Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=chos20 Housing Studies ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/chos20 Awareness of segregation in a welfare state: a Finnish local policy perspective Katriina Rosengren, Jarkko Rasinkangas & Hannu Ruonavaara To cite this article: Katriina Rosengren, Jarkko Rasinkangas & Hannu Ruonavaara (02 Nov 2023): Awareness of segregation in a welfare state: a Finnish local policy perspective, Housing Studies, DOI: 10.1080/02673037.2023.2269114 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2023.2269114 © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Published online: 02 Nov 2023. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Housing studies Awareness of segregation in a welfare state: a Finnish local policy perspective Katriina Rosengrena,b , Jarkko Rasinkangasa and Hannu Ruonavaaraa,c adepartment of social Research, Faculty of social sciences, university of turku, turku, Finland; bschool of Arts, design, and Architecture, Aalto university, espoo, Finland; cinstitute of Housing and urban Research (iBF), uppsala university, uppsala, sweden ABSTRACT Segregation is a relatively recent issue in larger Finnish cities. The existence of segregation contradicts the Nordic welfare model, and segregation has been raised to the national policy level in Finland to combat a slowly widening gap between social groups on a spa- tial level. Local municipalities are central actors in urban policies. Therefore, we look at segregation from a local policy perspective. Our results confirm that segregation has not been seen as a burn- ing issue in Finland on a local level, and recognition depends on the size of the city. Where segregation is acknowledged, it is often named a problem in city strategies but does not translate into anti-segregation policies locally. In mid-size cities, ‘spatial depriva- tion’ rather than segregation is acknowledged, rendering system- atic interventions aimed at segregation even more difficult. Introduction Finland is a Nordic welfare state where the level of residential segregation has been low in international comparison. Nevertheless, segregation has raised concern recently. For example, preventing or combating residential segregation was mentioned four times as a goal of housing and urban policy in the program of Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s government of 2019-2023 (Finnish Government, 2019). Even more importantly, the Housing Policy Development Programme approved by the Finnish parliament singles out the prevention of residential segregation as a policy goal (Finnish Government, 2021). Concern rose in Finland much later than, for example, in Sweden, where segregation has been a political issue since the early 1970s (Andersson, Dhalmann, et  al., 2010, p. 237; Holmqvist & Bergsten, 2009, p. 477). The existence of residential segregation contradicts the Nordic welfare model. Universal benefits characterise this social democratic model: generous benefit levels © 2023 the Author(s). Published by informa uK Limited, trading as taylor & Francis group CONTACT Katriina Rosengren katriina.rosengren@utu.fi department of social Research, Faculty of social sciences, university of turku, Finland; school of Arts, design, and Architecture, Aalto university, Finland https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2023.2269114 this is an open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 5 October 2022 Accepted 2 October 2023 KEYWORDS Segregation; local governance; housing policies; land use policies; Nordic countries; Finland 2 K. ROSENGREN ET AL. and well-developed services, financed with high progressive taxation, keeping income inequalities narrow. Recently, welfare policies in all Nordic countries have adopted neoliberal characteristics and moved away from the ideal-typical Nordic model. Nevertheless, the Nordic policies and policy discourses are characterized by an egalitarian ethos for which the rise in urban segregation ‘presents a profound chal- lenge’ (Kauppinen, 2002, p. 179; Tunström et  al., 2016, p. 7). Therefore, urban segregation levels that would not be considered high elsewhere may cause concern in these countries. By residential segregation, we refer to the separation of socioeconomic and ethnic groups at a spatial level (Tunström et  al., 2016, p. 7). In a residentially segregated city, different socioeconomic or ethnic groups reside in separate neighbourhoods. They may also be socially segregated, with different experiences and social networks. The absence of residential segregation does not guarantee the absence of social segregation; it only provides a possibility of contact between groups. Our focus here is on resi- dential segregation; when speaking of segregation in the rest of the paper, we refer to it. Separating lived experiences and social networks can be seen as a problem. However, segregation also has other problems: it may lead to the polarisation of affluent and deprived neighbourhoods – or, more realistically, the creation of a hierarchical ordering of neighbourhoods ‘derived from a ranking system that reflects superiority based on wealth, status, and power’ (Marcuse, 2005, p. 15). In neighbourhoods at the lower end of the ranking, there is a risk of concentration of social problems and stigmati- sation by outsiders. Andersen has vividly described the vicious circles of accumulated problems in deprived neighbourhoods (see Skifter Andersen, 2003). Possibly, the most critical root cause of residential segregation in Europe is the inequality of economic resources. Therefore, redistributing economic resources to diminish economic inequal- ities is sometimes considered the most effective anti-segregation measure (Andersson et  al., 2010). However, here we concentrate on the policy agenda targeted at residential segregation and especially the role of municipalities in recognising it. Segregation is now clearly addressed as a problem in Finland’s current national policy. The above-mentioned state-level policy programmes highlight housing policy solutions, such as the spatial distribution of housing, as essential instruments in addressing segregation. Against this background, segregation would be expected to be equally addressed in local policies. In this paper, we analyse these local policies to determine to which extent different types of urban municipalities find segregation problematic. Municipalities enjoy a significant degree of autonomy in land use, housing policies, and local welfare in Finland and other Nordic countries, and are in a critical position in responding to residential segregation problems. The paper adds knowledge about a Nordic welfare state’s response to segregation at the local level (Alves, 2022 on Denmark; Andersson et  al., 2010; Holmqvist & Bergsten, 2009 on Sweden), pro- viding a potentially useful framework for studying segregation policies elsewhere. Segregation in Finland Finland’s capital city, Helsinki, shows internationally low levels of segregation, with lower levels than its Nordic metropolitan counterparts, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Oslo (Torpan et  al., 2022; Tunström et  al., 2016, p. 37). Ethnic segregation is low HOuSING STudIES 3 in Helsinki, arguably attributable to a small population of immigrants (8% nationally in 2021, 17% in the metropolitan area) and a conscious and long-term policy of social mixing (Skifter Andersen et  al., 2016). In contrast to other Nordic countries, Finnish cities do not have highly ethnically segregated areas such as neighbouring Sweden, nor has there been the kind of urban unrest experienced there (Holdo & Bengtsson, 2020; Malmberg et  al., 2013). The Finnish government has not felt the political need for strong reactive measures such as the ‘ghetto initiatives’ of Denmark (Dobbernack, 2022; Seemann, 2021). In Finland, segregation research has primarily focused on analysing the spatial concentration of the disadvantaged and paid little attention to the segregation of the advantaged. This, in general, is no different from international research on segregation (Lees, 2008). Finnish research literature often refers to an essay from 1992 by the prominent Finnish sociologist Erik Allardt (1930-2022). He argued that social heterogeneity of neighbourhoods was not a problem in itself and that it was important that residents could settle in environments they choose ‘within reasonable limits.’ However, all neighbourhoods should be guaranteed a relatively high ‘minimum of services and living spaces.’ Therefore, segregation could be tolerated if it did not endanger the provision of the minimum welfare for all neighbourhoods (Allardt, 1992, p. 58). Finnish research has referred to acceptable segregation with the term ‘spatial differentiation,’ whereas ‘segregation’ has been reserved for the kind that produces an unmet minimum level of welfare in neighbourhoods. A ground-breaking work in Finnish segregation research was Mari Vaattovaara’s dissertation (Vaattovaara, 1998), where she showed that the Helsinki region was not polarised into areas of poverty and wealth but more of a social mosaic of pockets of disadvantage, living side-by-side with pockets of wellbeing (see also, e.g. Dhalmann & Vilkama, 2009; Tunström et  al., 2016). This acknowledgment of ‘spatial differen- tiation’ was, at the time, the established view on the segregation situation in the Helsinki region (and also of urban Finland more generally). Nonetheless, several subsequent contributions to research anticipated that this ‘spatial differentiation’ could evolve into a broader neighbourhood-level decay cycle theorized earlier by Hans Skifter Anderson (Andersen, 1995, 2002; see also: Kortteinen et  al., 2006; Kortteinen & Vaattovaara, 2000). Discussions on emerging segregation were initially heated: scholars debated the methodology, novelty, and gravity of the situation (Alasuutari et  al., 2006; Kortteinen & Vaattovaara, 2007; Lankinen, 2006, 2007). In an article from 2015, Matti Kortteinen and Vaattovaara scrutinised the earlier shared view of the ‘spatial differentiation’ in the Helsinki region. The region was still a social mosaic of neighbourhoods, but segregation was happening on a smaller scale than in entire neighbourhoods. Their statistical analysis on a block scale showed that between 1990 and 2010, the number of blocks suffering from multiple disadvantages had tripled. Moreover, these disadvantaged blocks had started to cluster. What was previously merely spatial differentiation was anticipated to develop into more pronounced concentrations of disadvantage. The authors identified the metropolitan area as entering the ‘age of segregation’ (Kortteinen & Vaattovaara, 2015). Here, the term ‘segregation’ refers to the negative trends of social differen- tiation of neighbourhoods that Skifter Andersen has analyzed in his various writings. 4 K. ROSENGREN ET AL. As a research topic, segregation has not received the same focus in Finland as in Sweden or Denmark (Tunström et  al., 2016, p. 17). Only in the 2000s and par- ticularly in the last decade has it become more evident on the national political agenda. It can also be argued that researchers and administrations have long avoided the term segregation because it has been seen as stigmatising the neighbourhoods concerned. International examples of areas stigmatised by segregation may have contributed to this. Instead, studies have often analysed social differentiation or separation more neutrally, referring to the inherent socio-spatial diversity of urban areas. Finnish residential segregation research has focused on Finland’s capital city, Helsinki, and its surrounding urban region. This is understandable as the Helsinki region is the only metropolitan area in Finland, and also because Helsinki was the first city in Finland to become aware of and respond to the segregation problem through social mix policies since the 1970s (Vaattovaara et  al., 2018). Segregation was raised as an issue of public concern in the 1990s in Helsinki by policymakers and researchers alike, mainly due to the early 1990s severe economic depression’s impact on the urban structure: some of the area’s outer residential areas housing low- and middle-income households were hit hard by unemployment (Dhalmann, 2013; Dhalmann & Vilkama, 2009; Kauppinen, 2002). At the same time, net immi- gration began to increase in Finland, concentrating in the largest cities and generally in the same areas as the unemployment clusters. The research project Urbanization, Mobilities and Immigration (URMI) investi- gated ethnic and income segregation in the three largest urban regions around Helsinki, Tampere, and Turku 2005-2014 (Saikkonen et  al., 2018). Researchers found (somewhat expected) differences between immigrant groups categorised as Western, East European, and other foreign-born; the first being least segregated and the last most segregated. However, the dissimilarity index for the most segregated group was at the highest, slightly over 40%, in the Turku region, whereas index numbers were just above 30% in other regions (see also Hirvonen & Puustinen 2016)1. Therefore, this segregation level was not exceptionally high and did not change much in the research period. The analysis of income segregation proceeded by pairwise comparisons: low/high, low/middle, and high/middle-income households. There was more increase in income segregation, especially of low-income households from high and middle-income households. The index numbers also showed low or moderate segregation in the case of income segregation. In terms of spatial socioeconomic differences, deprivation in Finland concentrates in areas built in the 1960s and 1970s (Kemppainen et  al., 2018; Stjernberg, 2019; Vaattovaara et  al., 2018) or areas on the outskirts of the city with a high proportion of social housing (Saikkonen et  al., 2018, p. 60; Vilkama, 2011), often spatially overlapping. These areas date back to the 1960s and 1970s extensive migration to cities. The resulting housing shortage was tackled by constructing prefabricated block housing around city centres with access to nature, the ‘forest suburb.’ Since their conception, these residential neighbourhoods have become residential environments for low-income households, the unemployed, and immigrants since the severe eco- nomic depression in the early 1990s. Mats Stjernberg (2023) found that in suburban neighbourhoods from the 1960s and 1970s, changes in social structure have been HOuSING STudIES 5 significant in the past decades: ageing and a diminishing household size have led to a general decrease in population but an increase of non-native speakers. He found that these areas had declined socioeconomically, but there was large variation among neighbourhoods and regions, with shrinking city regions suffering the most. In a recent study on 14 Finnish cities2, Kauppinen and Mukkila (2022) found that the share of low-income residents grew faster in neighbourhoods with previously low-income status, and this was linked to their housing type (multi-storey housing) and a large share of social rental housing. The share of low-income residents grew fastest in neighbourhoods built in the 1970s–1990s. Apart from these studies focusing on the largest urban regions in Finland, there is little systematic or comparative research on segregation in smaller cities at the time of writing, particularly those with shrinking populations. However, almost all cities have neighbourhoods where disadvantage is somewhat concentrated. These neighbourhoods have also been targets of repeated renewal projects. The situation in Finland is no different from that in most European countries, where deprivation is similarly concentrated in large areas of post-World War II rental apartment blocks (Hess et  al., 2018). Nevertheless, segregation has long not generated the same need for a strong response in Finland as in many European countries. Managing segregation in Finland Segregation management in Finland has been relatively small-scale compared to many other European countries. The responsibility for preventing segregation has mainly been at the level of individual municipalities and has thus largely depended on their own political and strategic decisions. The social mixing policy implemented by the City of Helsinki since the early 1970s is an excellent example of this (Vaattovaara et  al., 2018). The state’s role has been more coordinating, enabling, and incentive-based. As a result, Finland has not seen the kind of large-scale urban reform projects primarily aimed at influencing segregation that has been implemented in many countries as a state-led agenda (Andersson, Bråmå et  al., 2010; Hess et  al., 2018; Carpenter, 2018; Costarelli et  al., 2019; Kleinhans, 2004). Finland’s relatively late urbanisation can partly explain this, and most cities are still relatively small in population. For example, with the deep economic recession of the 1990s, poverty became more of an urban than a rural phenomenon for the first time in Finnish history. Similarly, it was only in the same decade that Finland became a net recipient of migration (Dhalmann, 2013; Kauppinen, 2002; Skifter Andersen et  al., 2016). In response to earlier progress, the most explicit anti-segregation measures at the national level in Finland have been the Suburban development programmes coor- dinated by the Ministry of the Environment3. As early as the 1980s, the so-called ‘SoFy’ projects were the starting point aimed at simultaneously developing the social and physical environment in some deprived urban neighbourhoods. In the 1990s, area-based urban renewal was extended to many neighbourhoods and cities through- out Finland. Although Suburban development programmes have had segregation objectives, they have been most successful in implementing relatively small-scale and technical physical environmental improvements, such as green spaces. Social development is present but not central. The focus has been on promoting the 6 K. ROSENGREN ET AL. wellbeing of residents rather than on changing the population structure or housing stock of the target areas, although there has been some small-scale infill development in specific neighbourhoods. Concerning Finland, the same can be said of the EU-funded urban regeneration projects of the late 2000s, which targeted a small number of Finnish cities (Urban I and II, Objective 2) and contributed to the har- monisation of the social objectives of European urban regeneration policies (see, e.g. Hamedinger et  al., 2008). Another essential feature of the Suburban development programmes is that, despite central government coordination, the municipalities have voluntarily participated and chosen their targets. This again underlines the independent role of municipalities in Finnish urban renewal and segregation management. However, Finland has a long and relatively consistent tradition and continuity of suburban renewal inter- ventions, which are preventive rather than remedial. These initiatives have also led to cross-sectoral cooperation within cities and increased awareness of segregation management. In addition, segregation management has become more prominent in the most recent programming periods of Suburban development programmes (2013-2015 and 2020-2022). From the point of view of urban planning and housing policy, municipalities are also largely autonomous in their decisions and implementation. A significant reform was the 1993 Reform of State Contributions, which significantly strength- ened the autonomous decision-making power of municipalities. Similarly, the Land Use and Building Act (1999), which came into force in 2000, strengthened the autonomy of municipalities by removing the obligation for municipalities to submit plans to the state authorities for approval. Land use, zoning, and housing policy became more clearly an independent activity for municipalities to consider, and municipalities do not have many statutory obligations in this respect. For example, Finnish municipalities are not obliged to formulate a housing policy programme or maintain rental housing production. At the same time, neoliberal developments have led to an intensification of economic interests in housing policy and com- petition between municipalities for good taxpayers (see, e.g. Hyötyläinen & Haila, 2018). The perceived competition between municipalities, urban sprawl, lack of affordable housing, and increasing segregation have led the Government to intervene from time to time with various incentives for cooperation between municipalities in urban regions. The most recent measure is the MAL agreements: land use (M), housing (A), and transport (L)4. The first agreements have been implemented since 2011 in the four largest urban regions, and three other regions have been included in the latest agreement period, which started in 2020. MAL agreements are signed by state organisations responsible for urban questions (Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Transport and Communication, et cetera) and the municipalities of the largest urban regions. Their primary goal is to increase cooperation between municipalities in urban regions and the central Government by specifying jointly agreed goals of land use, housing production, and transport networks for a specific period (Lawson & Ruonavaara, 2020, p. 51). Additionally, they aim to improve ‘the functioning and competitiveness of urban regions and ensure a balanced development of municipal- ities’ (site cited above). HOuSING STudIES 7 Despite their name, MAL agreements are not binding agreements but letters of intent, where municipalities are promised state support if they fulfill the goals in the agreements. Whether the municipalities fulfill these goals is ultimately in the hands of local councils. MAL agreements contribute to providing cohesiveness to planning in growing areas where municipal borders have previously prevented sys- temic planning, but they also have been criticised for increasing regional polarisation, lack of public participation, ‘one-size fits all’ solutions et cetera (Bäcklund et  al., 2017; Granqvist et  al., 2021; Moisio, 2018). Despite the shortcomings and criticism of the agreement-based system, MAL agreements currently serve as Finland’s primary