the extent to which the educational system sufficiently encourages creative and independent thinking.

• Helsinki is moving closer to the experience of other major European cities in terms of its openness to migration and cultural diversity but there is a growing distance between it and much of the rest of Finland. As social and political attitudes harden towards diversity in Finland, and the economy becomes more difficult, it may be necessary for the city of Helsinki to pursue a different policy agenda which reflects its own reality. It may also be necessary for Helsinki’s political, business and community leaders to be more publicly visible, united and outspoken in support of the city’s determination to maintain its course of becoming an increasingly cosmopolitan city.

• Too many people in Helsinki who consider themselves to be open to diversity regard ‘tolerance’ between citizens of different ethnic background to be a satisfactory and ultimate goal. Such ‘benign indifference’ is simply not good enough. Cities that wish to realise the full advantage of openness and diversity need to pursue a dynamic policy agenda based upon active engagement and co-operation between people in education, neighbourhoods, public space and the economy, in which all groups.

• Greater interaction between different values, attitudes and lifestyles brings the risk of greater conflict as well as the prize of greater innovation. Helsinki institutions must rise above their natural inclination to avoid potential conflict. They must face up to the risk of conflict, but can also minimise this risk by taking seriously and acquiring the competences and strategies to negotiate difference that have now been widely adopted in other parts of Europe.

Our recommendations

Our main recommendations are: 1. Helsinki should develop an ‘Open Helsinki Platform’. This is an integrated and orchestrated set of actions to embed openness, the advantages of diversity, creative thinking, and imaginative problem solving and inventive opportunity generation into the genetic code of the city region. The wider aim is for Helsinki to be globally recognized as an open, cosmopolitan region that encourages creativity and innovation.

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2. The ‘Open Helsinki Platform’ should be set up as a tight, lean organization that is made of public, private and community interests. It should be given authority and a budget to ensure that is it does not only focus on strategy and policy but can also encourage and implement tangible actions. It should be time dated to ensure its performance is monitored and so that it does not ossify organizationally. Its aim should be to raise awareness of the potential benefits of openness, diversity and creativity for Helsinki as a whole. It should spell out the organizational implications of operating in this new way and how assessing the city through an intercultural lens will change the dynamics of the city. It will promote practical examples from across Europe and beyond.

3. Link the evolving achievements of Helsinki’ work related to openness, diversity and creativity to the World Capital of Design 2012 and design a programme related to these concerns. Promote and discuss the results of this research in a public way starting in 2010 and reaching a climax in 2012. This should include innovative and interactive consultative mechanisms to both raise awareness and to gather suggestions as to how things can improve.

4. To avoid being placed on the defensive by anti-diversity sentiments, the City must take the initiative. A long-term city-wide debate on the implications of openness and interculturality for Helsinki should be held (along the lines of those held in cities in Switzerland and Norway).

5. Establish an Observatory for looking afresh at the city through an

intercultural lens. This could be achieved by establishing a permanent research function within Tietokesus (in association with the Office of Immigration Affairs) dedicated to monitoring the changing face cultural diversity and interculturality within the city.

6. Helsinki should explore Amsterdam’s integrated policy on welcoming

outsiders ranging from its one stop Expat Centre to its marketing campaigns, publications and internet presence combines addressing the talent and diversity agenda simultaneously.

7. In assessing the good practices elsewhere consider how Helsinki might be able to build such a reputation that people want to be associated with the city even though they might not live there. Barcelona in its prime had an ambassadors programme, which in essence was part of their cultural diplomacy. This helped reinforce the resonance and presence of the city.

8. Make intercultural competence a regular part of professional development and training and of the school curriculum.

9. There should be a special initiative to create experimental intercultural

spaces and places in the inner city through experiments in urban design, architecture, planning regulation, management and security and event promotion.

10. Helsinki should undertake a detailed study commissioned to a mixed team of specialists who understand both culture, the software of the city and urban design to assess how the larger extended university area can, through is built fabric and activity base, become and feel like a ‘creative learning zone’. The very area where it ought to be exuding these qualities around the main university is problematic.

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11. Institute a biennial peer group assessment of Helsinki’s openness, diversity and creativity and combining an internal and external assessment starting in 2012.

12. Assess the most difficult and complex problems Helsinki is facing and by 2011 develop a targeted programme to assess how open thinking, a focus on diversity and creative new ideas, mechanisms, initiatives and innovations can help solve them. Often known as ‘wicked’ problems they include issues such as maintaining levels of social service provision and healthcare with increasing demands and shrinking budgets

13. Explore and assess within 2010 how the regulations and incentives regime in Helsinki can act as a stimulus to openness. Instigate a broad ranging initiative to assess the extent to which the various bureaucracies within Helsinki can become more open and creative both in their internal operations and ideas as well as in their collaborative relationships. Assess the institutional framework and consider whether a tipping point has been reached where it has become too complex.

14. Initiate a scheme in 2010, starting in the public sector, to incorporate

openness, diversity and creativity criteria in job applications and performance assessments

A further set of secondary recommendations is provided in the section ‘Towards an Intercultural Strategy’ for Helsinki in section 6.

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2. Impressions of Helsinki We began our project by interviewing a wide diversity of people and a number of important themes have emerged. They represent deep cultural and social factors - some pose profound challenges for Helsinki’s aspirations others provide tremendous strengths and opportunities. After our observations we raise questions which hopefully will stimulate ongoing discussion.

Roots

Finland was for many years isolated by geography, climate and language from the main centres of European population. Even within Finland, the dispersal of a largely rural population was a dominant factor until about 50 years ago. The urban experience is therefore relatively new. In some senses Finland has been catapulted into a new era and the shift from rural to urban thinking and behaving cannot be expected to happen quickly. Being contained, self-reliant and self-sufficient, yet also responsive to others in need, is a common trait of this heritage. These are positive qualities yet they carry with them a residual attitude which is guarded, protective, restrained, held in check and perhaps even suspicious of difference and change. Dealing with and communicating with the outsider in that context may not come naturally. Transpose these attributes to today’s organizational structures and work patterns, particularly in the public sector, and it is possible to understand why the tendency to work in self-contained departments is prevalent. This creates a challenge for the unfolding world where openness is seen as essential. The phrase Tämäa ei ole mistään kotoisin is known to every Finn. It means: ‘This isn’t from anywhere’. Finns say it is far from complimentary. It questions to some extent the intrinsic value of the person or thing to which it is directed. Finns, perhaps more than most nations, draw their identity less from an abstract concept such as a religious faith, the state or their job or profession and more from the place and those people from whence they came. This is deeply wedded to the soil, the forest and regional distinctiveness and remains strong in spite of the loss and uprooting which a torrid history of invasions or, more recently, urbanisation have wrought. This sense of national solidarity is born out of battling weather, and occasionally predatory neighbours as well as physical and linguistic isolation. It has created admirable cultural traits, not least in the concept of sisu or ‘persistence in adversity’ which lies at the root of many Finnish achievements on the world stage. On the other hand, it can imply an immutable exclusiveness, such as “once a Finn always a Finn and also once a foreigner always a foreigner”. It is not arrogant or chauvinistic (as arrogance strikes us as a profoundly un-Finnish attribute) and indeed carries with it a degree of humility. We have encountered a sense of: “I’m a Finn and you’re not and that’s the way nature intended it. It doesn’t make me superior or inferior to you but it does make us different, forever. Leave me in my Finnishness and I’ll leave you to be what you are. I’ll respect you for learning to speak Finnish but even then, you’re not from anywhere here”. The phrase suggests a scepticism of people who may be of mixed or indeterminate origin. Hybridity is seen somehow as not as authentic or even trustworthy as purity. But Finland is rapidly having to come to terms with the reality of intercultural union. Currently there are 55,000 couples of mixed racial origin and 14% of all new

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marriages in 2007 were mixed, the figure rising to a remarkable 26% in Helsinki itself. It is estimated there are already over 160,000 children from intercultural unions. Since Lola Wallinkoski a Nigerian-Finnish woman became Miss Finland in 1996, the country has been unable to ignore this phenomenon2. Adherence to an exclusive view of roots was profoundly strong in the generation who lived through the War and the one after. Is it as strong now amongst the more cosmopolitan younger generation of the capital city? If it is what does that mean for those people who may be of second or third generation migrant origin who consider themselves to be Finns?

Tolerance

Finnish tolerance is almost as famous as Nokia. It draws from the ‘live and let live’ mentality and that no one has the right to pass a value judgement on another. It means that Finns will not draw undue attention to any aspect of a person that may be different from the norm be it the colour of their skin, their dress sense, behaviour or a disability. This is positive. Finns will give anyone or anything a hearing without prejudice. It explains perhaps why Finns are often early adopters of new technology and are successful international traders. It also probably makes Finland one of the most egalitarian societies on earth (more of which later). There may be a less helpful side to this tolerance. The British and Dutch are also renowned for tolerance but this has done nothing to prevent, and in all probability has contributed to, the fact that forms of ethnic and cultural segregation have emerged there. ‘Live and let live’ prevails to the extent that some communities are said to live completely ‘parallel lives’ knowing virtually nothing of each other - never meeting in school, at prayer, in work, at the shops or in the street – and feeling no empathy. One thing the British are rather more tolerant of than the Finns is inequality of income. This explains why rich white and poor black enclaves proliferate there and not in Helsinki. However, we have been to northern Kontula. Some people told us that Finnish tolerance would now be better renamed ‘political correctness’. They say Finland is failing to come to terms with its cultural diversity because no-one is prepared to raise the topic of difference in the ways people behave and think. For example, in planning and building new parts of the city there is no acknowledgement that people of a different backgrounds might have different requirements in housing, religious or recreational facilities. Again, the message is not as in some other countries ‘You must assimilate totally and do as the majority do’. Rather the message is ‘in order to protect our equality we all have to make some compromises and accept a one-size-fits-all approach’. It is argued that both city officials and ethnic community leaders have accepted this status quo and no-one is prepared to ‘rock the boat’ for fear of what might be released. It has led to something a long way from tolerance; a resigned acceptance that nothing will ever change, and a cynical loss of faith in the ability or will of leaders and officials to do anything creative or courageous. Compromise, we noted, is at the heart of a democratic intercultural city but so is active engagement and working through potential conflict to find new innovative solutions. Contrast this to the stasis of a status quo position. Could this mean that tolerance could become a problem, creating a barrier to more active engagement across cultures whilst actually obscuring the emergence of seething underground resentment? What are the limits of consensus, in what circumstances should it be sidestepped and in which should it be insisted upon? 2 Figures from the Duo Project www.familiaclub.fi

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Equality

Egalitarianism, it is said, is the sine qua non of Finnish society. It is an attractive principle, particularly to a Briton who has seen inequality grow and social mobility decline in the UK in the last two decades. It derives from a profound sense of respect that Finns hold for neighbours and a sense that sacrifice (through taxation) for the good of the collective is economically rational and morally uplifting. It has not prevented Finland producing top products and selling them hard or creating world-beating individualistic athletes. It has inspired the Finnish approach to integrating migrants – ‘these people are amongst us and they must share in the fruits of our society’. It has produced a system of population distribution which seeks to prevent concentrations which differ from the norm in terms of race, religion or income level and which expects individuals to sublimate their personal choices to communal good. This has prevented the worst excesses of ‘white flight’ seen in some other countries. The guarantor of equality is the state. This often comes as a refreshing surprise to migrants who may originate in a land where the state apparatus may be indifferent or even criminal. What is hard for migrants to understand is the lack of space in which small scale private enterprise or voluntary associations might flourish. They miss the variety and diversity that such ‘unplanned’ interventions create and they find the uniformity of state provision inflexible and uniform. The bountiful welfare system is doubtless a Godsend for people arriving in a condition of distress. Yet the majority are often perplexed by a state which decides upon and distributes so many things that elsewhere would be the responsibility of the individual, the family or the group. This was summed up in one clear and powerful question from one of our respondents “What is Helsinki, a city or a pharmacy?” Even in countries with a less extensive welfare system than Finland, there are cases where too much state benevolence has actually stifled the self-motivation and undermined the self-confidence of migrant groups. Over time it has started to create resentment from indigenous working class communities. Another possible disadvantage, we noted, of a too rigid adherence to equality, lies in a different quarter. Helsinki knows it must now compete on the world stage with other cities to attract international experts, academics and students if it is to achieve its ambition of being an international knowledge hub. Other cities, such as Amsterdam or Singapore, have set up special plans and systems to ensure foreigners are able to settle in their new home as easily as possible. To give such ‘special privileges’ to a specific group in Helsinki would be seen as breaking the tradition of equality of all and so is discouraged. Is there a point at which the country’s proud tradition of equality ceases to be a social benefit and starts to become an obstacle to Finland becoming a truly international and open society?

Order and disorder

Finland has been described to us as the last bastion of true city planning. Compared to many other parts of the world where the market, anarchic individuality or self-interested bureaucracies define the way in which cities develop, Helsinki is a rational, understandable and democratically-accountable place. The commitment to equality and collective good requires such a system and it works remarkably well in many ways. The story of cities, however, is one of constant struggle between order and disorder, or planned and organic growth. It is also the story of oscillation between centralisation and devolution of activity and power. In our experience problems begin

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if one is allowed to be too dominant. We are concerned that presently Helsinki too strongly towards been over-centralised and over-planned. Whilst Helsinki is fast becoming a city of many cultures, in its style and the aesthetics of public planning, design and architecture it is almost oppressively uniform, wedded to a modernist functionalism – a style that is associated with its nation building period. Our question to Helsinki is (using a motoring metaphor): ‘Do you have the courage to loosen this vice-like grip on the steering wheel and allow some freedom for the vehicle to leave the main highway and follow some unusual byways? Is it possible for parts of the city to be allowed to develop in ways that are more organic, less sanitized and less predictable? Is the centralizing urge something that can be softened? Is it possible to plan more flexibly? Take, for example, the Hämeentie between Hakaniemi and Sörnäinen. This is an area of mixed residential, commercial, leisure and industrial usage which is undergoing demographic and economic change. African, Chinese and Russian store-frontages jostle with older Finnish establishments such as the market and the Kotiharjun Sauna. Here you might encounter people or experiences not available elsewhere in the city. It has an ambiguous reputation and some parts, such as Kurvi, have acquired a notoriety concerned with crime and illicit drug use. It is the kind of marginal, edgy, bohemian area that one would expect to find in any large city. We have looked at Hämeentie and compared it with similar locations which now occur in most other larger European cities. Take, for example, Schiedamsweg in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. Both are wide streets that carry road traffic, a two-way tramway, and an underground metro. They both offer an eclectic mixture of commercial and residential usage, and a ethnically diverse population. They are both close to the water and include some areas of important heritage value. Why, if they seem so similar, does Schiedamsweg look and feel more inviting and engaging than Hämeentie? The obvious thing is that the Finnish street is an inhospitable canyon utterly dominated by the car and tram. In Rotterdam, by contrast, pedestrians feel able to move along and across it with ease. At a more detailed level it is clear that Dutch planners have allowed much greater scope for ethnic shopkeepers to express themselves in their storefronts than have their Finnish counterparts. On the other hand, looking at Hämeentie we start to understand why there are so many successful Finnish Formula One and rally drivers! In Schiedamsweg all of Rotterdam’s residents, of all backgrounds, and its visitors can meet each other. Helsinki needs more places like this – but does it know how to achieve them?

