The politics of depoliticization and the constitution of city-regionalism as a dominant spatial-political imaginary in Finland

Tensions in city-regional spatial planning: the challenge of interpreting layered institutional rules

“…While the city-regions are anchored to global networks through the intensifying economic activities of their centres, they spread into the diffuse hinterlands, forming functionally assembled geographical areas, which are often defined based on labour market geographies and commuting flows (Davoudi, 2008). This dominating economic-functional imaginary of city-regions (Luukkonen & Sirviö, 2019;Waite & Bristow, 2019) is fostered with claims that they perform as 'engines' of national economic growth and wealth generation (Jonas & Ward, 2007;Scott & Storper, 2003). From this perspective, the prosperity of the hinterlands is also regarded as dependent on cityregions (Rodriquez-Pose, 2008).…”

“…Furthermore, while earlier the cities of various sizes had played a notable role in the hierarchical and centralized planning system of the welfare state, as mediators of national policies and services, the major cities and city-regions became newly rationalized as competition-orientated 'soft spaces'. As such, they were prioritized as entrepreneurial and autonomous subjects, responsible for their own competitiveness and connectedness to national and global networks (Luukkonen & Sirviö, 2019;Moisio, 2012).…”

An analysis of ‘global closures’ and ‘national openings’ in the politics of urbanization

“…Ahlqvist and Moisio (2014) have described this process as a shift in the welfare state model from cartel polity to corporate polity. Luukkonen and Sirviö (2019) have argued that city regionalism has formed as a dominant spatial-political imaginary in Finland, and also describe a particular metropolitanizing tendency and the subsequent state restructurings (Sirviö and Luukkonen 2020). Moreover, urbanization frames the political narrative on the state's global economic competitiveness in Finland (Jonas and Moisio 2018), and Moisio (2018) has argued that urbanization is understood as an inevitable and a positive 'megatrend' across the Finnish political spectrum.…”

“…Moreover, I focus on the distinct acts of depoliticization and politicization as forming the core of the political narrative in delimiting the substance of decision-making based on certain reasonings and rationalities. I consider depoliticizing and politicizing arguments as political strategies (see Luukkonen and Sirviö 2019) and acts demarcating the significance of political issues and delimiting political possibilities (see Flinders and Wood 2014), but also as constant struggles of certain ways of reasoning over others. In other words, I approach politics as a constant discursive struggle over what is seen as inevitable, important or generally possible in the field of political action, as well as what kind of reasonings and knowledge are considered rational and acceptable.…”

“…As such, this article also contributes to the list of publications (e.g. Ahlqvist and Moisio 2014;Adkins and Ylöstalo 2018;Jonas and Moisio 2018;Luukkonen and Sirviö 2019) utilizing Finland as a case study on depoliticization and neoliberalization of space. Finnish political debates on urbanization are revolving around such issues as (allegedly) rapid spatial transformations, economic fate of the nation-state, competitiveness and spatial equity.…”