form of voluntary regional and cross-sectoral spatial cooperation. However, imple- menting the MAL goals is left to the municipalities. Municipalities are also in a critical position in managing segregation in the smaller urban municipalities without MAL agreements. They are not bound to national goals of preventing segregation. Research design As segregation is now clearly addressed in national policy, we expect segregation to be concurrently discussed and underlying mechanisms analysed within local policies. In the following sections, we analyse the extent to which Finnish local land use and housing policies recognize and address problematic segregation in an urban context. We examine whether, how, and in which context cities voice problematic segregation in their policies. We assume that recognition of the problematic segre- gation and measures to tackle it vary between categories of cities of different sizes and situations. Therefore, our last research question aims to answer whether there are differences in the above questions between different city categories. In the fol- lowing section, we present our sample cities and a framework to categorize these cities. The paper does not focus on estimating whether the municipalities’ policy reactions to segregation are based on an accurate reading of the situation in the municipality, which we cannot do comprehensively due to a lack of data. We presented in the previous section some results of previous research about the segregation situation in Finnish municipalities. However, these covered only a part of the municipalities in this study. Finnish statistical research on segregation has focused on the largest munic- ipalities, and we know little of the situation in the smaller municipalities in the sample.5 We investigate the above research questions with data from a sample of 20 cities in Finland: three metropolitan area cities, six large cities with regional MAL agree- ments, five medium-sized growing and six medium-sized shrinking cities. The sample contains cities with populations from 52,000 to 657,000 inhabitants, and its total number covers about 74% of the Finnish urban population in 2020. Finland is one of the least urbanised countries in Europe. Our twenty case cities have small pop- ulations and are sparsely linked geographically: what in Finland is a ‘medium-sized’ city might correspond to towns in more dense European regions. Three of our case cities (Helsinki, Tampere, and Turku) with their respective surrounding regions form an economic triangle, the population of these city regions accounting for approxi- mately half of the Finnish population. The other case cities lie beyond this economic triangle and range in size from 52,000 to 100,000 residents, excluding Oulu (see Figure 1). 8 K. ROSENGREN ET AL. Figure 1. twenty case cities in Finland. HOuSING STudIES 9 Due to the large variety of situations in our case cities, we needed to divide them into categories along relevant background variables (Table 1). In the first stage of categorization, we applied demographic criteria. The first city category consists of cities belonging to the Helsinki metropolitan area, housing nearly 1.6 million resi- dents in a dense, polycentric urban structure. The second category consists of large central municipalities with over 100,000 residents, and the third consists of medium-sized cities with 50,000 to 100,000 residents. Because of a smaller popula- tion, the medium-sized cities are also more monocentric than the large cities above. We further divided the medium-sized city group into ‘growing’ and ‘shrinking’ cities according to population growth in the past decade6. We anticipate the population growth rate to be associated with the local economy and housing activity, driving more robust land use policies (Falkenbach et  al., 2021, pp. 67–68). Due to the anticipated impact of MAL agreements on urban and housing policy, we included such an agreement as an additional criterion. As the agreements only cover the seven largest city regions, this criterion strongly links to the demographic criteria explained above. In the large cities category, Tampere, Turku, and Oulu have established MAL agreements dating back to the early 2010s and have a population of approximately 200,000 residents in the central municipality alone. Jyväskylä, Lahti, and Kuopio are smaller in population than the three others and have only started implementing their first agreements, signed in 2020–2021. We anticipate that cities will show differences in multi-sectoral urban policies and their recognition of seg- regation, depending on both population size and duration of MAL agreements. Research data As data, we use urban policy documents: mainly land use/housing policies and city strategies published online by the case cities from 2008 to 2021. In addition, for Table 1. Case cities by category (statistical source: statistics Finland, 2022). City category City name City population 31.12.2020 City population growth 2010–2020, % growth projection until 2040, % Regional population 31.12.2020 Metropolitan area cities with regional MAL agreement (3) Helsinki 656 920 11.6 11.1 1,585,220 espoo 292 796 18.1 21.4 Vantaa 237 231 18.6 21.1 Large cities with regional MAL agreement (6) tampere 241 009 13.0 8.8 416,977 turku 194 391 9.6 16.5 335,145 oulu 207 327 11.8 11.1 254,852 Jyväskylä 143 420 9.6 6.8 187,111 Lahti 119 984 2.9 −0.9 205,771 Kuopio 120 210 7,0 4.7 141,461 Medium-sized. growing cities (5) seinäjoki 64 130 10.9 7.5 131,086 Vaasa 67 551 5.0 −1.4 108,907 Joensuu 76 935 5.0 0.8 127,011 Lappeenranta 72 662 0.9 −3.5 88,123 Rovaniemi 63 528 5.7 5.9 67,240 Medium-sized. shrinking cities (6) Hämeenlinna 67 848 1.5 −0.6 93,474 salo 51 562 −6.6 −12.6 60,208 Kotka 51 668 −5.8 −14.9 81,625 Kouvola 81 187 −7.8 −16.8 81,187 Mikkeli 52 583 −3.4 −14.3 69,518 Pori 83 684 −1.6 −9,4 130,623 10 K. ROSENGREN ET AL. background, we use regional cooperation policy documents such as MAL agreements, which guide municipal land use and housing policies on the regional scale. Regarding comprehensiveness within the metropolitan region, we include data from the three largest central municipalities of the region: Helsinki, Vantaa, and Espoo, accounting for about two-thirds of the regional population. In total, the number of used policy documents was 82. We expect references to segregation to be scarce in policy documents due to the sensitivity of the issues outside the MAL agreement cities. Therefore, we have also used interviews of officials from 18 of the 20 cities involved to understand the difference between concerns and strategies voiced in official, politically approved documents, as opposed to unofficial views of individual officials working with land use or housing policy issues7. In the telephone interviews in 2019, the interviewees were asked two main questions. The first question concerned spatial concentrations of disadvantage or segregation, and the second actions to counteract segregation. After a general question about the nature of the city’s policy measures, we asked about using social mixing as an anti-segregation strategy. Later, we asked the inter- viewee to pinpoint segregated areas in their city. Our method of analysis was qualitative content analysis (see e.g. Schreier, 2012). We constructed a coding framework that was both concept-driven and data-driven: it was initially constructed based on research literature and then elaborated