Drawing power and liveability

Cities need brainpower and talent to remain competitive. Yet talent is fickle and mobile, so cities can no longer simply rely on the old certainties to stay successful. Leading edge companies in growth sectors offering high salaries remain important, but international knowledge workers, academics and students are considering other factors of equal importance in deciding where to relocate themselves and their families whether it is Singapore, Boston or Helsinki. A trouble-free process of arrival and settlement is vital, as is a high quality of life. Here we received mixed messages about Helsinki. The city scores impressively on several international comparison indices. For example, Finland has been ranked as the best business environment in the world for the last five years by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The same organisation has also calculated that Helsinki ranks seventh out of 140 cities for its liveability and commends particularly its strong investment in infrastructure, and high public

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spending on education, transport and recreation. Confounding the assumption that high welfare environments are not good for enterprise, the ECER-Banque Populaire survey of 37 European cities pronounces Helsinki to be the most attractive place to start a new business, particularly because of the presence of agencies dedicated to the support of entrepreneurship and the public support for research3. All this despite the fact that the cost of living and the price of accommodation continues to race ahead of most other cities and that, according a study of the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the teaching of Finnish language to foreigners is inflexible and inadequate and that, according to Akava, graduate unemployment is approaching an all-time high. Our interviews have suggested a concern that some institutions in Finland are too complacent about attracting and keeping talent, either because they assume continuing success, or they have never accepted the importance of attractivity in the first place. It is clear that the government is alarmed because the Foreign Minister has appointed Jorma Ollila to lead a high-level delegation to develop a national brand for Finland by the end of 2010. In other quarters however, we detect a suspicion or indifference to such matters. We are told that the University of Helsinki has no firm idea of how many foreign academics and students it has and that there is no comprehensive strategy for attracting them because different faculties cannot agree. The Student’s Union (which is probably the wealthiest and most politically well-connected organisation of its kind in Europe) is opposed to any special action to attract foreigners to the university as this would breach its belief in equality of treatment for all. Furthermore co-operation between the University and other key agencies concerned with Helsinki’s image and attractiveness is still at a rudimentary stage. The forum of Rectors of the leading university has now begun to meet with the 4 mayors of metropolitan Helsinki and co-operation on attraction and management of foreigners is said to be a priority, but there are no staff dedicated to this. So we must ask the city whether it is satisfied with extent to which various of its institutions are committed to and collaborating with the attractiveness agenda.

Openness to competition

The flip-side of making a city more attractive to outside talent is the challenge it presents to the local, be that Finns seeking places on graduate courses, academics seeking promotions, professional services seeking contracts, workers chasing jobs, artists looking for gallery space or simply the need to book a reservation at a good restaurant. The presence of more people creates extra competition for those who were already there. It has been put to us quite strongly that certain sectors such as architecture do not welcome such competition and may actively shun it. Far from foreigners bringing in new ideas and enlarging the ‘gene pool’ of creativity, they can be seen as a threat to stylistic monopolies, ideological orthodoxies and business cartels that may have existed for decades. The introduction of a new climate of critique and debate, which elsewhere is a breeding ground for innovation can, in Helsinki, be regarded in a very different way. Some Finns, we were told, take constructive criticism as personal insult and this can lead to a stultifying atmosphere of politically-correct mutual back-slapping. 3 from Helsinki Times

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Of course, we should not overlook the presence of a more serious and potentially menacing form of closure to outsider. This is the threat of discrimination and racially motivated violence which, whilst much less prevalent than in most other European countries is, nevertheless, a live issue to which all must be vigilant. Combined with the difficulty of making social contacts in Finland (see below) this can make it almost impossible for outsiders to penetrate professional networks. They have the choice of whether to keep struggling or to establish themselves outside the mainstream and in new markets. Is this experience unique or is it typical of other sectors of Helsinki society? Is the city overlooking and squandering new talent in order to protect cosy cliques?

Sociability and friendship

To say Finns are not the most gregarious people is an easy cliché, which we are trying to avoid. It is not backed up by our own experience. In this project the great majority of Finns we met have been as open and talkative as any other European. At the same time it was been persistently reported to us by people of migrant origin – and especially those with experience of many other cultures – that it is harder to make friends and acquaintances outside the workplace in Helsinki than in most other countries. Western society, it is said, has taken a ‘cultural turn’ where individuals, companies, cities and even nations must be aware of their ‘softer’ sensual and emotional sides as well as of how they interact with outsiders and its symbolism. In cultures where individualism is more prevalent this has led in extremis to the cult of celebrity and consumption. Yet it has many positives too. As mobility brings people of radically different backgrounds into contact with each other we need an enhanced sensitivity in the way we present ourselves to others and how we interpret their attempts to communicate with us. Finns it is said have a rather direct and utilitarian approach to communication – say enough to get the message across, but any more is unnecessary or even frivolous. Finns have a softer side of course but figure there is a time and a place for this. Unfortunately, Finnish conversational economy and seeming lack of emotional engagement can, to the outsider, be interpreted as carelessness or even callousness. In most cases it is not. What can be done? Change will happen slowly and in small steps but we have been impressed by the attempts of some agencies to address difficult issues of emotional intelligence and cultural competence. Not least the Helsinki Police Department who have introduced training for all its officers. A generation ago a third of the adult population of Finland were living in single person households. This was the highest amongst OECD countries. In recent years it has begun to fall. Many countries have overtaken Finland. In 2004 for example 29% of Finns lived alone for the Netherlands it was 454. This collapses a prevalent myth that Finns are the most solitary and, by extension, the loneliest people in Europe. Yet a number of persistent points emerged from our interviews with migrants. They say no matter how long and how well you know a Finn at work, you are rarely invited to their home, still less could you be considered by them a true friend. We have heard an intriguing explanation for this. It is not that Finns are deliberately being unfriendly, but rather that most Finns make their ‘stock’ of lifelong friends early in life and so, by the time they leave school, many have virtually stopped looking for any more.

4 Source: European System of Social Indicators (EUSI), Social Indicators Department, ZUMA, Mannheim

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One enterprising foreigner has sought to overcome these traditional limitations on sociability in Helsinki. The Jolly Dragon network is based on the simple idea of connecting people with time on their hands with each other around activities and incentivising it with discounts and loyalty bonuses. Through clever software programming and enthusiastic promotion it now involves thousands of Finns and migrants from 30 nations in over 40 activities a week. It is now being expanded into the realm of business networking. So our final question would be: will it always be necessary to devise increasingly ingenious ways of artificially stimulating conviviality and sociability in Helsinki, or can these things eventually evolve naturally?

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3. The open, creative and innovative city

Helsinki has achieved an immense amount and astonishing results over the last two decades in terms of technological innovation and is recognized as a global leader in this domain. Yet this productive phase of innovation and success is under challenge from larger global forces including the shift of many advanced manufacturing processes to China and elsewhere. This has led to searching questions as to where the next phase of innovation will come from and what the skills, behavioural attitudes and cultural requirements will need to be. The overall aim for Helsinki in this context it is now recognized must be for the city to generate more openness from which creativity and then innovations can occur. It is recognized that success depends on the capacity of places to identify, nurture, harness, support, promote and orchestrate and mobilize their creative resources and talents from whatever source. For instance, one source of potential creativity are the new populations coming from abroad and another source lies in the skills of public sector workers whose potential can be thwarted by operating in rigid perhaps too hierarchical structures.

Waves of change and their consequences

There is a curve that shows the movement over time from the agrarian to the creativity driven economy. We were an agrarian society for millennia, an industrial one for 200 years, a society whose wealth creation was primarily driven by information for 30 years, we now talk of the knowledge and innovation driven economy and increasingly a creative economy. Ever more speedily we have moved through phases where the dominance of a particular driving asset has changed. Each metaphor such as the ‘the innovation economy’ or ‘the creativity driven economy’ provides a helpful lens from which to understand and gauge the shift in the primary means of wealth creation, the basis of competition, the social and cultural priorities and the measurement of success or failure. Now we have reached a stage where creativity and the capacity to imagine is seen as key. The world it is also said is increasingly made up of more ‘imaginative intensive industries’, which include in Helsinki companies from Tero Saarinen to even Kone which has reinvented the experience of going up in a lift. Every shift in the means of economic wealth creation creates a new social order, new ways of learning and things to learn and new settings in which learning takes places and the demand for new kinds of facilities. It requires different cultural capabilities. The capabilities to set up A Ford Motor Company or a Wal Mart are different from those to create an Apple or a Google or a Kaos Pilots educational centre in Denmark or a Forum Virium in Helsinki. The ‘innovation or knowledge economy’, for instance, is largely associated with technological innovation and the skills, attitudes and qualities of technologists, software engineers and other engineering skills or scientifically oriented people. Without wishing to generalize too much or fall into clichés the personality characteristics of these groups is more logical, linear, rational, analytical and systematic and they of course have elements of creativity as well, but less adapt at social issues. A survey of 103 engineers in the European Journal of Engineering

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Education5 notes that engineers need to pay greater attention to interpersonal skills, communicative abilities and cultural literacy. There was a level of predictability about the foreseeable results of the former phases. Predicting exactly the ‘emerging advantage’ from creativity will be less easy. Or put another way we are moving from ‘managing the known’, to a design and innovation approach, that is ‘building the unknown’. Yet what is possible is to build capability and encourage the mindset for communities to have the foresight to identify the ‘advantage’ when it starts to emerge, and so to have the creative capacity to respond accordingly. This requires a governance ethos, management and learning system aware of these needs and willing to adapt to these new demands. For example, the manner in which Helsinki managed the complex demands of the Eurovision 2007 event in an inclusive way shows how breaking down organizational barriers within the city structure and flexible approaches to multifaceted problems can be very effective.

Openness and design thinking

The contours of the new wave are becoming much clearer are already as the nature and processes of technological innovation themselves are changing and the watchword ‘open innovation system’ encapsulates this movement. ‘Collaborative service design’ or ‘co-production and co-creation’ are other central themes rising in importance. These underlying trends in the development of knowledge intensive economies are evolving at a dramatic pace with user driven product development and co-creation having a particular focus. The development of new IT platforms and web 3.0 with its immersive, interactive, ubiquitous and experiential focus will exacerbate this shift to co-creation. It changes how products and services are conceived and designed and how value added is created. It has implications for both the public and private sectors. For instance, the recent proposal by the city of Helsinki to get local people to come up with new ideas for public urban spaces fits this thinking perfectly. These trends will have powerful impacts on the desirable qualities in individuals and on the culture of organizations and how they need to work. The various private and community sectors and public administrations in Helsinki need to ask themselves whether they are sufficiently present. The type of mental dispositions and skills required to be successful and rising to the fore more strongly include openness, creativity, communication ability, collaborative interdisciplinary working, cultural literacy and lateral and holistic thinking. In organizational terms it means far more integrated working, the capacity to value the combined insights of different disciplines and the need to operate as task oriented teams as distinct from operating in silos. This is not to decry the strengths of the specialist or subject expert, however to make the most of possibilities or to solve complex problems mostly requires the ability to work across boundaries and knowledge domains, especially since the structures and departments we usually operate with have come from a period where different priorities and a different global dynamic operated. In this context the World Capital of Design 2012 becomes highly significant as ‘design thinking’ is seen as instrumental in coping with these shifts. To understand the crucial importance of this to Helsinki’s aim in becoming an open, cosmopolitan and intercultural city we need to be theoretical for a brief moment. Design thinking involves an ability to combine rationality, creativity with empathy in meeting needs. As a process it ‘builds up’ ideas and judgments are withheld for as long as possible and thus more ideas and possibilities are generated and fear of failure is reduced. In

5 H. T. Van Der Molen

a; H. G. Schmidt

a;G. Kruisman

b European Journal of Engineering

Education Volume 32, Issue 5 October 2007 , pages 495 - 501

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principle this can increase lateral thinking and creativity. In contrast analytical thinking, which predominated in the former phase of innovation and perhaps is Helsinki’s means of operating, is more linear and tends to break issues up into component parts in order to understand its essential nature and inner connections and relationships. It is the world of ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’, ‘why’, ‘how’. Without wishing to denigrate these qualities on their own they will not bring about the solutions to evolving problems or emerging opportunities. Key proponents of this new thinking include Roger Martin, the dean of the Rotman School of Management, Bruce Mau the designer, Daniel Pink, the author and the Californian company IDEO. Martin, notes for instance: the value of:

the designer's approach to solving problems is the integrative way of thinking

and problem-solving that can be applied to all components of an

organization... businesspeople will have to become more 'masters of heuristics'

than 'managers of algorithms.’

By this he means that public or private managers will have to become flexible problem-solvers rather than sophisticated number-crunchers to be successful. Or put another way the ‘administration’ of an organization is not enough. Organizations have to be designed, since design is not only associated with the design of objects and appearances. Design is increasingly understood in a much wider sense as the capacity to plan and produce desired outcomes. So a cosmopolitan city is something that Helsinki can design. Or as Pink notes:

The logical and precise gave us the information age .......the conceptual age is

ruled by artistry , empathy and emotion.

Or in IDEO’s words we need to:

Combine vertical thinking, the analytical, with horizontal thinking, which is the

intuitive, empathetic and experiential’.

In other words we need to combine left brain and right brain thinking. Central to all these arguments is the notion of ‘abductive reasoning’. We are all aware of deductive and inductive reasoning. A process is deductive when its conclusion is a logical consequence of premises and inductive reasoning is reasoning that builds up from facts to general principles. Abduction first introduced by Charles Sanders Peirce, by contrast is a method of thinking which comes prior to induction and deduction. Colloquially it is known as having a ‘hunch’ or ‘intuition’. Adductive thinking suggests that there is something that might be worth exploring. Here we start by considering a set of seemingly unrelated facts and we have an intuition that they are somehow connected. By exploring this we ultimately build up hypothesis and move on to the way we conventionally think. Another reflection of this shift are new ideas about organization and management and again design thinking plays a part. As Andrew Jones in ‘The Innovation Acid Test’ notes:

‘For generations, management thinking and management education have

rested on the intellectual framework and assumptions of three core disciplines:

Mathematics (plus engineering), economics and psychology. Money and

markets have been explained respectively by mathematics and economics,

while human behaviour in business has been explained by psychology. These

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disciplines have served business well and have helped create the foundation of

contemporary management practice.......a new management paradigm is

emerging, one wherein the disciplinary assumptions shift from those purely

analytical and calculative disciplines to the action-oriented, experienced-based

disciplines of Design, Architecture and Anthropology’.

It is the more innovative, human-centred activities that tend to focus on a collaborative and iterative style of work that use these latter forms of knowledge. These trends have dramatic organizational consequences. It implies the need to break down silos, to work in an interdisciplinary way and to be able to think culturally. Some commentators call this the Fast Company Generation and in fact the underlying shift to design thinking is largely generational with the 30 and 40 year olds demanding work styles and arrangements more in line with design thinking. This will create a crisis for those more used to and comfortable with hierarchical structures. Roger Martin summarizes this well:

FEATURE FROM TRADITIONAL FIRM

TO DESIGN FIRM

Flow of work life

Ongoing tasks

Permanent assignment

Projects

Defined terms

Source of status

Managing big budgets &

large staffs

Solving ‘wicked problems’

Style of work

Defined roles

Wait until its right

Collaborative Iterative

Mode of thinking

Deductive Inductive

Deductive Inductive Abductive

Dominant attitude

We can only do what we have a budget to do

Constraints are the enemy

Nothing cannot be done Constraints increase the challenge & excitement

Wicked problems

To turn to the practical the need for creativity should be seen in the light of new complex problems, such as intercultural understanding and dealing with diversity or greening and sustainability or tackling obesity, which if treated seriously, will need to reshape how we think, behave and organize. Some refer to this as the rise of wicked problems. Many public policy problems, such as understanding diversity cut across economic, cultural and social issues and are severely complex. Called wicked problems they are seemingly intractable, made up of inter-related dilemmas, issues and interweave political, economic and social questions. Wicked problems cannot be tackled by traditional approaches where problems are simply defined, analysed and solved in sequential steps. They have characteristics that make traditional hierarchical, top-down thinking less adept at solving them. There is no definite or unique “correct” view of formulating the problem; and different stakeholders see the problem and solutions differently, often with deeply held ideological views. Data is

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frequently uncertain, difficult to acquire or missing. They are connected to other problems and every solution reveals new aspects of the problem that needs adjusting. The greatest impact of design thinking and creativity comes when it finds a way of solving wicked problems.