by observations from several rounds of analysing the data. Two questions were high-level themes: (1) Do cities voice goals related to segregation? (2) Which specific goals are mentioned in conjunction with tackling segregation? In addition, specific policy measures used to tackle segregation were extracted from the interviews and docu- ments. To simplify the analysis, the data was coded in binary form: either the issue was found in interviews or policy documents or was not found. After coding indi- vidual interviews and documents, results were first gathered by city and then aggre- gated into categories to form a broader picture of the recognition of a theme in each city category. As a result, we could more easily understand how each issue related to the parameters of our city categorisation: population size, growth rate, and the state guidance in housing and land use policy through MAL agreements. Diverging urban policy frameworks, Diverging views of segregation as a problem We start with the idea that an urban policy framework is necessary to tackle multi-faceted problems such as segregation, and the absence of such a framework can hinder the recognition and operationalisation of such problems. In our analysis, we aim first to define the basis for (municipal) urban policy, which could, theoretically, tackle complex, ‘wicked’ problems (Rittel & Webber, 1973) such as segregation, and then move on to analyse how these cities use their existing policy framework to identify and assess the problematic issue of segregation. Secondly, we ask whether segregation is problematised and in which context. In this section, we first analyse the urban policy framework of the twenty cities through document analysis and then move to analyse acknowledging segregation through both document analysis and interviews. HOuSING STudIES 11 In the twenty cities studied, all cities have a city strategy, due to the statutory nature of the document: the Municipal Act requires every municipality to have a city strategy, which must be updated every four years after municipal council elec- tions (Local Government Act, 2015, sec. 37). In contrast to the statutory nature of city strategies, land use and housing policies are voluntary in Finland. Despite this, land use policy documents are widely used in growing cities (Falkenbach et  al., 2021, p. 31). We also find that land use policy documents are relatively common in all studied cities, with only a few cities missing (Table 2a). In all of the larger cities with MAL agreements, housing has its own policy or is combined with land use: this may relate to the quantitative housing provision requirements given in the MAL template. Housing policy documents are less common in smaller cities, with only three of the eleven smaller cities providing one (Table 2b). Because segregation policies through social mix in Finland are historically operationalised through the provision of social rental housing (for analysis and criticism, see Rasinkangas et  al., 2023), it is notable that a more extensive, politically approved housing policy frame- work does not exist to cover the issue of segregation in smaller cities. It was common in large cities to provide politically approved policy documents that combined housing and land use, providing a more comprehensive approach (Table 2c). Do the urban policies found in our case cities then acknowledge the issue of segregation as a problem potentially requiring solutions? We will first cover spatial deprivation, recognised in all cities, most freely in interviews with city officials, and then move on to recognising segregation in interviews and policy documents. Interviews were short and explicitly concentrated on the existence of deprived areas and measures used to combat segregation. More often than the word segrega- tion, spatial differentiation is mentioned as a ‘softer’ synonym for segregation. All interviewees in the studied cities recognised deprived areas (Table 3a). Interviewees, in general, painted a relatively optimistic picture of local conditions, and measures taken to combat were seen, in most cases, as small-scale pockets of deprivation rather than neighbourhood-scale exclusion. Where specific deprived neighbourhoods were named, there were also often references to stigmatisation or fear; therefore, some interviewees declined to name specific neighbourhoods. Whether spatial depri- vation was concentrated enough to be recognised as segregation depended on city size. The capital city’s interviewee concluded that Helsinki had a long history of mon- itoring segregation and measures to counteract differentiation in the metropolitan area. In the other larger cities with established MAL agreements, segregation was recognised, and it could be pinpointed: background data on spatial socioeconomic Table 2. urban policy framework by city category. urban policy framework by city category City category MAL cities Medium-sized cities Metropolitan area cities (3) Large cities8 (6) growing (5) shrinking (6) a. Land use policy exists 3/3 6/6 5/5 4/6 b. Housing policy exists 3/3 6/6 2/5 2/6 c. integrated housing and land use policy exist 2/3 2/6 0/5 0/6 12 K. ROSENGREN ET AL. differences existed. Interviewees in both Turku and Oulu felt the situation was not alarming and was being monitored. Similarly, the interviewee in Tampere declined to mention any specific problem areas and felt that the local Government had managed to control spatial differentiation. In the larger cities with more recent MAL agreements, our interviewees from Lahti and Kuopio did not experience wider deprivation. In Kuopio, ‘mistakes had been made’ (areas with concentrated subsidised housing), but actions had been taken, and the situation was improving. In medium-sized cities, the situation varied. One official in a medium-sized city with a shrinking population felt that there were ‘characteristics’ of segregation in his city but later retracted and concluded that there were some suburban neigh- bourhoods where ‘deprivation’ existed. Similarly, another official from a medium-sized, growing city characterised the segregation situation in his city as ‘soft’ - areas were not homogenous and qualitative differences existed. In another medium-sized city, the poor reputation of some areas was mentioned, but as in most cities, it could be said, in retrospect, that the situation had improved. Segregation is mentioned in most of the twenty cities’ policy documents, but a division is clearly visible between larger and medium-sized cities (Table 3b-d). At the same time, all of the larger cities with MAL agreements mention segregation; most medium-sized cities without MAL agreements do not, neither on a strategic level nor in sectoral policies such as housing and land use: only three of eleven medium-sized cities mention segregation. Therefore, the conclusion is that where segregation is recognised strategically, it is also recognised in sectoral policies. However, the reason for strategically recognised segregation may not come from the local level but rather state-led guidance through MAL agreements. In addition, the actual relevance of the issue may vary within larger cities with a wide range Table 3. Acknowledgement of segregation and/or spatial deprivation by city category in interviews and/or policy documents. Acknowledgement of segregation and/or spatial deprivation by city category City category MAL cities Medium-sized cities Metropolitan area cities (3) Large cities3 (6) growing (5) shrinking (6) a. spatial deprivation is acknowledged 3/3 6/6 5/5 6/6 b. segregation is acknowledged in housing/ land use programs 3/3 6/6 2/5 1/6 c. segregation is acknowledged in city strategy 3/3 5/6 0/5 0/6 d. segregation is acknowledged in interdisciplinary programs 3/3 3/6 0/5 0/6 e. segregation is monitored systematically 3/3 2/6 0/5 0/6 f. Public background documents relating to segregation exist 3/3 1/6 0/5 0/6 g. separate anti-segregation programme exists 0/3 0/6 0/5 0/6 h. number of neigbourhoods participating in neighbourhood renewal programmes between 1995 and 2022 35 39 6 12 HOuSING STudIES 13 of populations, from just over 100 000 residents to the 1.6 million in the Helsinki region. We anticipated that the relevance of segregation would be more significant in the capital and the largest three cities with established MAL agreements (Tampere, Turku, and Oulu) and that we would find specific segregation policies in these largest cities. In terms of separate policies aimed explicitly at segregation, however, we found no existing, politically approved policies or programs explicitly aimed at segregation in any studied city (Table 3g). Segregation is, however, fur- ther covered as part of other interdisciplinary programs (Table 3d): for instance, in Hels in k i , a mu lt i - s e c tora l ‘C ity Regenerat ion Prog ramme’ (Kaupunkiuudistusohjelma), aimed at upgrading the living environment and ser- vices in a few areas of low socioeconomic status. In addition, nearly all the studied cities have a history of participating in the state-led Suburban development pro- gram (Lähiöohjelma) or its precedents, which have aimed at reactively upgrading specific ‘problem’ neighbourhoods. The studied cities’ knowledge related to segregation is also increasing (Table 3e–f). Socioeconomic differentiation has been widely studied and monitored in the largest cities with established MAL agreements in recent years, with background documents or data on the phenomenon produced by cities in the metropolitan area, Tampere, Turku, and Oulu. The question is whether these background documents are made public or used internally in governance. There are mentions of widespread research and monitoring of socioeconomic indicators in interviews but few published docu- ments, even in the largest cities. For example, Tampere has produced a specific, politically approved report on segregation with an additional toolkit of possible instruments for reducing segregation, but a politically approved program for exe- cuting such measures does not yet exist. While deprivation is acknowledged widely, segregation is less frequently mentioned in strategies and housing or land use policies. Acknowledgment of segregation is tied to city size and a regional MAL agreement recognising segregation: the anti-segregation goal of MAL agreements seems to have filtered down to the local policies of cities with established MAL agreements. Research and monitoring relating to segregation is most common in the largest cities (Table 3e–f). The metropolitan area cities stood out, acknowledging segregation and having an urban policy frame- work to forward anti-segregation policies: a city strategy, land use, and housing policy, often integrated. Nevertheless, a specific programme or other policy targeted at segregation is missing in even the metropolitan area cities. Since we anticipated segregation to be a sensitive issue in the Nordic welfare state context, we studied whether other policy goals affiliated with segregation, such as social mixing or affordable housing, were mentioned in policy documents and interviews. As the earlier results indicate, the larger cities stated more segregation goals than medium-sized cities. One of the most mentioned of these goals was the provision of affordable housing, followed by and related to the control of marketi- sation in housing. These goals were occasionally mentioned in medium-sized, growing cities even when policy documents did not explicitly use the term segregation. Similarly, interventions in problematic areas (such as area-based initiatives) were specified as a goal in medium-sized cities, which generally did not mention segre- gation. Spatial justice and local service structure were often mentioned in the larger 14 K. ROSENGREN ET AL. cities with a more complex urban and population structure. Efforts towards inclusion and social cohesion were also commonly mentioned goals in larger cities. Discussion The results from the twenty Finnish cities confirm a clear division in acknowledging segregation, according to the city categories initially formed. While all twenty case cities recognise spatial deprivation in small pockets, only the largest cities voice neighbourhood-level segregation as a problem. It may be the case that there is less reason to be worried about segregation in smaller cities than in the larger ones. After all, while the interviewed representatives of smaller municipalities could identify one or more deprived neighbourhoods, the general view was that the situation was manageable. As we have little statistical research on the segregation situation in the smaller municipalities, we cannot draw substantial conclusions about the accuracy of policy response in the smaller municipalities. It is clear, however, that they do not reflect the concern of recent national policy statements about segregation. Acknowledgment of segregation was limited to larger cities with established MAL agreements. Elsewhere, policies neither recognize nor target segregation explicitly. This finding hints at the impact of state-led policies recognising segregation on individual cities’ strategic and (cross-) sectoral policies. In many cities in this study, it was com- mon to intervene in ‘problem’ areas individually, without a cohesive strategy to coun- teract segregation. This finding may point to the lack of governance capacity for segregation. In the larger MAL cities with an existing urban policy framework, acknowl- edging segregation on a strategic level did not translate into a cohesive, long-term strategy to tackle it: a gap between goals and means could be identified. None of our case cities had a strategy, policy, or programme explicitly aimed at segregation – con- trary to what we expected based on the national concern for the issue. We found that in the metropolitan region category, the three largest cities had an urban policy framework to implement anti-segregation policies on a municipal level. All cities had city strategies naming segregation and had (often integrated) housing and land use policies recognising segregation. On a regional level, they implemented the Helsinki regional MAL agreement, which named tackling segregation a goal. Helsinki municipality had the most extended history in preventive measures, such as small-scale social mixing from the 1970s and reactive measures, such as area-based initiatives from the 1990s. However, neighbouring Espoo and Vantaa, dealing with the same regional segregation issue, were slower to react. In the metropolitan region, we only included the largest three of fourteen cities in the metropolitan MAL agreement, as these cities are likely to have the best governmental resources to tackle complex issues such as segregation due to sheer population size. While the remaining 11 smaller municipalities are bound to the same goals as the larger municipalities