The organizational setting for openness and

cosmopolitanism

Openness is encouraged by physical and organizational environments, settings and a management ethos. Many organizations, institutions or cultures inadvertently kill their creativity by crushing their employees’ intrinsic motivation - the strong internal desire to do something based on passions and interests. Environments, firms or places, that encourage individuals or organizations to become open and therefore to foster creativity have a number of features, including: giving people the freedom and authority to act by delegating authority; presenting the right scope of challenge that is achievable but stretches people enough; providing sufficient time, human and financial resources to allow for trial and error as well as to make mistakes; creating a supportive team context where people are committed to the project, to each other and where ideas and different opinions can be shared to develop the potential of an idea, process or product; managerial and organisational support by creating an environment that publicly values and rewards openness, diversity of opinion and diversity of cultures. Clearly this impacts on how the public sector, companies, schools or universities operate. Openness, creative capacity and innovation are related. They connect but they are not the same. The openness, creativity and innovation agendas are aligning especially in considering how they are to be measured. Innovation thinking has moved from simply focusing on inputs to a systemic approach as it is clear that, for instance, levels of R&D on their own do not by definition involve creativity or lead to innovations. Wider conditions, namely the creative climate, it is recognized, determine the capacity of a place to be innovative within which specific attributes are necessary components such as good education and skills or research expenditure. Current discussions on innovation indices now include ideas such as ‘total innovation’ or ‘hidden innovation’. This draws attention to how innovation needs to pervade a whole environment.

To capture the dynamics of innovation, analysts talk of a fourth generation of indicators, which stress the interactions and relationships of actors in the innovation system from firms to universities or public agencies, to the culture, whilst bearing in mind the relative usefulness of formerly popular measures. The development of indicators usually lags behind how we understand the dynamics of reality. This is why the importance of a culture of openness and the creativity agenda were not seen. The discussion of openness is not about a free for all. As a city strives to become more innovative and successful, it oscillates between two processes that must be carefully aligned. Firstly, the birth of new ideas requires a climate of relative openness, non-conformity and the free interaction of countervailing opinions. Secondly it needs a reality checker that will subject ideas to rigorous and heterogeneous examination before they can become practical. Both these processes work best when you have a wide variety of minds and aptitudes applied to them. Otherwise you run the risk of groupthink, self-delusion and ultimately stagnation.

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4. Talent attraction and retention The ability to develop, retain and attract the right people is the key competitive advantage for cities and regions in the 21st century. Practically every city that is strategically aware is thinking about the talent agenda. The key indicator for urban success is their talent churn, the ratio of skilled people being retained or brought in versus those leaving. The skills and talent assessment should assess the range of high level as well as vocational skills. Few cities measure their churn nor assess the city perceptions within these talent groupings and what their needs and desires are. Yet if they are so significant responding to their views is key to the success of a city. Most cities deal with these concerns by projecting themselves in conventional marketing terms. For instance, they seek to brand themselves as ‘hot spots for technology’ or ‘vibrant places for the arts’ hoping thereby to lure inward investors and talented people. ‘Berlin Partners’ is a case in point, which acts as a one-stop shop for inward investors. Like in many other cities there is also a Creative Berlin site which is focused only on the creative industries. However, very few have brought together the different elements related to talent and established an integrated collective ‘thinking brain’ and strategy that acts for the city. This would include those public/private partners concerned with economic development, knowledge development, culture, education, migration and relocation issues, creativity and promotion. The exceptions include a set of cities that are punching above their weight like Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bilbao, Melbourne, Singapore and even Dubai. All have practical, long term think tank organizations focusing on the long term horizon constantly monitoring the best initiatives in the world and trying to go beyond them. Helsinki is part of this group and Tietokeskus is a noteworthy organization. There are others, such as Manchester who have initiatives like the ‘Manchester Knowledge Capital’ or its ‘ideopolis’ project, which are focusing on talent without a dedicated organization. In addition CEO for Cities based in Chicago has a ‘talent dividend’ programme which is touring the States seeking to persuade cities to invest in talent. In our opinion within this group, the ‘I Amsterdam’ programme6 and associated activities that lie behind it and its publications, such as ‘Proud’ or its ‘I Ambassadors’ initiative is the most coherent and well developed from which Helsinki can learn most. ‘I Amsterdam’ is a co-production of the City of Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Partners

Foundation, Amsterdam Tourism and Convention Board (ATCB), Amsterdams Uitburo (AUB), amsterdam inbusiness, and the Expatcenter. There is a sophisticated website with segments such as: ‘From Anywhere to Amsterdam – I am Creative’ – profiles of foreigners who have come to Amsterdam to live, work and fulfil their dreams’. Bringing these partners together is usually difficult in larger cities since they are usually competing with each other. Clearly the portal is only the marketing aspect of a much larger set of programmes including Amsterdam Top City, whose aim is to use and attract talent, to stimulate and facilitate companies to start and grow; to generate an atmosphere of hospitality, freedom and service and to enhance Amsterdam’s international reputation. There are three types of activity: removing obstacles, such as giving optimal assistance to expats. Second, setting up activities that will make a difference, such as the idea of Harvard on the Amstel or assisting people in developing creative crossovers or the Talent Factory and thirdly marketing Amsterdam’s qualities. There is also a Creative Amsterdam project again focused on the creative economy, but with some features that are exceptional such as its connected Bureau

6 www.iamsterdam.com

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Broedplaatsen (a “broedplaats” is a hatchery or breeding ground). This helps young hopefuls can find affordable working spaces and studios. Singapore7 and Bilbao8 each have dedicated programmes to attract and effectively buy specific talents companies or the city as a whole identifies as important. Yet where Amsterdam does better is to communicate its intent and ambition in a clear way.

The city or the job

In a survey in 2006 the US mayors’ organization CEOs for Cities discovered that now 64% of more educated people choose the city before the job9. 15 years ago a similar survey found that 80% of people chose the company or the job before the place. This finding has dramatic implications. This means that Helsinki needs to ask itself what do its ambitious or talented people with choices want from a place and these could be Finns or outsiders. A variety of surveys suggest they want places that are distinctive, attractive, stimulating, have great quality and are well designed. This encourages serendipity so chance meetings, face-to-face contact occur easily and so you can ‘bump into the fun’. In their own words our interviewees in Helsinki reinforced these points. A place becomes ‘sticky’ when these new forces of overall competitiveness are taken into account, linking quality of life, well-being and economic possibilities. This increases their ‘drawing power’. The consequence of Helsinki achieving this will show itself in generating economic, political and cultural power – the ability to shape things. A particular target group is the 25-34 year old graduates (the ‘young and restless’) as they energy and ambition, and are flexible and adventurous. They are likely to help cities or regions be successful. They are late nesters. They are in high demand and short supply. Focusing on this group represents an investment in future prosperity. Interestingly there is an ethical dimension to the talent agenda as a significant proportion among the highly educated under 40’s have a profound yearning to be creative and innovative for the world. They want to give back. The notion of values driven development whereby personal interest can be combined with the public good is seen as an important location factor. This means environmental and social justice issues rise to the fore. This is one reason why companies are increasingly driving the climate change agenda in order to ensure their reputation is high in order to attract the best. Within this segment of people and beyond it an important grouping every city needs to develop is creative professionals. They are those who have wide discretion in their job to use accumulated knowledge to develop, design, and deliver new products and services. These people are likely to be leading the transition to the new economy. Creative professionals look for places thick with people like them. To enable many people in an organization to have wide discretion over their job implies a flatter, less hierarchical organizational structure that works across boundaries and often in task specific, flexible teams that bring a diversity of talents together. If Helsinki wants more of creative people the openness discussed in section one of this report is essential.

7 www.pmo.gov.sg and search under talent strategy 8 www.bizkaiaxede.org and www.bm30.es which is Bilbao Metropoli 30 9 www.ceosforcities.org/news/entry/271

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The particular challenge is for the public sector to attract talented people. Whilst in Helsinki and Finland the standing, credibility and self-confidence of the public sector remains high relative wages between the public and private sector are under pressure. This is because of the ‘cost disease’. Many activities especially within advanced manufacturing can increase productivity dramatically through IT improvements or inventiveness and therefore justify salary increases. Making more with less is effectiveness in these contexts. In services and personalized services which is largely the domain of the public sector productivity increases by contrast are more difficult to achieve. If a teacher increases their productivity by having classes of 20 rather than 10 we deem this to be a loss of service. The same applies to a nurse or a social worker dealing with more patients or clients. Yet, their relative skill and wage expectations are the same as those working in advanced manufacturing. This upward cost pressure is the cost disease. For the public sector there are few choices. They will inevitably have higher salary demands and probably lower investment. This means they have to be open to new ways of operating and have to be imaginative in re-inventing services in order to make its resources work harder. For a region to function well it needs a wider diversity of skills and so far the talent agenda in Europe and beyond has been discussed in narrow terms usually focusing on areas like business to business services, investment bankers, entrepreneurs or academics as important as these are. Yet a city or region needs a vastly wider range of skills to be successful including: Good administrators in public service who both execute well and can be strategic; these should cut across all areas of relevance to life from traffic and transport to planning or environmental services. In this regard we heard criticisms that the public administration in Helsinki remains somewhat inflexible with a jobs for life mentality that is constraining new people and new ideas. Bringing these elements together cities now compete by harnessing their asset base – their people, the place and the reputation - and project and orchestrate this ‘iconically’. Very few cities understand this. The aim is to pull attention to the city, to create a richness of association and recognition and to grab profile. This is what ‘I Amsterdam’ has done so well. Icons are projects or initiatives that are powerfully self-explanatory, jolt the imagination, surprise, challenge and raise expectations. You grasp it in one. They may be large or small. Most memorable are the physical ones. Yet an icon can be tangible or intangible: A building, an activity, a tradition, having a headquarters of a key organization in the city, the association of a person with a city, a plan or an event can be iconic. A city itself can even be iconic when it has an associational richness that builds upon itself into a powerful composite picture.

The Helsinki response

In thinking through talent needs Helsinki knows it cannot rest on its laurels as a global high tech centre if it is to remain at the forefront of innovation and creativity. It knows it needs to feed off the best thinking it can gain access to in order to create new products and services. This may be developed within Finland or come from abroad, yet given Finland’s population base it must get skills from outside to maintain its position. The long term development programmes, such as the Centres of Excellence initiative or SITRA’s Wellsprings of Finnish Vitality programme and Forum Virium activities are all attempts to broaden the base of Finnish creativity and provide new applications in the real world. In addition the merged Aalto University is another example of preparing Helsinki to maximize its intellectual resources. Other ambitious cities face exactly the same dilemmas and thus there is increased competition between cities to keep and attract the brightest. Some even refer to the ‘war for talent’ first coined in a McKinsey report a decade ago. As a consequence the world of cities has changed dramatically and with ever increasing speed over the last

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15 years. Cities of every size in every location face periods of deep transition largely brought about by this vigour of renewed globalization, the mobility of skilled people resulting in changes in the world’s urban hierarchy, the rise of global production networks and their associated supply chains which spread like tentacles throughout the world. Crucially, there is not one winner in this overall urban and regional competition. There are significant roles and niches that 2nd,3rd, 4th and 5th level cities can play. Every ambitious city like Helsinki wants to capture centrality for themselves and by controlling low cost activities from a distance and attracting high value ones such as research centres and headquarters to itself. What are the niches where Helsinki can play a global role that have not as yet been occupied by others? Where would the skills need to come from? Europe, Africa, Asia, America? What are Helsinki’s comparative advantages? The ‘open innovation’ paradigm is changing the internal operations of many companies and making them more permeable to the outside world. Operating in this way does not require people to physically be based in Helsinki, they can relate to the city virtually. Yet at some points being in Helsinki is key, whether short or long term. What is the experience of open innovation for Helsinki so far - not only in the private sector, but also in the public domain such as Forum Virium’s Apps for Democracy initiative? This raises important questions, such as whether Helsinki feels like a place where you can connect both virtually and physically. Some of our interviews, especially with the expatriate community, felt this was difficult. ‘Territory’ and presence can now also be captured in the imagination, which is why the way Helsinki is perceived in the outside world is crucial. ‘Local buzz and global pipelines’ encapsulates the sense of how leading cities describe their distinctiveness and diversity. What are the current perceptions of Helsinki both internally and abroad? What are the weaknesses and strengths? Helsinki’s attractiveness is key for existing talents to stay and new talent to arrive. Ideally the city should feel like a seamless experience that enriches and triggers multiple registers. Chance encounter, continuous learning, exploration and serendipity would be part of the norm. Yet one part of Helsinki’s physical picture is blighted. In terms of place Helsinki has many delights and highpoints but whether it yet feels like a ‘learning zone’ or knowledge environment is questionable. Ironically the very area where it ought to be exuding these qualities: around the main university is problematic. Whilst Senate Square has its historical charm some surrounding areas are quite hostile as many colleagues in Helsinki already know. The university buildings around Fabianinkatu and Yliopistonkatu feel closed, they lack permeability, many streets are quite stark and there is no planting to soften the hard faced buildings. There is little sense of seamless connectivity. Kaisaniemenkatu moving back into Kaivokatu is not the best Helsinki has to offer and the link from Caisa back into the centre towards Kiasma becomes an obstacle near the station fragmenting the city core into two. This is an urban design challenge if this part of Helsinki is to be seen as a cosmopolitan learning campus and creative milieu. The dynamic we have described requires companies and cities to develop capacities internally and to scour the world for skills and talent to ensure they remain a global node. Keeping your best and attracting good people is increasingly difficult. There is a broadening choice of destinations to which people can go, thus a city like Helsinki needs to offer an enticing set of conditions and must effectively communicate its credentials.

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New indicators for success

These combined trends require new measures for assessing urban success: The emerging thinking consists of four elements: • Talent churn: The capacity to identify, nurture, harness, promote, attract and sustain internal and external talent and to mobilise ideas, resources and organisations. Is Helsinki monitoring the in and outflow of the varieties of talents it has?

• Creativity and innovation potential: The ability to create soft and hard conditions in a city within which people can think, plan and act with imagination. Is Helsinki monitoring both its creativity capacity as well as its innovations? The latter are more frequently assessed than the former.

• Connectivity internally and externally, through physical infrastructure, face to face and virtually. Cutting edge places need to ride a paradox and be intensely local and intensely global.

• Distinctiveness. Once a city has baseline facilities, ideally benchmarked with the best, ranging from transport systems, education, health care, retailing it is difference, diversity and distinctiveness that matters.

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5. The diverse and interactive City

Migration and Cities

People have moved from one place to another in search of a better life throughout history. Recently, however, there has been a step change in the scale of movement. Some European countries such as France, the Netherlands and the UK have been experiencing post-colonial immigration since the 1950s. Now at least 20 European states have foreign born populations of around 5% or more, and in the case of some states (such as Ireland and Spain) this change has been recent and rapid, and even in several accession states the proportion of foreign-born is no longer a negligible figure.10 Finland is no exception. During 2008 over 29,000 people immigrated to Finland from foreign countries. The net surplus over the number who emigrated from the country is the highest since the War11. The regulation and policing of inter-relationships and flows is usually one of the functions of the nation state. It is easy, therefore, to see ethno-cultural diversity as a purely national issue, but this would be mistaken. It is increasingly a local issue as most migrants settle in Europe’s towns and cities in their search for housing and jobs, legal recognition and protection, religious, cultural and political expression, education and welfare services. Over the coming years key decisions will be taken in cities to determine whether Europe will be a place at ease with its cultural diversity – or at war with itself. In addition, the 21st century is the century of the city – since 2007 more than half of the world’s population live in urban rather than rural settings. Most cities in Europe will have to face up to cultural diversity. COMEDIA’s approach is founded on the principle that increasing migration and ethnic diversity present a profound challenge but also a huge opportunity to cities - which they can and should grasp. In fact, the extent to which they allow diversity to be their asset or their handicap will be a defining factor in determining, over coming years, which cities flourish or decline. National and supra-national bodies will continue to wield an influence, yet increasingly the choices that cities themselves make will seal their future.

The Diversity Advantage for Cities

The first serious encounter with migrants of another culture in many countries, Finland amongst them, is with asylum seekers and refugees. Born of the most noble intentions and it has generally inspired acts of great warmth and hospitality. On the other hand it can breed a mentality that somehow the migrant is always needy, inadequate or a victim. An exotic charm that brightens the monotony of modern life they may have, but they do not represent a phenomenon that might enhance or fundamentally change the host society. By adopting a different mindset it is possible to envisage many reasons – beyond philanthropy - why cities should be attracted to migrants and why migrants are attracted to cities.