through the MAL agreement and enjoy access to information and monitoring data coordinated by the regional coordinating body HSY, their resources are also likely to be smaller due to a more limited population and local government size. Larger cities with established MAL agreements, our second category, were very similar to the metropolitan region in recognising segregation. In this group, HOuSING STudIES 15 segregation was operationalised in policy documents, but there was more variation in the extent of background knowledge related to the subject. In the larger cities with new MAL agreements, the city strategy recognised the issue except for one city where the agreement was very recent, and land use or housing programs all mentioned preventing segregation as a goal. In this category, however, segregation was less visible in other programs, making it mainly a housing issue, and monitoring was less common. However, the three large cities with new regional MAL agreements were smaller in population than the other cities in this category: this is likely also to mean a simpler, more monocentric urban form and a smaller number of neigh- bourhoods for spatial differentiation to occur. Contrary to our initial expectations, there was little difference between the ‘growing’ and ‘shrinking’ medium-sized city categories regarding acknowledging segregation. Hence, recognising segregation does not seem to be linked here to the city growth rate. While spatial deprivation was acknowledged in all cities in this category, it was seldom referred to as segregation in cities of less than 100,000 residents. This finding could point to scale: spatial deprivation was confirmed in a few interviews as a ‘soft,’ small scale, and isolated phenomenon. In addition, in many cases, it was viewed as a past rather than a current issue that had been successfully ‘dealt with’. In this group, some policy documents mentioned interventions in troubled areas, often concerning education infrastructure. We found references to segregation in a few land use or housing pro- grammes, but it was not recognised strategically nor monitored in policy documents. The only difference we found in the ‘growing’ and ‘shrinking’ medium-sized cities categories was that some goals related to segregation prevention, such as social mixing or affordable housing, were mentioned in a few cities in the ‘growing’ category. In contrast, in the ‘shrinking cities’ category, goals related to segregation prevention were not mentioned: for example, affordable housing was mentioned in two of six medium-sized, growing cities, while it was not an issue for those with a shrinking population. This is understandable, as shrinking cities may have less demand for new housing stemming from migration, and housing prices may be lower altogether, making housing, in general, more affordable than in growing cities.Deprivation is often viewed as an isolated phenomenon concerning an individual building or a block and referred to as ‘spatial deprivation’ rather than ‘segregation.’ A common factor in all case cities was that segregation was monitored poorly, at least publicly. While analysing municipal policy documents and interviewing planning officials, we discover the issue’s sensitivity in a country with a strong welfare policy history and egalitarian ethos in social policy and planning (Dhalmann & Vilkama, 2009; Kauppinen 2002; Mäenpää et  al., 2000; Puustinen et  al., 2017). Firstly, this may be because segregation has only been debated in Finnish literature more intensely for two decades, and against the backdrop of a welfare state tradition, the existence of segregation in Finland has not been immediately agreed on. At the same time, there is a broad consensus that segregation is growing slowly in metro- politan areas and the largest cities, but there is no research on segregation in smaller cities. If internal monitoring in cities is done, results are not easily made public for many reasons: our interviews pointed to the fear of stigmatising problem areas. In our study, we also see a clear connection between those cities with a clear urban policy framework for tackling complex, interdisciplinary problems such as segregation 16 K. ROSENGREN ET AL. and those explicitly voicing segregation (Figure 2). All cities acknowledge spatial deprivation. While all case cities also have a local strategy, only large cities with MAL agreements use this strategy to voice segregation: regional MAL agreements with their explicit goal of counteracting segregation seem to provide a regional impetus for municipal policy formulation. The cities voicing segregation explicitly in housing or land use programs (often integrated) are likewise large cities with MAL agreements. It is less common for non-MAL cities to have a separate housing program where the issue of segregation could be taken up. Those case cities with integrated housing and land use programs in our study are all MAL cities, as are the case cities with the ability to voice and tackle segregation with interdisciplinary programs such as area-based initiatives. Thus, the capability to integrate land use and housing at a policy level would enable the use of more robust, strategic policies recognising segregation. Conclusions When studying segregation policies in Finnish cities, we understand that segregation must be seen as a complex or ‘wicked problem’: the challenge cannot be reduced to a simple framework of problems and solutions, as goals are often contradictory (Rittel & Webber, 1973; see also e.g. Tammaru et  al., 2016). Rittel and Webber’s approach arose as a criticism of rationality in planning. Historically, planners have tackled problems that have been easily definable and widely agreed upon, but increasing knowledge and plurality leads to more possible variations and difficulties in problem definition. According to Rittel and Webber, ‘wicked’ problems, such as poverty, differ from the ‘tame’ problems of natural sciences, which are definable Figure 2. Relationship between recognition of segregation or spatial deprivation and city’s urban policy framework. HOuSING STudIES 17 and separable. Segregation can be positive, creating villages or enclaves for people with similar backgrounds and cultures, or detrimental, creating concentrations of similarly disadvantaged, vulnerable populations. Segregation in Finland has long been granular in scale due to conscious social mixing strategies, which can lead to difficulties in recognizing segregation (Kortteinen et  al., 2006). Well-intentioned measures such as housing type and tenure mixing may alleviate detrimental segre- gation and boost it simultaneously by contributing to gentrification (e.g. Alves, 2022 on the debate on the social mix). Compared to the social reality of the 1970s, it is evident that, even in Finland, the array and entangled nature of ‘wicked’ urban problems have only become more complex, requiring cross-sectoral regional cooperation. Segregation discourse has been slow to develop in Finland. The country currently holds a position as the world’s happiest country for six consecutive years, measured by factors such as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, corruption (Sustainable Development Solutions Network, 2023), and led in worldwide education results in the 2010s (see i.e. OECD/PISA, 2000-2009). It could be said that a minimum level of wellbeing, according to Allardt, has been achieved, allowing