10 Key figures on Europe: Statistical Pocketbook. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European

Communities, 2006 11 Figures from Statistics Finland

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Complementary skills

Migrants bring knowledge and skills which the host community can use, perhaps the highly-prized talents of the technology entrepreneur or the surgeon. Often migrants perform vital functions the hosts need but no longer care to perform themselves. Migrants also bring aptitudes different to those of the host and which may, if managed well, prove complementary to, and add value to, the skills of the host community. A study of American cities showed that in those receiving high immigrant numbers, native workers saw their wages grow more than those of their counterparts in low-immigration cities12.

Access to markets and capital

When immigrants arrive in a new city they usually do not sever links with their homeland and retain connections which can be exploited for trading. This is often to supply familiar food and cultural goods to the settler, yet the ramifications can be far wider. The opportunities available to German exporters in the emergent Turkish market or the greater ease with which British companies are able to interact with the booming Indian high technology market is a case in point. On top of this, migrants also are a new market for local companies in the host city.

Aspiration & entrepreneurship

People who leave their home to seek a better life are more likely to be motivated, future-oriented, self-employed and more entrepreneurial than their hosts. When they resettle in cities experiencing stagnation or decline they may add a welcome boost to a flat or low-aspirational local economy, whilst their stronger social networks may revive a disintegrating neighbourhood. The mayor of Toronto David Miller, as an instance, acknowledges that immigrants are the mainstay of his city’s economy and are essential to any future growth. The former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said:

Londoners believe the capital’s mix of cultures, languages and ethnicities is

one of the best things about living in it. This enormous increase in the range of

possibilities open to people will lead to more exchange and interaction as

people choose from what is best in different cultures. This is increasingly

important for Londoners’ jobs and incomes.13

Cosmopolitan brand

Cities compete at a number of levels to attract a share of global financial flows, foreign direct investment, trade, business and leisure tourism, or for major events, tournaments and expos. Those looking to invest their time or money in one city as against another are now swayed by a number of factors and growing in importance is the sense of openness of a place. Places which are uniformly monocultural or seem unwelcoming of difference will lose out to those places with a cosmopolitan ‘buzz’.

Creativity & innovation

The modern economy prizes new ideas and rewards process and product innovation. Leading edge companies are adopting the ‘business case for diversity’ as they recognise they must search far and wide for the best people. The best environments which might spark the inventiveness will give them a competitive advantage. Steve Miller, former CEO and chairman of Royal Dutch/Shell, the world’s fourth largest company says:

12 Ottaviano, Gianmarco and Peri, Giovanni (2006) The economic value of cultural diversity: evidence from US cities.

Journal of Economic Geography, 6/1, pp 9-44 13 Quoted from http://www.poptel.org.uk/scgn/story.php?articleID=23609

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You begin to find that you get some really neat ideas generated from creating

a culture where people of different ethnicities, cultures, backgrounds, [and]

countries… come together. They will come up with an answer that is different

from what any one of them would have come up with individually14.

When the Italian Stefan Marzano took over product design for the Dutch electronics giant Phillips in the 1990s he found a competent but rather staid organisation. He deliberately introduced diversity and cultural hybridity into his department of 500 staff, eventually ending up with 33 nationalities on his team. Marzano says it was radically shifting the staffing mix which put Phillips products back at the cutting edge by the end of the decade.

Civic innovation

Economic advantage aside the combination of new and old skills, resources and energies can spark social inventions which can revive ailing communities or reinvigorate creaking welfare systems. What might a future health service or educational system look like if it were able to combine the best of the local knowledge with new insights brought from outsiders? We may never know what these possibilities are unless we know how and where to look and put the right preconditions in place. Rarely do such ‘convergent innovations’ happen by chance. There is certainly little chance of them emerging from environments in which migrants are obliged to assimilate or where they live parallel lives of mutual indifference with their host community.

Challenges

But making the most of diversity is not easy. We do not need to look very far to see cities – whether with the best of intentions, or through crass mismanagement – that have found growing diversity a bitter pill to swallow. Think of the violent riots that hit the streets of Britain in 2001 and France in 2005; the ritual murder of polemical filmmaker Theo VanGogh in the Netherlands, or the countless incidents of low level discrimination and counter-discrimination that rarely go reported. It can often feel that growing diversity raises more questions than it answers for a society.

Assets or people?

One threat lies within the very advantages rehearsed above. This is the temptation to start valuing migrants simply as assets and nothing else. The credentials of the cosmopolitan, multi-lingual technology PhD are more immediately apparent than those of the former peasant. Does this mean there are ‘good’ migrants and ‘bad’ ones? Are migrants simply a reserve labour force for topping-up skill shortages in sectors of the economy, and to be discarded later when no longer required. In the current economic downturn this is a key question for all the western cities which hungrily absorbed migrants during the boom of the last 15 years. The Gastarbeiter system proved to be a short-sighted fix that has created long-term headaches for many, especially the failure to educate workers who never returned home and so became an underclass. Advocates of ‘high skill migration’ may hope to side-step this but the underlying problem remains. A society that only views the outside world through the prism of economic exploitation is going to be ill-suited to thrive in a complex, hyper-connected world.

Facing up to conflict

An intercultural city must face up to the possibility for conflict one of the most difficult side effects of diversity. Wherever there are people with different ways of seeing the

14 Quoted in Johansson, Frans (2004) Creating the Medici Effect: breakthrough insights at the intersection of ideas,

concepts and cultures. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, p. 80

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world there is the potential for discordance. This can, as evidence shows, be managed creatively, or produce strife. No city actively seeks strife, yet often urban policy is distorted by the perceived need to avoid the possibility of conflict at all costs. Understandable in the short time, over the longer term a policy of avoidance of difficult issues only aggravates grievances. It can exacerbate convulsions that are likely to come. So the intercultural city is not always an easy place to be. Being an active citizen demands you engage and interact; that you question and are prepared to be questioned by others, that you listen and are listened to; and that you are not afraid to disagree but will go the extra distance to work through and solve conflicts to reach common solutions. It implies too recognizing that managing conflict is a skill which can and should be acquired, not only by a few specialists but by everyone who plays a role in the routine operations of the city. Some cultures have adapted to this better than others. In Italy intercultural mediation and conflict management are highly prized skills practiced by an extensive network of professionals in schools, hospitals, neighbourhood management and other public services. Some say northern European cultures find it less easy to face up to conflict as they are more concerned with consensus. Yet putting off conflict may risk making things worse for the future.

Being proactive

An intercultural urban policy based on different cultures actively mixing and exchanging will advocate disputing and debating, co-operating and learning, adapting and improving and ultimately growing together. We start from the following definition:

Interculturalism goes beyond equal opportunities and respect for existing

cultural differences, to the pluralist transformation of public space, institutions

and civic culture. Cities need to develop policies which prioritise funding for

projects where different cultures intersect, ‘contaminate’ each other and

hybridise. City governments should promote cross-fertilisation across all

boundaries, between ‘majority’ and ‘minorities’, ‘dominant’ and ‘sub’ cultures,

localities, classes, faiths, disciplines and genres, as the source of cultural,

social, civic and economic innovation15.

This boils down to a simple formula Cultural Diversity + incentives to succeed + opportunities to mix = diversity Advantage. We call it The Intercultural City. And furthermore, we believe tt is possible to design an urban policy around these principles and over coming months we hope to work alongside Helsinki City Council in order to do this.

Preconditions and ingredients of the intercultural city

Any city wishing to realise the benefits of intercultural co-operation must lay the right policy foundations.

Governance and leadership

An important precondition is that all citizens have democratic rights, particularly equality before the law, access to political participation, freedom of worship and legal protection from discrimination and harassment16. Such legislation is generally a

15 Bloomfield, Jude & Bianchini, Franco (2004) Planning for the Intercultural City. Stroud; Comedia. 16 The Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) provides the most authoritative guide to how different states perform

in regard to six key policy areas which shape a migrant's journey to full citizenship, http://www.integrationindex.eu

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responsibility of the national state and therefore largely beyond the sphere of influence of a single city. Yet, there is much a city can do to ensure the law is effectively implemented and policed at local level. There is now an emerging trend where cities, such as Madrid, are beginning to take matters into their own hands such as conferring new forms of sub-national citizenship on migrants. Beyond this democratic substructure local leaders need to change their mindset. Cities need to ask themselves: ‘If our aim is to create a free, egalitarian and harmonious society but also one in which productive interaction and co-operation between ethnicities exists, what do we need to do more of or do differently?’ In particular, what kind of leaders (political and communal) and citizens will this require? What new institutions, networks and physical infrastructure would it suggest? The kind of vision and values underpinning an intercultural city strategy is vital. The intention to transform relationships and interaction city-wide, means the vision and values cannot be those of city authorities alone. It needs to be collective; built up together, shared and owned by a wide variety of individuals, institutions, groups and communities across the city. We call this intercultural vision ‘looking at the city afresh through an intercultural lens’17.

Applying the intercultural lens

Building an intercultural city vision is complex and should be for the longer term – a decade or so. It should stretch so it poses a challenge and stimulates fresh, innovate thinking and approaches to addressing city issues. It should not be too ambitious so it demoralises and saps energies. It should be achievable and so within a city’s grasp. A good intercultural vision inspires, motivates and is not couched in bureaucratic language or hedged with qualifications that make it meaningless. It needs richness and ‘texture’ so giving people a sense of what it will be like to ‘live’ the vision. Applying an intercultural lens involves going through various exercises with individuals, groups and communities to help them re-envisage their city from within a different mindset. For example: Imagine that you return to your city after an absence of ten years, get out at the station and walk through it. What would you expect?

• What will it look like? What will you see, hear, smell and feel on the streets? What sorts of activities will you see going on? What won’t you see?

• What sort of people will you see? Where will you see them? • Where will they be working/ living/ socialising? How will they relate to each other?

• What would you expect to have remained the same? What would you hope to have changed?

Intercultural vision building is not a one off exercise. Revisited regularly it should help us learn how viable it is when implemented and refined in the light of experience. In this way the intercultural vision becomes a ‘living’ vision rather than a document that is forgotten about.

Questions underlying an intercultural strategy

The process of formulating an intercultural city strategy begins by asking a series of questions, such as:

17 From an idea we have expounded at length in our book: Wood, Phil & Landry, Charles (2008) The Intercultural City:

planning for diversity advantage. London; Earthscan.

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Intercultural leaders and innovators

• Who are the city’s principal opinion formers on the subject of migration and diversity?

• Do political, economic, social and cultural leaders reflect the city’s diversity? • Do leaders represent constituencies which straddle ethnic and cultural boundaries?

• What action does the city take to broaden the cultural knowledge and competence of civic leaders and officials?

Structures and institutions

• How open are the political and civic structures of the city to newcomers or outsiders?

• What agencies do the most to enable interaction and understanding between cultures?

Processes

• What rights and opportunities are available to minorities to influence and participate in the city’s decision-making processes?

• To what extent do participation and consultation exercises encourage citizens to interact across ethnic lines?

Spaces and places

• Who uses the city’s important public spaces and places and who does not? • What could be done to make important public spaces and places open to all? • Where are the places and spaces in the city where different types of people interact and why do they work?

• Could future public spaces and institutions such as schools be located, designed and animated differently to make them more intercultural?

Incentives and regulations

• What action does the city take to discourage prejudice or divisive activity? • What action does the city take to encourage activity which builds greater understanding, interaction and co-operation?

Indicators and Measurements

• What indicators should the city adopt to track its progress towards becoming intercultural, such as levels of inter-ethnic marriage, membership cross-cultural networks and so on.

In summary it is now widely accepted that cities need to be international and cosmopolitan in their outlook and open in their attitude to thrive in the current world. National governments will exert widespread influence through their policies on immigration and citizenship but there is much the city can do. A number of hard economic factors such as the presence of key industries, companies, employment and infrastructure will continue to figure strongly in the factors which attract and hold people in cities but softer factors are becoming more significant. Diversity advantage is attainable but cities must work and adapt to reap a reward. Newcomers must be helped to adapt and encouraged to integrate, but the host population must also adapt and compromise. Tolerance of difference, though admirable, is not enough. Only as individuals reach out – neighbour to neighbour and workmate to workmate – will relationships of equality, mutuality and empathy be formed. Collectively, there is much the city can do to facilitate this, whilst the price for inaction may be severe.

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6. Towards an Intercultural City Strategy for

Helsinki In this final section of the report we have set the building blocks upon which a strategy for an intercultural Helsinki may be established. We set out 10 Steps to the Intercultural City (adapted from our book of that name) and apply it to the unique conditions of Helsinki. We argue that a city should:

o Make a public commitment to being Intercultural o Review itself ‘through an Intercultural Lens’ o Address conflict and how to resolve it o Look at language as the basis of communication o Consider the role of the media in intercultural relations o Become an international in outlook o Develop greater knowledge of itself o Build intercultural competence o Consider the welcome it gives to strangers o Show good leadership, governance and citizenship

We explain what we mean by each of these and the questions that Helsinki should ask itself to establish its own position. We give examples of good practice in each area from around the world and then we consider the areas in which Helsinki is already strong, and areas where there are room for improvement. We conclude each section with recommendations for action.

1) A Public Commitment to Interculturality

OUTLINE

A city may contain many examples of interculturality but these may remain isolated or hidden from the general awareness of the general population or the outside world. An optimum Intercultural City would be one which has taken a self-conscious decision to seek out, identify and acknowledge such cases, as well as to establish a policy objective of consolidating and building upon them; as well as a developmental strategy which has appropriate resources to support it. The city would also have made a formal statement sending an unambiguous public statement of its commitment to intercultural principles and would be actively engaged in persuading other key stakeholders in the city to do likewise.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• How can the city let local people know that being ‘intercultural’ is not just a word but a new way of doing things?

• How can the city signal to different sections of the community that they each have a role to play?

• What incentive will encourage people to behave more interculturally?

• How can public institutions demonstrate their attachment to interculturalism?

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ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Make a symbolic gesture that atones for a past misdeed • Designate a day devoted to intercultural understanding. • Awards or other schemes to reward and acknowledge single acts or lives devoted to building intercultural trust and understanding.

• Adoption of a declaration at the highest political level (Mayor, City Council) to acknowledge the value of cultural diversity and a pluralist city identity.

• A campaign to raise awareness of the demographic reality of the city’s cultural diversity, debate citizens’ concerns about issues such as security or the quality of public services, and raise citizens’ understanding of the advantages associated with a diverse population.

• Adoption of an official slogan for the city which evokes it intercultural identity

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• The project Neuchàtoi (a play of words for Your Neuchâtel) which ran for over 9 months in 2006, involved hundreds of events (conferences, plays, exhibitions, posters….and many other types) and partners inviting people to question their customary idea of the city’s identity and develop a more pluralistic idea of Neuchâtel, a city with around 25% foreign residents. It was repeated successfully in 2009 www.neuchatoi.ch

• The city of Oslo declared itself an open and inclusive city in 2001. The policy is named OXLO – Oslo Xtra Large. The declaration “Oslo –a city for all” passed by an unanimous city council, states: “Oslo is a city where all citizens are of equal value. The citizens of Oslo are its future and its most cherished resource. We are citizens with different ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds, and have all the same fundamental rights, duties and responsibilities. (..) The municipality of Oslo aims to mirror the diversity of its population, among its public servants and leaders, and in the services it provides.” www.bydel-grunerlokka.oslo.kommune.no/enhet_for_mangfold_og_integrering/oxlo

• A number of cities now make awards to highlight intercultural behaviour. The city of Bern launched an annual Integrationspreis in 2004 to the individual who achieves the most in cultural integration each year www.bern.ch/stadtverwaltung/bss/ki/IP

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• Helsinki has declared itself a ‘multicultural metropolis’ in its International Strategy, stating it will ‘develop as a tolerant, safe, attractive and service-minded city for which multiculturalism and immigrant’ skills are a key success factor.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• There is a growing and increasingly outspoken climate of scepticism and opposition to the idea of Finland as a diverse society.

• Helsinki’ civic and economic leaders have so far been relatively low key in their espousal of diversity and interculturality and risk leaving themselves exposed to accusations of political correctness and of failing to back their opinions with action.

RECOMMENDATIONS

� To avoid being placed on the defensive by anti-diversity sentiments, the City must take the initiative. A long-term city-wide debate on the implications of openness and interculturality for Helsinki should be held.

� Establish an annual programme of prizes for the individuals and institutions who have done the most to foster intercultural dialogue and co-operation in Helsinki

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2) Review the main functions of the city ‘through an intercultural lens’

OUTLINE

Too often, city policy on diversity is influenced by or responding to serious and extreme issues (such as threats to the law or civil order) which are, nevertheless, comparatively uncommon. Meanwhile the day-to-day work which constitutes the vast majority of the city’s activity can be overlooked. However at the heart of the Intercultural City thesis is the notion of taking the important – but often mundane – functions of the city and re-conceiving and re-configuring them in an intercultural way.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• How to establish an understanding that interculturalism is not just the responsibility of a few race equality or migration specialists, but all the professional disciplines within the city?

• How to assess the impact of changing policies and demonstrate progress.

• How to identify people’s real understanding of, and wishes regarding intercultural relations?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Conduct a reappraisal of the policies of the council (and other public agencies) asking the question: ‘if greater cross-cultural interaction was a priority for this city, how would we run our services differently?’

• Organise a series of public consultations to find out how people living in the city envision public space, policies, institutions and projects in an intercultural perspective.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• In 2001, the Stuttgart City Council adopted the Pact For Integration involving policies and initiatives developed by a coalition involving public, private, and civil society interests and focusing on participation and equal opportunity for everyone, peaceful cohabitation and social cohesion, and the capitalization of cultural diversity as a community and economic asset. A strong motivation for the Pact came from the recognition that successful integration was necessary to attract and retain migrants as well as foreign investment and ultimately essential to the city’s economic development. Stuttgart now has the lowest crime rates of any city in Germany and the lowest unemployment rates for people with migrant background. www.demographiekonkret.aktion2050.de/Stuttgart_Standortfaktor_Integration.170.0.htm

• Barcelona has had an intercultural action plan since 2002 and in 2009 the second action plan was adopted. Interculturalism is now an element of all policies of the city, from economic planning, security, social services, to culture. This approach has been developed and implemented through continuous debates on and a practice of interculturalism, and by means of a partnership involving the main city institutions and the neighborhood actors. Indicators for the success of this future plan are being developed but will most likely involve mixed cultural projects and events, real effort to bring diverse participants and audience in cultural activities, participation of foreigners in mainstream associations such as commercial associations or parents associations; the proportion of mixed marriages; the ethnic backgrounds of municipal employees, etc. www.bcn.cat/novaciutadania/arees/en/dialeg/dialeg.html

• The city of Tilburg undertook a complete reassessment of the offer and performance of public services in the light or citizens’ expressed wishes and needs. The result was

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public services which are much more flexible, client-centred, result-oriented, evidence-based, responsive and effective.

• The UK Government has developed a tool for assessing the impact of community cohesion and community conflict prevention policies, see: www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/communitycohesiontool.pdf

2 (a) Education through an intercultural lens

OUTLINE

Attitudes about culture and race can be formed at an early age. School has a powerful influence here and has the potential to either reinforce or challenge prejudices in a number of ways: through the social environment that it creates, the guidance it provides and the values and knowledge it instils.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Is the school experience helping young people to build cross-cultural relationships or is it reinforcing cultural separation?

• Is ‘intercultural competence’ part of the school curriculum? • Are school teachers trained in intercultural competence? • Does the ethnic profile of schools reflect the diversity of the city or is there a trend

towards polarisation and monocultural schools?

• How can an intercultural school have an influence on its wider community?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Establish a few schools and colleges as intercultural flagships, with high investment in staff training, intercultural curriculum, co-operative learning models, closer links with parents and community, twinning links with mono-cultural schools, and citizenship education.

• Ensure a regular exchange of experience between intercultural flagship schools and other schools and training of teachers by colleagues from intercultural schools.

• Encourage schools to expose objects and decorative elements (kilims, paintings etc.) from other cultural contexts as a sign of recognition of the cultures of children from migrant families.

• Appoint intercultural mediators in the most multicultural schools or train some of the staff in intercultural mediation

• Involve migrant communities in school projects not only as participants but also as initiators and leaders

• Avoid an early selection into academic and vocational tracks which often penalises children from migrant origin.

• Enlarge possibilities for all-day schooling and homework support for all but especially migrant children.

• Consider providing supplementary classes in out-of-school locations (sport, arts, university centres) which are attractive for children.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• Creating a genuinely inclusive learning environment doesn’t just happen in the language classroom, it requires a comprehensive commitment to diversity. By approaching the issue of diversity as an opportunity, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) has gone beyond instructional methods and curriculum to achieve significant results. According to data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) the TDSB has successfully closed the average achievement gap between second generation students of immigrant origin and their Canadian peers. The TDSB governs over 550 schools. In some of these schools, the proportion of

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“new Canadians” is as high as 80 to 95 percent, with more being enrolled each day. More than 36 percent of these students come from economically disadvantaged families where the income is less than 70 percent of the median income. Over 49.9 percent of Toronto residents were born abroad. For half of them, neither French nor English is their native language. Yet, the reading competence of students in Toronto tested in grade 9 is as high as the overall reading performance for Ontario, which, with its much lower proportion of immigrants is ranked among the best in the PISA. All stakeholders have a role in promoting integration across the school system as part of a mainstream approach that is reinforced daily and through routine school practice –from the School Board though to principles, teachers, children, parents and migrant associations. In addition to ensuring the school curricula reflects the diversity of the student body, the TDSB supports efforts to involve parents, neighbourhoods and ethnic communities. In locations with a particularly high number of immigrants, integration advisors (settlement workers) at the schools are helping parents with education and other issues concerning integration. The Settlement Workers in Schools (SWIS) program is a partnership of settlement agencies and boards of education supported by Canada’s national department of Citizenship and Immigration, now available in schools across Canada. Other specific actions that the TDSB has implemented to achieve these results include: providing low-achieving students with individual support in the classroom and access to language learning in their student’s native language. www.tdsb.on.ca/wwwdocuments/about_us/director/docs/urban%20diversity%20strategy.pdf

• Against a background of growing numbers of middle-class families leaving inner city districts with ethnically diverse populations, the Canton of Zürich recognized that educational reform was required to reduce inequality in education, to integrate all students into schools and promote social cohesion. In 1996, the canton initiated a school improvement project “Quality in multi-ethnic schools”(QUIMS) that would lead to the gradual development of an area-wide model of quality assurance in multi-ethnic schools as well as send a powerful political message against social segregation and for a common public primary school. The QUIMS project aims at raising the standard of education in these schools for all students, so that they will be equally attractive to Swiss middle class parents and pupils and their non-Swiss peers. Secondly, the project strives to close the gap between the achievements of different social groups (as reported by international PISA scores). A third goal is to improve students’, parents’ and teachers’ satisfaction with the school environment. QUIMS starts by dealing with teachers’ concrete requirements and problems in the classroom and moves on to sensitize the teachers to issues of ethnic and social inequality and stereotyping. The QUIMS program reaches beyond the challenges of linguistic and cultural diversity in the classroom, to look at how power structures in the overall organization of schooling can contribute to discrimination. It starts to analyze the structural barriers, for example, that might prevent a child from an immigrant background with a good school performance from attending a secondary school for higher achievers. QUIMS demonstrates the potential to address broad systemic change in Zurich’s educational system and in the community-at-large. That is an important accomplishment. Since its start as a pilot project in a few Zurich high schools in 1996, the QUIMS program is now available in almost 100 schools in the Canton of Zurich, where it has been scaled up into law since 2006. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mttv_3RC1UQ www.vsa.zh.ch/internet/bi/vsa/de/Schulbetrieb/QUIMS/Wissen.html

• In 2005 the city of Subotica formed a Team for the inclusion of Roma children in the school system consisting of experts, the members of the Roma Educational Centre and two Roma high school students. This team prepared the Strategy for the inclusion of Roma children in the school system. According to the data of the Roma Educational Centre (REC) from 2006 already 61% of Roma children between the age of 7 and 14 (primary school) were included in the school system, which exemplifies the partnership of the REC and local government. http://www.ec-

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roma.org.rs/en/index.htm

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• All young immigrants of compulsory school age (aged 7–17) permanently residing in Finland has the right to the same basic education as Finns.

• Finland has one of the highest incidence of foreign language teaching at the primary school level

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• Finnish national education policy states that no school should have an immigrant population in excess of 20%. However this will be increasingly difficult to achieve in Helsinki where immigrant children may represent 25% of total intake in about a decade. There is growing tension between national and Helsinki perspectives and the city must be allowed to pursue its own course.

• How can the city avoid falling into a negative mindset of perceiving the issue as a ‘problem’ for ‘good and bad’ and ‘black and white’ schools.?

RECOMMENDATIONS

� Set up a programme to encourage ethnic minority graduates to consider teacher training and consider positive action to increase the number of minority teachers in Helsinki schools

� The high quality of language provision in Helsinki schools needs to be matched by teaching of intercultural competence for all pupils.

� Schools should be allowed to breach the 20% minority barrier if this reflects their catchment area. These schools should be properly resourced to ensure high standards and that they remain attractive to all ethnic groups.

� Designate 3 primary and 3 high schools as Flagship Intercultural Schools

� Introduce professional intercultural mediators into key schools.

2 (b) The public realm through an intercultural lens

OUTLINE

Public spaces and facilities (including transport) are important for several reasons. They are places which most citizens are obliged to use from time to time therefore raising the possibility for chance encounters between strangers. They may also reinforce cross-cultural solidarity. for example in cases of aroused public interest around the proposed development or closure of a facility. Well managed and animated spaces can become beacons of the city’s intercultural intentions. Conversely badly-managed spaces can become places of suspicion and fear of the stranger

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Do the city’s main public spaces and institutions reflect its diversity or are they monocultural?

• How do different groups behave in the city’s public places: do they seek or avoid interaction? Is the atmosphere positive, indifferent, or tense?

• What is the status of the public realm in the city? Is it protected, safe and well maintained, is it becoming privatised, is it deteriorating or unsafe?

• Are the city planning and built environment professionals trained in intercultural competence?

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• Is social interaction considered a priority in the planning guidance for new public spaces?

• Does the pattern of transportation routes in the city enable encounter between different groups or does it reinforce patterns of separation?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Identify a number of key public spaces (formal and informal) and invest in discrete redesign, animation and maintenance to raise levels of usage and interaction by all ethnic groups;

• Develop a better understanding of how different groups use space and incorporate into planning and design guidelines.

• Ensure planners, architects, construction managers and similar professions within the city council receive good training in cultural competence.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• Sense of Place in Manchester is a new form of community planning which draws upon a much wider and deeper range of cultural factors to inform city planners on the future development of neighbourhoods, see www.manchester.gov.uk/site/scripts/download_info.php?downloadID=548

• The London Borough of Lewisham has pioneered a new way of looking at city planning through an intercultural lens, www.lewisham.gov.uk/Environment/Regeneration/DeptfordAndNewCross//DeptfordTownCentre/InterculturalCity.htm

• The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is the most diverse part of London. It is replacing all its libraries and transforming them into spaces of community interaction. The objectives of the Council are: … to bring the community together and to empower individuals to help themselves, whether it is learning to read, pursuing hobbies, expanding their knowledge or seeking a job. An Idea Store is an ideal place to browse and borrow books, read a newspaper or magazine, learn new skills, surf the net or to relax and meet friends over a coffee in a fun and stimulating environment. The physical presence of an Idea Store is striking. Firstly, it does not have a defined threshold between street and library so one is drawn inside without the feeling one is crossing any kind of boundary. This helps to create the sense of neutrality of the space which encourages users to interact. www.ideastore.co.uk/

• Ottakring is a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Vienna, with more than 50 nationalities including many Pakistanis, Turks, Maghrebians, Egyptians, which make up 36% of the total population of 8,000. At its heart is the historic Brunnengasse market. During the late 90s the once popular market faced a chronic decrease in visitors. Most of the bordering ground floor retail premises also became vacant and were used for storage or occupied by industries with no relation to the market, such as betting shops. In response the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and City Council decided to allocate all empty shops to artists rent-free. Dozens of artists blended into the life of the neighbourhood and ran numerous projects in association with the locals shopkeepers and residents, ranging from providing services (sign painting, etc.) to innovative and unusual projects. On the other hand, the annual “Soho” festival in Ottakring mobilises a hundred or so artists and completely transforms the dilapidated image of the neighbourhood, while managing to avoid the phenomenon of “gentrification”.

• The Dutch Urban Design laboratory Stadslab is developing new concepts for intercultural urban parks to reflect the growing diversity of European cities. Its current project is in the Ukrainian city of Melitopol. www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/culture/Cities/Newsletter/newsletter9Melitopol_en.asp

• Much of the urban design and public space in Helsinki seems intended to challenge and confront nature rather than work with it. This uncompromising approach is particularly felt in winter and particularly by foreigners who are not accustomed to the

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climate. In Canada the approach to winter in the city is to try and work in harmony with it: www.physicalactivitystrategy.ca/pdfs/Living_Harmony_Winter.pdf

• Travel and active recreational activities provide an often overlooked opportunity for community building and local immigrant integration policies do not need to be 'stand alone' policies. In Copenhagen bicycling is particularly popular so the Danish Red Cross volunteers teach newcomer adults how to cycle, the rules of the road, and how to repair bicycles. The classes are free for immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. Most of the participants are older immigrant and refugee women who come from countries where women do not traditionally ride bikes. The classes are also an opportunity for Danes to share their skills and culture with newcomers and provide a chance for both groups to socialize and share this national past time. www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,501869,00.html

• The familiar scene outside many schools now is of parents depositing and collecting their kids in car – which is bad for traffic, bad for health and offers no opportunities for people of different backgrounds to meet, as they once did, at the school gates. To tackle this problem in New Zealand a few parents started the Walking Bus. This is a group of children who walk to and from school together supervised by neighbourhood adults. Like a real bus, it “travels” at a set time and the children come out to join at stops situated close to where they live. Established in 1999, there are now over 300 “Walking School Bus” routes operating in neighbourhoods throughout the Auckland region. Each route is coordinated through the local school, with over 1800 volunteers supporting the program city-wide. This means that more than 5,000 students use a Walking School Bus every day. Research from the University of Auckland has confirmed that particularly for new immigrants, this initiative creates community cohesion, provides an opportunity to socialize with other parents and develop a relationship with the school. The research also showed that having this relationship between home, community and school results in better outcomes for students - they tend to do better and as a result, stay in formal schooling for longer. www.walkingschoolbus.org

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• The city moved quickly and decisively to respond to the Swiss referendum on minarets, with Deputy Mayor Hannu Penttilä and Head of Planning Tuomas Rajajärvi declaring any application to build one in Helsinki would be seriously considered.

• The Helsinki metro is very important in connecting different communities to each other. The metro stops are valuable hubs of activity and interaction, particularly youth

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• The area around the University, which represents the greatest concentration of foreigners in Helsinki, is badly designed and animated and does little to encourage social interaction.

• Kaisaniemi Park, the public park with the greatest potential for cross-cultural interaction has been allowed to become a place which is feared and avoided by many

• The way in which the Hakaniemi/Kallio/Sornainen district is planned and maintained does nothing to acknowledge or enhance its reality as a centre of ethnic richness and mixing – indeed the city seems to want to deny it.

• Helsinki does note cope as well as some other northern cities in maintaining spaces for conviviality during winter weather

RECOMMENDATIONS

� Initiate a series of experiments in designated public spaces to encourage greater ethnic mixing and intercultural identification.

� Train all members of the city planning department in cultural competence.

� Introduce experimental zones in the city where normal planning regulations

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may be relaxed in order encourage areas to develop a more distinctive ethnic atmosphere.