any additional differentiation above a basic ‘minimum level’ to be seen more positively than negatively. However, since the early 2000s, researchers studying the Helsinki region have warned of worsening negative segregation signals. In addition, the Finnish media has occasionally highlighted different aspects of residential segregation. At the time of writing, national school segregation (the clustering of immigrant-background pupils in certain schools) is a debated concern in the Finnish media. Segregation has been raised to the national policy agenda to combat a slowly widening and possibly irreversible gap between social groups on a spatial level. In Finland, municipalities are central actors in urban policies, and therefore, this article covers the topic from a local policy perspective. Our results confirm that segregation has not been seen as a particularly burning issue in Finland on a municipal level, and acknowledgement depends on the size of the city, particularly on participation in regional, state-led agreements aimed at the most competitive seven regions. Where segregation is acknowledged, it is often named as a problem in city strategies, but this does not translate into municipal-level anti-segregation policies. In most smaller cities where spatial deprivation is recognized but segregation is not explicitly acknowledged, systematic interventions regarding undefined problems are even more difficult. Responses to segregation currently lean on old, established solutions such as small-scale social mixing, reflecting how the segregation problem was understood in the 1970s. There is, however, little consideration as to the efficacy of this policy in the present urban situation (Kortteinen, 2022, p. 11; Vaattovaara et  al., 2018). MAL agreements in this study’s larger cities mention counteracting segregation as a state-led goal. However, they neither define the issue further nor specify how segregation should be operationalised in policy or monitoring beyond the provision of social rental housing. In the best case, acknowledging segregation on a municipal level could open pathways to studying and debating the underlying causal relationships behind the phenomenon and its possible local solutions. 18 K. ROSENGREN ET AL. We conclude that first voicing and tackling ‘wicked’ problems such as segregation would require state-led regional, interdisciplinary urban policies, as systematic policy-making requires inter-sectoral cooperation on all governmental levels. Andersson speaks of the Swedish context, where the use of anti-segregation policies is older than in Finland: for the prevention and control of segregation, it is essential, if not imperative, that policies between different government levels are coordinated (Andersson et  al., 2010). Counteracting regional issues such as segregation can only be done through regional urban policy: urban and social structure do not conform to municipal borders and cannot be dealt with in a piecemeal way. Each municipality is incentivised to optimise its own (economic) growth. However, urban policy has faced many challenges and is only emerging in Finland (see e.g. Hokkanen, 2019; Vaattovaara, 2021). While regional spatial plans coordinate and regulate the location of services and centre structure, they have little impact on segregation apart from providing spatial justice, as they cannot affect the spatial distribution of the most used anti-segregation tool in Finland, social mixing through the provision of social rental housing. Therefore, voluntary MAL agreements are primarily responsible for regionally coordinating the policy sectors potentially affecting segregation develop- ment: new housing production and land use. However, the agreements do not provide adequate mechanisms to regionally control what they set as their goal - counteracting segregation through affordable housing and balanced neighbourhood development - as the distribution of social housing and zoning is currently a municipal monopoly. Further, if these agreements prioritise environmental and economic dimensions of sustainability and marginalise the social dimension, they are hardly the urban policy platform needed to coordinate anti-segregation policies. Notes 1. Hirvonen & Puustinen found that income differentiation and differentiation according to income and language was strongest in Oulu, Turku, and Jyväskylä of 11 case cities. 2. The Helsinki-Tampere-Turku growth triangle; large cities Oulu, Kuopio, Jyväskylä and Lahti; growing mid-size cities Vaasa, Seinäjoki, Joensuu and Lappeenranta. Pori was the only mid-sized city with a shrinking population. 3. The state-led Suburban development programme (2020-2022) covered 13 cities: The Helsinki-Tampere-Turku growth triangle; large cities Oulu, Kuopio, Jyväskylä and Lahti; growing mid-size cities Vaasa, Seinäjoki, and Lappeenranta. Pori was the only mid-sized city with a shrinking population. 4. see https://ym.fi/en/agreements-on-land-use-housing-and-transport 5. Our research project, is producing new results on the objective segregation situation in all of the case municipalities (including shrinking mid-sized cities), but at the time of writing these remain yet unpublished. We plan to compare objective and subjective segregation in Finland in a future article. 6. In this category, Hämeenlinna is classified as ‘shrinking’ due to a declining population in the last decade (−0.2% in 2015–2020) 7. A limitation concerning the different kinds of qualitative data used (policy documents and interviews) is that no interviews were obtained from the two cities to supplement the policy documents during the timeframe for data gathering. 8. Three out of six regional MAL agreements in this category are signed in 2020–21 (Kuopio, Lahti and Jyväskylä). In these central cities, and the steering effect of the MAL agree- ment on local policy documents obtained in 2021 is unclear. HOuSING STudIES 19 Acknowledgements Interviews: Kirsti Sippel (University of Turku) and Risto Haverinen (University of Turku). Comments to the manuscript by Elina Sutela (University of Turku). We also thank the three referees and the editor of Housing Studies for excellent comments on the manuscript. Disclosure Statement The authors declare there is no Complete of Interest at this study. Funding The research is funded by the Finnish Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland (decisions No. 352450, 352451). Notes on contributors Katriina Rosengren works as a researcher in the Department of Social Research, Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Turku, Finland. She is also a doctoral candidate at the School of Arts, Design, and Architecture at Aalto University, Finland. Alongside research, she works as an urban planner. Jarkko Rasinkangas holds a position as lecturer in social work in the Department of Social Research, Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Turku, Finland. The previous research of Rasinkangas has focused on issues of segregation and affordable housing policies in an urban context. Hannu Ruonavaara holds a position as a professor of Sociology in the Department of Social Research, Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Turku, Finland. He is also a guest professor at the Institute of Housing and Urban Research (IBF), Uppsala University, Sweden and editor of the journal Housing, Theory and Society. 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