2 (c) The Public Services through an intercultural lens

OUTLINE

An optimum intercultural city would see an equal reflection of the population in the ethnic/cultural background of public employees – at all levels of seniority. More than this however, it would recognise that as the population changes, the very nature of the public service must be reviewed and possibly revised. It must be open to the possibility of new ideas and innovation brought by minority groups rather than imposing a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Is the city taking action to ensure the ethnic/cultural background of public employees reflects that of the population as a whole?

• Has the city reviewed or changed the structure, ethos or methodology of its public service deliver in order to account of the ethnic/cultural mix of its citizens and staff. Does the city take action to encourage intercultural mixing in the private sector labour market?

• What is the role of the police in regard to cultural diversity? To maintain peace between groups, to enforce immigration laws, to maintain the status quo?

• To what extent are the police willing and able to take a more proactive role and community bridge-builders between groups?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Provide training for intercultural competence of all front-line staff. • Make special provisions for specific cultural communities if this is in the interest of providing a better service.

• Rethink the role of frontline police officers in key areas to act as primarily as agents of intercultural integration.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• One of the original actions Barcelona has developed in relation to integration is the anticipation of the arrivals of people through family reunion. Family reunion applications are screened and applicants are asked by social workers about the needs of the coming family members (educational and training needs, language learning, and psychological support, in particular in terms of husband/wife and parents/children relationships following a period of separation). Social service provision is planned on the basis of the identified future needs, the numbers of care professionals are increasing. www.interculturalitat.cat/eng

• The Multicultural Health Fair is a free community event that brings together representatives and volunteers from ethnic communities across Vancouver to provide health care information to new immigrants in fun and easy to access ways. The focus of the fair is: accessible information. As a result, all exhibitors are required to have interactive health screenings and/or displays at their booth, all printed information must be available in English and at least two of the selected fair languages: Punjabi, Spanish, French, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Farsi or Taglog. Although not required, exhibitors are strongly encouraged to also have booth representatives that can speak one of the selected fair languages. A 2005 study by Statistics Canada found that while

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immigrants generally arrive with better health than the Canadian born, as time passes this “healthy immigrant effect” tends to diminish. In part these health problems may be due to the stress of immigration itself which involves finding suitable employment and establishing a new social support network. However, the ability of the newcomer to effectively identify and access preventative care also plays a role in this decline.

• Health promotion to ethno-cultural, linguistic and religious minorities requires intercultural training for all parties -from medical staff through to community members and leaders. The Ethno-Medizinisches Zentrum (EMZ) in Hannover has developed the award winning “MiMi - With Migrants for Migrants” programme (Mit Migranten für Migranten - MiMi). The programme recruits, trains and supports individuals from within immigrant communities to become cultural mediators who can help navigate new and different ways of dealing with traditions of health and illness and the body. The goal of the program is to make the German health system more accessible to immigrants, increase their health literacy while simultaneously empowering immigrant communities by prompting their direct participation in the process. This two way dynamic is one of the unique aspects of MiMi. The programme targets socially integrated immigrants as candidates for intercultural mediator training and then recruits recent immigrants to participate in the community group sessions that are led by MiMi mediators drawn from their own community. The MiMi approach is based on the belief that migrants are experts in their own causes and that as a community, they have experiences and resources that need to be better leveraged. Look for unanticipated outcomes and community impact: the focus of the MiMi program is increased health literacy, but their community-based approach has also resulted in increased community leadership and participation, especially for immigrant women. www.ethno-medizinisches-zentrum.de

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• According to research by the Väestöliito Family Federation, the 3,500 people who were adopted as children to Finland from abroad generally have a positive experience with little racism.

• There are about 3000 mixed-race marriages (26% of all marriages in Helsinki) in Finland each year and 3.7% end in divorce. The Duo Project has been set up to protect the interests of children at the centre of multicultural divorces

• The city centre's services for multicultural youth focus on Malminkatu 28 which houses the Youth Information Centre Kompassi, Comprehensive development project for employment, Asemanseutu (the Multicultural Living Room), Katuluotsi (Street Pilot) and the NevoDrom project for aiding young Romany people. Special support for young people of African origin is also based here.

• The Youth Department has establishment 100 internships within the local authority for minority youths, particularly those who are in Finland without families.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• Perfect fluency in Finnish language is a prerequisite to many jobs in the public service which is unnecessarily excluding many skilled people

• There appears to be an intention to cluster many of the public services for migrants in the Kaisaniemi district on the grounds of efficiency. This is misguided and will lead to a stigmatising of the area and the people who use it. Integration is more important than efficiency.

RECOMMENDATIONS

� There should be a review of whether the insistence on perfect fluency in Finnish language as a prerequisite to many jobs in the public service is really necessary.

� Reverse the move to cluster all immigrant services into Kaisaniemi.

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2 (d) Neighbourhoods and Housing through an intercultural lens

OUTLINE

There is a great variation across European cities in the extent to which patterns of residential settlement are connected to culture and ethnicity and there are also varying opinions on whether the state should intervene or if the market and personal choice should be the prime determinants. An optimum Intercultural City does not require a ‘perfect’ statistical mix of people and recognises the value of ethnic enclaves, so long as they do not act as barriers to the free flow of people, ideas and opportunities both inward and outward.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Does the city have residential areas which are defined along ethnic lines? • Does the system for allocation of public housing and/or the private housing market contribute to ethnic concentration?

• Do local community facilities encourage greater ethnic interaction or are they mainly monocultural?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• designate facilities as intercultural community centres, containing key services such as health, maternity, childcare and libraries.

• Encourage (for example through fiscal measures or the provision of community facilities) the setting up and action of culturally mixed community groups and organisations acting as catalysts of neighbourhood activities and mediators.

• High publicity campaigns for public housing allocations which give ethnic groups confidence and information enabling them to consider taking housing opportunities outside their traditional enclaves.

• Encourage small-scale initiatives that enable migrants to act as a link between individuals or families and the services.

• Projects that show young migrant people that their parents and grandparents are respected by the community by giving them spaces and occasions to contribute and show their skills.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• For a review of good practice in the UK see Ethnic diversity, neighbourhoods and housing at: www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/foundations/110.asp

• Many examples of practices and approaches to ensure cultural mixing in housing estates and neighbourhoods are quoted in the CLIP network study Housing and Integration of Migrants in Europe. www.eurofound.europa.eu/pubdocs/2007/94/en/1/ef0794en.pdf

• The Citizens Foundation Neukölln is the only German citizens foundation that is explicitly positioned interculturally. It was initiated by personalities of the business world, culture, church and politics of Neukölln and founded in 2005. 102 founders got engaged each with financial contributions from 500 EUR onwards. The foundation is a platform for people that are dedicated to their borough. It aims at the participation of all inhabitants in shaping the quality of life in their neighbourhood and in supporting a respectful togetherness. In cooperation with the migrant communities it wants to establish new multiethnic community structures. Therefore the foundation explicitly invites migrants to participate in the work and become co-founders. www.stiftungzukunftberlin.de/en/neuk%C3%B6lln-model

• Collingwood Neighbourhood House is a multi-functional local service centre that has united a diverse and formerly run-down quarter of inner-city Vancouver www.cnh.bc.ca/

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• There are buildings or institutions you would like to explore or people you would like to know in our neighbourhoods, but we are too shy or reserved to approach them, or maybe we are worried about causing embarrassment to them or yourself by making a social or cultural mistake. Marjolijn Masselink had these feelings about the Feyenoord district of Rotterdam, so she created a new company called City Safari. It is directed at Rotterdamers themselves and says to them ‘Be a tourist in your own city’. As an individual or a group of friends you can tell Marjolijn what kinds of things you are interested in and she will design a personalised tour of the city visiting 5 places you could never normally go to – the house of a migrant, the house of a local, of a transvestite, a mosque, a church, whatever, in order to know and understand them better. http://www.citysafari.nl

• The Chicago Federal Reserve noticed that hardly any Muslims were applying for finance to purchase homes or business and that this was largely due to religious sensitivities. Over the last few years, several Islam-friendly lending programs have been created by the Chicago Federal Reserve to help solve these problems. Mainstream financial institutions are starting to use financial instruments to offer creative loans that comply with the laws against riba (receiving interest) by creating joint-owner partnerships or charging lease fees in place of interest. Since then the bank has recognised that other minorities may also have cultural issues which prevent them accessing finance, so it commissioned an extensive study from the Brookings Institution: www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20060504_financialaccess.pdf

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• The general standard of public and private housing is higher than in most large European cities. Homelessness of migrants is also comparatively low although starting to rise

• Certain districts are now reacting against the homogeneity of the suburbs by establishing distinctive brands and local programmes of activity, eg Power and Drive to

Mellunkylä, and its programme of four major festivals, reflecting the growing diversity.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• Prevailing rhetoric holds that if there are areas of segregated migrant housing in Helsinki it is because the migrants have chosen to ‘self-segregate’. This obscures the fact that deeper structural factors are leading to ethnic Finnish and minority enclaves.

• Only 1% of people of migrant origin own their own home and there can be prejudice in the private rented sector leading to their concentration in public sector housing

• There is a lack of open discussion about ethnic spatial concentrations in Helsinki. The emergence of ethnic enclaves is a taboo subject. There has not been a debate on the pros and cons of clustering and this void can be occupied by extremist viewpoints

• Many people operating public services in the outer suburbs complain of a concentration of public funding and resources in the centre making it harder to maintain intercultural activities

RECOMMENDATIONS

� There should be a dedicated programme of investment in the outer suburbs (both in infrastructure and in events and attractions) to make them into attractive places for ethnic Finns to visit, live and work in.

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2 (e) Business and the labour market through an intercultural lens

OUTLINE

Large parts of the economy and the labour market may be beyond the remit and control of the city authority, but they may fall within its sphere of influence. Because of nationally-imposed restrictions on access to the public sector labour market, the private sector may provide an easier route for minorities to engage in economic activity. In turn, such activity (eg shops, clubs, restaurants) may provide a valuable interface between different cultures of the city.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Is there a business umbrella organisation which has among its objectives to promote diversity and non-discrimination in employment?

• Does the city have a charter or another binding document against discrimination in the workplace?

• Does the city take action to encourage intercultural mixing in the private sector labour market?

• Does the city take action to encourage businesses from ethnic/cultural minorities to move beyond localised/ethnic economies and enter the mainstream economy?

• Has the city taken action to encourage ‘business districts’ in which different cultures could more easily mix?

• In its procurement of goods and services does the city council give priority to companies with a diversity strategy?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Take extra effort to ensure migrants find jobs appropriate to their skills, • Help migrants get recognition and accreditation of their foreign qualifications; • Explore trade opportunities through diasporic networks of local migrants; • Assist migrant businesses to break out into multi-ethnic markets. • Design special programmes to fight discrimination in employment. • Involve successful migrants to provide role models for migrant young people

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• In Bologna the authorities have made special efforts to ensure migrant businesses do not fall out of the mainstream. The Spinner Consortium focused on the 1300 isolated Chinese businesses, using intercultural mediators to convey information on tax and employment law and to better understand Chinese culture, leading to a bilingual manual. Radio proved a very effective communication medium. www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2195213,00.html

• The City of Boston identified more than 4,000 small and mid-size light industrial and commercial businesses that operate within the city’s boundaries but away from the main areas. Mainly run by minorities these “Backstreet” companies generate more than 100,000 jobs (one in five jobs in Boston) and pay over $30 million annually in taxes and represent a key lever to the city’s economic development and success. The Back Streets Program sets out to integrate them into the mainstream economy and overcome cultural misunderstandings in four main areas: real estate, work force, business assistance and resources and partnerships. www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org

• Businesses in Neuchâtel have launched, in co-operation with social services, Speranza 2000 a recruitment and training project for marginalised young people. Then the young people are trained for 12 weeks and then offered a contract of

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unlimited duration. Following the project’s first year, all 48 young people have remained in the enterprises. Only 30% of them only were Swiss nationals. http://www.ne.ch/neat/documents/formation/formapro_4574/4574_5236/5236_5237/INformation_No11.pdf

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• It is easy and cheap for a migrant to start a new business in Helsinki in comparison to much of Europe

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• In comparison to other major international cities and knowledge hubs, the labour market in Helsinki is considered to be dysfunctional. Discrimination (both casual and institutionalised) against non-fluent Finnish speakers is common. This is deterring many knowledge workers (particularly outside the traditional technology field) from making the city a relocation option.

• Many aspects of the service economy (where new migrant businesses usually start) are dominated by exclusive cartels or professional associations, making it difficult for newcomers to enter the market.

RECOMMENDATIONS

� The City Council should initiate a thorough research study of the existing conditions of ethnic minority business and its future potential for the prosperity of the city.

2 f) Sport and arts through an intercultural lens

OUTLINE

The time which people allocate to their leisure may often be the best opportunity for them to encounter and engage with people of another culture. Equally however, if patterns of leisure are structured along ethnic lines (e. g. a football league of teams from only one culture) it may be a powerful reinforcer of separation. The city can influence this through its own direct activities and through the way it distributes resources to other organisations.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Are most cultural and leisure groups in the city constituted on mono-ethnic or multi-ethnic lines?

• Do the city’s professional sports and arts organisations explicitly encourage ethnic mixing?

• Are there funding and training schemes to support talent from ethnic minority background?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Initiate tournaments and festivals which bring together young people from different parts of the city and train multi-ethnic youngsters as sports and arts leaders.

• Encourage arts organisations and arts colleges to train and involve people from migrant/minority background.

• Support migrant/minority arts and culture organisations and events which present works from a mixture of cultural backgrounds.

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INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• Buntkicktgut (which translates loosely as fancy footwork) is the name of the intercultural street football league in Munich. It was founded in 1996 by two social workers at a refugee home, after they began to use street football (the most popular activity among the boys at the home) as a means for identification and integration. Today, the program includes over 150 teams with approximately 1,500 players. The players are a mix of refugees and disadvantaged youth all from a variety ethnic backgrounds. The participants get involved in the program through their housing estates, daycare centres, on the suggestion of school social workers or from just hearing about it on the street. The participants range from 8-21 years and include both males and female players. The game year is divided into a summer and winter season and games are held up to five times a week, as well as on weekend, at venues throughout the city. Two cup events are held annually as well. Street soccer in contrast to club football is also associated with autonomy, self organization and self determination by the youth. The league encourages responsibility by having teams register on their own and organize themselves. To qualify for the league, a team must have six players and at least one coach. The kids are also responsible for organising their uniforms (shirts), coming up with a team name and building community support for their games. The teams also commit to playing year round and attending all scheduled games.One of the primary goals of the project is the prevention of violence. The project concentrates heavily on the peaceful resolution of conflict within an intercultural context (i.e. racist prejudices and intercultural misunderstanding). The participants are taught peaceful strategies for conflict resolution, democratic negotiation and the idea of individual and group participation. In 2006 Buntkicktgut became a truly global initiative when they hosted the International Streetfootball League in Munich. Over 56 teams from around the world came to participate in the event. www.buntkicktgut.de

• In Tilburg, a group of women from the Antilles asked the local government for support to organise a carnival procession. Tilburg has also traditional carnival clubs. The alderman promises his support under the condition that the two groups of carnival clubs will present one plan for the carnival procession in August. From that moment a strong cooperation began between the two different cultures. On 24 August 2008 the so-called T-Parade was held for the first time in the centre of the city. The second edition boasted 60.000 visitors, 37 groups floats and 1.200 participants of Japanese, Dutch, Moroccan, Indonesian, English, Brazilian, Venezuelan, Surinam, Moroccan, Antillean, Turkish and Chinese origins. The T-Parade is now an independent foundation, financially supported by the city. http://www.t-parade.nl

• The Raval Foundation of Barcelona is a co-ordination platform for cultural institutions and social organisations working with children, women, people at risk from exclusion, commercial organisations, trade unions and many other actors in the neighborhood. Together they investigate the local area, create thematic and project networks, communicate about Raval to the media and generate community projects. A major activity is a 4-days festival involving 100 different entities from Raval, each contributing their own know-how and activities. The festival has grown over the years from a small local initiative and is becoming larger and more popular every year. The different participating organisations are covering their own costs. People from other neighborhoods come to Raval festival as well. Raval is in a way the intercultural laboratory of Barcelona. There is a project “culture in situ” which encourages cultural institutions present to reach out to the local community. It involves both social organisations and cultural institutions and consists of visits to the cultural institutions/associations, workshops for children, open doors only for people from the neighborhood, communication through the local NGO. The opera has for instance a special programme exclusively for Raval. www10.gencat.net/probert/angles/cotxeres/cx32_miradesang.htm

• The X-Ray Youth Culture House is an example of the intercultural spaces where a

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new hybridised Oslo youth culture is being forged. Youngsters who started with these projects are now starting to make their mark on mainstream Norwegian society through achieving positions in the mainstream media and arts worlds, and they in turn act as role models for future generations. http://www.x-rayukh.no

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• The Caisa international cultural centre has a high level of expertise in culturally diverse arts and how this can be used to build intercultural dialogue (for example the ‘Our Song’ event.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• Sport is not given due consideration as an area for intercultural engagement with a growth of segregation in sports events and much discrimination. Most foreign-born football referees have quit due to racism, and minority players receive disproportionately more severe disciplinary punishments. The racist taunt of ‘neekeri’ is widespread in Finnish sports grounds and is not outlawed.

• Ticketed cultural events are becoming increasingly expensive which excludes many minorities

RECOMMENDATIONS

� Caisa should leave its inadequate premises is Kaisaniemi and move to a better equipped facility.

� All cultural centres in the city should develop in-house expertise in cultural diversity.

� The emphasis in cultural policy should move away from cultural specificity to mixing and hybridity.

3) Mediation and conflict-resolution

OUTLINE

Where groups of different cultural background and of social and economic status are present in close proximity, there is always the potential for conflict over values, behaviour or resources. This is natural – what is unnatural would be for city authorities to seek to deny or ignore it. The process of anticipating, identifying, addressing and resolving conflicts is a fundamental process of living together in a dynamic and communicative community. Indeed the optimum Intercultural City sees the opportunity for innovation and growth emerging from the very process of conflict mediation and resolution.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Is city policy strongly influenced by the need to avoid the possibility of ethnic conflict? • Are city officials trained in mediation and conflict-resolution skills? • Does the city have procedures and mechanisms for recognising and dealing with

potential flashpoints?

• Are their institutions in the city that can help communities resolve their differences?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Acknowledge the inevitability of conflict in mixed communities and develop the city’s skills in mediation and resolution.

• Do not try to avoid or hide conflict – this risks creating frustration, disillusionment and withdrawal. Open public debate is the best way to address fears, concerns and conflicts.

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INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• UK Government guidance for local authorities on community cohesion contingency planning and tension monitoring, see www.communities.gov.uk/publications/communities/cohesionplanning

• Casa dei Conflitti in Torino is a place for resolving neighbourhood disputes, see http://urbact.eu/themes/populations-of-foreign-origin/participation-and-citizenship.html

• In Vic (Spain) a team of 10 “street mediators” which deal with minor neighbourhood conflicts and seek to meet and talk to people on the streets and in public places about their concerns related to the arrival of foreigners, the changes in the host community and the role of the host population in the integration process.

• The Interfaith Kirklees partnership in Huddersfield offers opportunities for active learning about the identity of faiths and for connecting communities. Housed in seven Faith Centres, each in a local place of worship: Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh., it runs a programme of celebration and dialogue A Religious Education Syllabus for schools in the district and a Handbook of resources for teachers have been compiled. There is a Faith Centres Trail enabling people to visit places of worship. The partnership also plays a vital role in defusing tension that may be caused by world affairs or local incidents. www.interfaithkirklees.org.uk

• Reggio Emilia has established an Intercultural centre with trained mediators with a variety of ethnic and language backgrounds who intervene whenever they feel a problem might arise – for instance if kids in some schools tend to cluster too much on ethnic basis.

• Office “Citizens help citizens“, Berlin Neukölln. A Turkish and an Arabic association offer a lower threshold advisory service in the respective mother tongue for five days of the week in the Town Hall of Neukölln. Especially for older migrants, who have difficulties in learning the German language, this is a highly demanded service.

• In Oslo, an emergency taskforce was established in 2005, with representatives from the municipality, NGOs, scholars and the police. The purpose is to respond quickly to crisis where youth and violence are involved, and to problems of racism and neo-nazism. The capacity to deal with minor episodes, however, is widely spread on the level of schools and youth services. In the city districts, this work is coordinated through the SaLTo-networks, where municipal youth workers, schools and the local police participate. In dealing with localized conflicts, community leaders from NGOs, churches and mosques are regularly consulted and engaged, as well as the local staff of the state-run Mediation and Reconciliation Service. www.salto.oslo.kommune.no/getfile.php/Salto%20(PROSJEKT-SALTO)/Internett%20(PROSJEKT-SALTO)/Dokumenter/SaLTo%20-%20english.pdf

• In Tilburg there are volunteer neighbourhood mediators. It is necessary to intervene as soon as possible before a bigger conflict starts with more people involved. This project started in the impulse neighbourhoods, but now in every neighbourhood in Tilburg these mediators are active. Eighty percent of the mediation volunteers are migrant people, which is not only remarkable but also encouraging. At this moment 40 mediators in Tilburg leave no stone unturned to prevent or solve problems in the neighbourhoods.

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• The Interfaith Dialogue Association Religious Forum, the Union for Christian Culture and the Islamic Heritage House have established meetings.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• By the standards of most similar-sized cities there is a low level of formalised intercultural and interfaith dialogue

• Equally there is little formal acknowledgement of the potential for conflict within culturally-diverse communities and very low level of professional provision in mediation

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and conflict resolution.

RECOMMENDATIONS

� The city and its partner agencies should develop a cross-departmental strategy for rapidly responding to emerging social, political and religious conflicts.

� There should be a comprehensive programme of training in mediation and conflict resolution for all officials dealing with the public.

4) Language

OUTLINE

The learning of the language of the host country by migrants is key issue for integration. However there are other considerations in an intercultural approach to language. For example in cities where there are one or more national minorities (or indeed where there is indeed no clear majority group) there is significance in the extent to which there is mutual learning across language divides. Even in cities where recent migrations or trade connections have brought entirely new languages into the city, there is significance in the extent to which the majority are prepared to adopt these languages.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Is the translation of public information into minority languages an encouragement or a hindrance to people gaining command of the majority language?

• Are there actions or initiatives in the educational or cultural fields aiming at promoting recognition of minority/migrant languages in the community?

• Does the city have local newspaper/journal/radio or TV programs in the language other than the language of the majority ethnic group?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Providing sufficient resources and teachers with the proper training to ensure new arrivals can receive language tuition within a short time after arrival.

• Hold a public information campaign to portray multilingualism as an asset to individuals and the city.

• Use language training as a vehicle to build relationships between strangers.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• In Frankfurt, through the “Mama Learns German – Papa Too” program, immigrant mothers (and fathers) of children in primary schools and kindergartens join their children in the classroom for two mornings a week. The mothers learn German along with their children and receive real insight into the lives that their children will be leading in their new country. The contents of the languages classes are very much focused on the practical - the everyday words and expressions that the mothers need to navigate their new life in Germany and to understand the activities of their children. It also forms the basis for a cooperative relationship between schools and parents. With lessons incorporated into the school day, parents are also relieved of the added burden of costly child care. The classroom provides a forum for the mothers to connect and discuss challenges, solutions and find support and friends in an environment that is free from judgment and prejudice. www.frankfurt.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=2889&_ffmpar%5B_id_inhalt%5D=352763

• The Barcelona Centre for Linguistic Normalization (CLN) welcomes over 17,000 students from 127 different countries. The classes are thus an active example of diversity and the respect of difference. It is for this reason that the CNL has adopted

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intercultural dialogue as one of the strategic values of its educational project, in which new arrivals are acquainted with the characteristic traits of Catalan culture, not in terms of a single, homogeneous model but rather from the position of exchange, plurality, interaction and the miscegenation and hybridisation of culture.

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• Finland has more than double the European average rate for multilingualism, and is one of only four nations where all upper secondary students learn two or more foreign languages.

• The campaign for Plain Finnish Selkokieli and News in Plain Finnish – Selkouutiset are an important stepping stone for foreigners and can provide a meeting place, particularly for the elderly and disabled.

• Familia Club fills an important gap in provision by giving courses and social contact for non-working people such as mothers, the elderly and those awaiting residence permits

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• There is a widespread perception that Finnish is a language which is almost uniquely difficult and impenetrable. This leads to prejudices, for example that non-fluent speakers of Finnish are generally considered unemployable

• The provision of Finnish language courses is failing to keep pace with demand, and much of what is available follows outdated pedagogic methodologies and lack practicality. It is too easy for people to drop out and fall back on English

RECOMMENDATIONS

� There should be a major enquiry into what are the true linguistic requirements of posts in the public and private sector followed by legislation to outlaw employment discrimination on the grounds of language.

5) The Media

OUTLINE

The media has a powerful influence on the attitudes to cultural relations and upon the reputations of particular minority and majority groups. Much of this media is nationally or internationally generated and therefore beyond the influence of city authorities. Nevertheless there is still much the city authorities can do to influence and partner with local media agencies to achieve a climate of public opinion more conducive to intercultural relations.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Does the local print and broadcast media have a strong influence on public attitudes to community relations?

• Does the media have access to accurate information on cultural diversity. • Does the city council have a co-operative relationship with the media? • Is there a joint strategy for dealing with tension and misinformation in the community?

• Do the media organisations give training to staff in cultural competence?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Develop a long-term trust-based relationship with media by providing information regularly, inviting journalists to projects and events, event at the neighbourhood level.

• Establish a joint strategy with local media agencies to gather and present news in a responsible and intercultural way.

• Encourage media to publish stories about migrant’s lives showing the human aspect of

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immigration. • Provide scholarships or other schemes to encourage young migrants to train as journalists.

• Provide a directory of reference persons (NGOs, social services, mediators, community or project leaders, etc.) for media to be contacted in case of incidents or issues in addition to those who are usually asked to comment (police, experts).

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA) found itself increasingly the target of extremist criticism and abuse in the local media. It responded with a targeted communications strategy to present the ‘human face’ of migration. Its success came from presenting a consistent and compelling alternative message to the one usually portrayed by the media. To keep the story "alive" they had a network of media ready community members who were able to speak on message to the press. Their key message is ‘Don't be afraid of personal stories! It was the focus on individuals that helped humanize the issue and interest journalists to go beyond the usual policy focus. And, look to link a local issue or event to something happening on the national or international stage - don't be afraid to "Think Big." http://www.miracoalition.org

• Telenovela’s are hugely popular melodramatic television serials originating from Latin America . Adapted to the USA The Grand Cafe follows the lives and hearts of four ordinary women while teaching English and basic business skills to immigrant and refugee women flexibly and from the convenience of their own homes. It is based on C.E.O. (Creating Economic Opportunity) Women’s highly successful 16 week training program that helps immigrant women develop entrepreneurial skills while they learn English. Each 28 minute episode of The Grand Cafe will teach English, build basic business skills including marketing, legal issues, negotiation skills, finance, public speaking and networking. Farhana Huq, Founder, C.E.O. Women, said, “The goal is to make the program much more interesting and accessible. The novellas will go straight to DVD first and be distributed to women so they can start the program in the comfort of their homes while accessing teacher resources.” Unlike other training DVD’s, The Grand Cafe will appeal to women that might otherwise feel intimidated or reluctant to engage in a training program. It will also reach those women who are not able to make it to the classroom because of travel, time or competing work or family commitments -the telenova comes to them. The video episodes are available through a combination of DVD’s, broadcast, and online distribution and includes a companion work book for independent study. With Since the DVD can easily be shared, the Grand Cafe lends itself to viral marketing. May Oliveros graduated from the program last year and successfully opened her own beauty salon where she often plays the Grand Cafe on the salon television to inspire her clients. www.youtube.com/watch?gl=CA&hl=en&v=zdulSlbbY_s&autoplay=1

• The Leicester Multicultural Advisory Group is a forum set up in 2001 by the editor of the local newspaper, the Leicester Mercury, to coordinate community relations, with members representing the council, police, schools, community and faith groups, and the media. http://media4diversity.eu/en/content/leicester-multicultural-advisory-group

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• The Helsinki Times, Six Degrees and the online English language version of Helsingin Sanomat provide a good services which ensures non-Finnish speakers access the media.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• There is very little representation of minorities in the broadcast and print media in Finland.

• There is an attitude in the Finnish media that to engage in dialogue with ethnic minorities and the city around intercultural relations would compromise its objectivity and independence. This is a failure to recognise that the media is never simply a detached

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observer in a city but an active and influential player.

RECOMMENDATIONS

� Key media agencies in the city should enter into a formal process of dialogue with the city and minority representatives.

6) An open and international city

OUTLINE

An optimal intercultural city would be a place which actively sought to make connections with other places for trade, exchange of knowledge, tourism etc. It would be a place which the stranger (whether business person, tourist or new migrant) found legible, friendly and accessible, with opportunities for entering into business, professional and social networks.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• What is the external image of the city? • Is it seen as cosmopolitan and open to outsiders? As a place to visit, to invest or do business in?

• How many local people believe that foreigners bring advantage to the city?

• How many people think foreign influences threaten local culture?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Proclaim that the city is both open to ideas and influences from the outside world and also seeks to outwardly project its own identity

• Establish independent trade and policy links with the countries of origin of minority groups

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• The city of Chicago felt the foreign policies of the United States did not fully reflect its perspective as a city with a vast number of different ethnicities, languages and connections to foreign countires, so it set up its own ‘foreign office’. See more about Global Initiative Chicago at http://gichicago.org/

• Oslo has a Strategy for the international cooperation which is pursued through agreements of cooperation, through international organizations, through networks and projects and through visits and international profiling. The themes of integration, diversity and tolerance are important to organizations and networks such as Eurocities, Metropolic, ECCAR and the Baltic Sea States Sub-regional Cooperation, as well as to agreements with cities as Gothenburg and St. Petersburg. There is an International Office in City Hall, and the city administration is represented within EU by its European Office in Brussels. In recent years, the city of Oslo has been profiled as a city of peace and tolerance, through the Nobel Peace Center and the new Wergeland Center – COE’s European Center for Intercultural Dialogue.

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• Currently, Finland has 11,000 international degree students and aims to increase this to 20,000 students in 2 years and Helsinki will be the focus of this growth

• The VALOA project, led by the University Career Services has joined 19 other universities, city councils and entrepreneur organizations to create a framework to transition these students into the local market.

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HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• There is no matching growth in accommodation making life in Helsinki very expensive for students

• Very high drop-out rate for foreign students

RECOMMENDATIONS

� Amsterdam’s integrated policy on welcoming outsiders ranging from its one stop Expat Centre to its marketing campaigns, publications and internet presence are a useful example for Helsinki to explore

7) A city with intercultural knowledge and intelligence

OUTLINE

A city cannot be intercultural if it is ignorant of its citizens, their diversity and lifestyles and how they interact with each other. An intercultural observatory takes existing data and interrogates it from an intercultural perspective. It also identifies gaps in the city’s knowledge base and where necessary devises new kinds of data and analysis to add depth and clarity to the ‘intercultural picture’.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• What does the city know about its own diversity and interculturality? • Does it routinely collect information on the basis of ethnicity? • What use does it make of such information to inform policy? • How well-informed is the city of good practice elsewhere? • How aware are local politicians and decision makers of how neighbourhoods and communities are changing as a consequence of globalisation?

• Do officials know where to go and who to ask to find accurate information on what is going on and what people think?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Set up an observatory or establish partnerships with a university or a research centre to begin the process of:

• Gather and process local information and data on ethnicity. • Conduct research into the state of cross-cultural interaction in the city • Establish and monitor intercultural indicators • Dispense advice and expertise to local agencies and facilitate local learning networks.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• One of Europe’s leading Intercultural Observatories is in Torino, see www.comune.torino.it/intercultura/

• Other good examples include: Interkulturelles Zentrum in Vienna, see www.iz.or.at/ Observatorio de las Migraciones y de la Convivencia Intercultural de la Ciudad de Madrid, see www.munimadrid.es/observatorio

• In Reggio Emilia, a partnership with the local university ensures monitoring of integration and well-being of migrants, the public opinion and the effects of city policies. (see also a paper by this university on the Reggio’s page on the Intercultural cities web site). Also the Centro Interculturale Mondinsieme at

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www.municipio.re.it/Assistenza/migrare05/migrare.nsf/pagine/0BDA35418C1FAD69C12570190031E84E?OpenDocument

• Every two years, a survey is held among the residents of Tilburg concerning people’s attitudes to ‘tmulticultural society’. This includes the same ten statements each time, so it is easy to compare the results. The city’s Research and Information department also conducts monitor studies, like the Poverty Monitor, the Integration Monitor, the Antilleans Monitor, the Moroccan Monitor, etc. which inform the policy of Tilburg.

• How does a city know if their integration efforts are being successful? For instance, what if a city needs or wants to know the percentage of children with migration backgrounds that are attending the local kindergarten in order to effectively track these numbers and decide whether the existing efforts are successful or if they need to be adapted? Demographic data in this area is often poorly maintained, incomplete, inconsistent or inaccessible. How can city planners and community actors measure their progress or learn from one another without access to standardized data in easy to use formats? With these concerns and questions in mind, the Bertelsmann Stiftung partnered with the state of North Rhine-Westphalia’s Ministry of Integration (MGFFI) and the GEBIT Institute in Münster to create an on-line database which provides data on community level integration and allows German cities to answer these and other demographic and data related questions. This project known as, “Wegweiser Kommune” covers approximately 85% of the German population and has become the first ever nationwide resource with data, projections and ideas at the municipal level. The site provides users with current data and facts about immigrant integration as well as analysis of the effects that these demographic developments are having. This data is available for all cities and municipalities in Germany that have 5,000 or more residents. www.wegweiser-kommune.de

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• Tietokeskus conducts a highly professional and comprehensive provision of urban facts about Helsinki, including a growing expertise in migration and diversity-related issues.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• Perhaps there is too great an emphasis in Finland on knowledge derived from empirical research. There are many other forms of knowledge and these become particularly appropriate when different cultures are trying to understand each other.

RECOMMENDATIONS

� Establish a department within Tietokesus dedicated to monitoring cultural diversity and interculturality within the city.

8) A city of intercultural skills and competence

OUTLINE

Very few people can be expected to be experts in more than a few of the languages and cultures of the many groups who live in a city. This is understandable. However, the competent public official in an optimal intercultural city should be able to detect, and respond to, the presence of cultural difference, and modulate their approach accordingly; rather than to seek to impose one mode of behaviour upon all situations. Such sensitivity

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and self-confidence in unfamiliar situations is not commonly-seen but it is a skill which can be acquired through expert training, and must become as important to the officials as their specific profession and technical skills.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• How many officials the city have been trained in cultural competence? • Is there a reliance on a few ‘experts’ in the city to handle all matters relating to cultural

diversity or is it seen as the responsibility of all?

• Does the process of making policy in the city take into account the impact a new policy may have on intercultural dialogue and co-operation within the city?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Initiate a programme of intercultural awareness training for politicians, and key policy and public interface staff in public sector agencies. Encourage the private sector to participate.

• Recruit municipality employees who represent the ethnic diversity mix of the community – even if specific recruitment policies would often need to be designed in order to reach some of the migrant or ethnic groups.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• The International City/County Management Association in the USA stresses the importance of senior public officials developing their linguistic and cultural competence http://icma.org/pm/8701/public/cover.cfm

• In the UK the Academy for Sustainable Communities has been established with the specific objective of raising the level of skills of those working in the planning and built environment professions. One of its priorities is improving skills for working in culturally diverse situations. See Planning and Engaging with Intercultural Communities: www.ascskills.org.uk/download/intercultural_communities.pdf and Promoting

Sustainable Communities and Community Cohesion: www.ascskills.org.uk/download/general/research/sc_cohesion.pdf

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• The Police Service has adopted cultural competence training for all officers, learning from international best practice, early anticipation of emergent problems etc.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• Aside from those officials who have a full time responsibility for dealing with integration issues, there does not appear to be a systematic plan to raising the cultural competence of city council staff

• There is little research into the differing requirements of different minorities in regard to public services, eg in the design of public housing. It would contradict the ethos of equality

• Planning and urban design policies seem unable to take account of the needs and aesthetics of minorities in public spaces, retail quarters and streets.

RECOMMENDATIONS

� Make amendments to the job descriptions of city officials requiring them to take account of the intercultural consequences of their work.

� Require all policy-making reports to the city council to outline their impact on intercultural relations.

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9) A Welcoming City

OUTLINE

People arriving in the city for an extended stay (whatever their circumstance) are likely find themselves disorientated and in need of multiple forms of support. The degree to which these various support measures can be co-ordinated and delivered effectively will have a major impact upon how the person settles and integrates. What is often overlooked, but which has a powerful impact on intercultural relations, is whether those from the host community have been given any prior preparations or, on the contrary might they feel surprised or alarmed by the new arrival.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• When foreign migrants arrive in your city do they have to fend for themselves or is there a mechanism for guiding them through the system?

• How well-prepared and informed are established communities to receive neighbours of a different culture?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Initiate welcoming initiatives and urban exploration projects whereby new arrivals (temporary and permanent) but – equally importantly - local citizens, can visit parts of the city they have not previously been, hosted by people of different cultures.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• In Bremen they recognise that successful integration involves practices that allow both groups to adjust and build a genuine relationship. The value of this relationship building is at the heart of the Bremen-based integration program called “Mentoren für Migranten” (memi) or Mentors for Migrants. So far 130 German families have volunteered to “sponsor” immigrant families as mentors in order to help them get started and adjusted to their new lives. Along the way, both groups have the opportunity to learn about each other and build their relationships. The strength of the Mimi program is that is measures success based on whether the families build actual long term relationships with each other www.tjv-bremen.de

• Time Together, is a volunteer refugee mentoring initiative in London addressing the often overlooked challenges associated with integration, as well as the practical issues of English language and employment seeking. After new arrivals register they are matched with a local volunteer who may, for example, take them on the London Underground for the first time or visit local attractions such as museums. First both potential mentors and mentees undergo training separately depending on their role in the pair, which can cover concepts of integration, refugee issues, and the essentials to mentoring. It is at this stage that people in the programme also become familiar with the mutual commitments of mentors, mentees and the programme coordinator. After training, potential pairs are introduced in a group environment, have the chance to read their partners written profiles of interests and skills, and also hear from the coordinator about each person’s needs and expectations in the relationship. Out of the study sample of thirty mentors and mentees, twenty-two of the mentors had successfully enhanced the integration of their mentees. This was judged through the help and advice they offered on practical matters concerning everyday life in Britain, building and sustaining confidence in their mentees, and contributing to their mentee’s English language improvement. Furthermore, seven of the twenty-two mentors reported life-altering experiences, which often formed the basis of strong, mutually-beneficial friendships. www.timetogether.org.uk

• The city of Rotterdam has set up an integrated system for language tuition, housing

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and labour market integration for new arrivals, see Welkom in Rotterdam www.welkominrotterdam.nl. It also provides ways in which citizens can explore parts of their own city that might not otherwise visit such as the homes of people of different ethnicity, through City Safari, see www.citysafari.nl/

• Peterborough has been allocated about 78 per cent of asylum-seekers dispersed to the East of England region. Agencies who work with these new arrivals created the ‘New Link’ project. The initiative is a one-stop shop of service providers. It is operating nine projects over a three-year period to help integrate new arrivals. www.poor-refugee.org

• The Portuguese National Center of Culture edited a Guide to Intercultural Lisbon. It enables a discovery of a metropolis increasingly marked by cultural and ethnic diversity and contributes to the mutual knowledge and interaction between the different groups present in Lisbon. Starting with a historical introduction, the guide presents a range of places such as Chinese and Indian shops, eastern therapy centres, African astrology, Bulgarian, Ukrainian or German religious institutions, among others, not relinquishing the importance of community associations. www.cnc.pt/Noticias.aspx?ID=656

• In Cardiff the Police Service of South Wales has gone out of its way to build strong connections with local refugees and asylum seekers. It partnered with language teachers to set up Cardiff Police ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) and designed a course to provide asylum seekers with an understanding of their respective rights and responsibilities, while building a relationship of trust with them. The result was the first police-led language classes for a newcomer community. The course was popular and classes succeeded in strengthening their confidence in the Police, their comfort in the UK and improving their written and spoken English. Cardiff Police now encourage increasing numbers of officers to attend these classes and to share in the outreach experience. www.learningobservatory.com/uploads/publications/784.pdf

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• All legal migrants have the right to a subsidised programme of integration measures during their first three years of residency.

• The University has a three-stage process and dedicated officials for new foreign members of staff including a welcome pack

• Improving the welcoming services to new arrivals in the city is considered the priority

action for the Immigration Division • The Jolly Dragon website provides an excellent service for foreigners and local to

encounter new friends outside the workplace.

HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• There is no standard welcome pack available for all foreign new arrivals and the University’s pack is far too bulky

• The University has no comprehensive records of who its foreign staff and students are how well, or not, they may be integrating.

RECOMMENDATIONS

� Conduct a thorough exercise to streamline the process by new arrival are welcomed and integrated to the city in the first few weeks of arrival.

10) Governance, leadership and citizenship

OUTLINE

Perhaps the most powerful and far-reaching actions which a city can take in making a city more intercultural are the processes of democratic representation and decision-making.

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Clearly some of these may be determined nationally, but there is much that a city council can do to influence the way in which diverse groups interact and co-operate around the allocation of power and resources.

QUESTIONS A CITY SHOULD ASK ITSELF

• Are city leaders well-informed about the city in all its diversity? • Are there clear procedures for taking multi-agency action in relation to community relations issues?

• Does the city have an umbrella body to represent all ethnic minorities and which is independent of the local authority?

• Does the local authority have a cross-departmental body for overseeing implementation of the city’s policy on integration and intercultural relations?

• Does the city account take account of the improvement of intercultural relations when it is designing and implementing programmes of public consultation?

• Does the city encourage actions (for example neighbourhood management forums) in which neighbours of different ethnic/cultural background can participate together in the development of their area?

• How do political and community leaders in the city emerge? How open is the system to newcomers and outsiders?

• Do community leaders speak only for their own ethnicity or a broader interest group? • Does the city nurture cross-cultural leaders who emerge outside the formal political and community channels?

ACTIONS A CITY MIGHT CONSIDER

• Establish an intercultural integration office with a broad transversal mandate, right to initiative and an adequate budget to deal with integration and intercultural matters.

• Establish a representative body where community relations and issues can be discussed and co-ordinated, multi-agency action taken, as an advisory or decision-making organ for the intercultural integration office.

• Develop schemes to encourage participation and decision-making at the street or neighbourhood level, including the allocation of financial resources by the local residents for neighbourhood initiatives.

• In the absence of a formal right to local vote for foreigners, introduce alternative schemes such as shadow or observer councillors elected by the foreigner communities.

• Give considerable space and support to individual and group independent initiatives, not only to initiatives by formal organisations.

• Encourage (including through special funding or the provision of common office/meeting facilities) migrant/minority organisations to develop joint initiatives.

INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICE

• DiverseCity onBoard is an award-winning initiative that seeks to change the face of city leadership by working to ensure that the governance bodies of public agencies, boards and commissions as well as voluntary organizations accurately reflect the diversity of the people who live and work in the Greater Toronto Area. It was launched in 2005, by the Maytree Foundation to bridge the growing gap between the diversity of Toronto’s population and its leaders, and to help connect public institutions to the talent they need for competitive growth and urban prosperity. Using practical and direct initiatives, DiverseCity OnBoard works to ensure that the governance bodies of public agencies, boards and commissions as well as voluntary organizations reflect the diversity of the people who live and work in the GTA. It does this by identifying qualified pre-screened candidates from visible minorities and immigrant communities for professional appointments on boards and committees. By professionalizing the appointment process, the program seeks to prevent board tokenism by helping organizations committed to diversity find the best candidates with the right skills - rather then simply people with the right skin colour. www.diversecitytoronto.ca/diversecity-onboard

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• In many parts of Europe migrants are disbarred from playing any part in national or local election until they have been naturalized, and then can take years or even decades. As part of its Plan for Convivencia and Intercultural Living, the City of Madrid has decreed that anyone who has been a resident of the city for 6 months, regardless of whether they hold Spanish citizenship, can take part in elections for local districts. And furthermore they can stand for office to serve on local committees which take decisions about and spend public money on their neighbourhoods. Giving people a responsibility for and a stake in their own district is one of the most fundamental and effective way of making citizens of people. Itndigenous people who have become complacent about their own citizenship could learn much from these foreigners who breath new life and energy into their adopted cities. www.munimadrid.es

• Going to a pharmacy to have a prescription filled, opening and accessing a local bank account, using any public service including getting a library card - all of these require identification - something that many immigrants don’t have. To overcome this hurdle, Mayor John DeStafano has led the initiative to have the City of New Haven approve a municipal ID card - the first of its kind in any American city. The card is universally available to all New Haven residents regardless of citizenship status. The Elm City Residence Card (named for the trees that once dominated the regional landscape) was launched in July 2007. It was created to specifically address several specific areas of concern in the immigrant community specifically: public safety, access to financial services, access to government services, and knowledge about civil liberties and individual rights. The card is not interchangeable with a drivers license or visa. However, what it does is validate its holders as full fledged participants in civil society. http://newhavenindependent.org/archives/2005/10/A_City_to_Model.pdf

• The UK-based Operation Black Vote (www.obv.org.uk) has set up a scheme in Liverpool where young migrants can shadow established local politicians so they better understand what the job involves and encourage them to engage in politics. In other cities it has enabled migrants to shadow Members of Parliament and magistrates. It runs training courses in ‘Understanding Power’ and is involved in the London Empowerment Partnership and the London Civic Forum, which is a network of 1300 full member organisations and associate individual members, from the capital’s private, public and not-for-profit sectors which aims to increase and improve civic participation in London.

• The Intercultural Communication and Leadership School is active in France, Britain, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands training young people from different communities in European cities to become the next generation of cross-cultural leaders: www.intercivilization.net

• The city of Subotica has all together 36 local offices out of which 17 are in the nearby settlements. These offices have a council and a general assembly and this way the locals can contribute to the questions or problems concerning their neighbourhood. In one of the city’s neighbourhoods called Peščara live 500 Romas who came from Kosovo. Among other activities the REC formed in this neighbourhood a Board of parents, this way allowing them to have representatives in the school and on the local office as well. This body also took part in the animation of the Roma and non-Roma community to find a common priority question to be solved: building of a road in the neighbourhood. So we can say that the road was the “instrument/tool” to bring the two communities closer and make the communication better between the two. www.ec-roma.org.rs/en/index.htm

HELSINKI’S STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• Infopankki.fi is a comprehensive database for a wide range of people from established minorities to those still anticipating migration to Finland

• The Helsinki Palvelukarttaan (Service Map) provides an easy means for all citizens to access services in their neighbourhood

• Neighbourhoods in the increasingly diverse suburbs are demanding more local democracy, eg councillors in Kontula are obliged to participate in local debates and events.

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HELSINKI’S WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

• Unlike the Ombudsman for Equality in Finland, the Ombudman for Minorities has no formal authority to intervene in discrimination in the workplace

• The lack of a tradition of a third sector in Finland makes it difficult to maintain services for less privileged communities as state/city provision is withdrawn. There is a desperate need to develop citizen-led services

• Although the city is excellent at proving information to citizens, most of it is a one-way process. There should be more opportunities for citizens to contribute to the databanks. This would give a far richer picture of Helsinki as a city of diversity

RECOMMENDATIONS

� Establish a formal representative body for minority ethnic groups and formal processes of dialogue with public agencies and the city.

� Initiative a campaign to encourage minorities to register to vote in local elections.

� Establish the status of “Citizen of Helsinki” even for those who have yet to attain Finnish national status.

� Establish neighbourhood governance structures with electoral processes, decision-making powers and budgets.

Phil Wood and Charles Landry COMEDIA March 2010 philwood@comedia.org.uk charleslandry@comedia.org.uk