The Challenge of Dual Imperatives
Helsinki is under pressure to grow and to adapt to climate change. The city’s population is projected to increase steadily in the coming decades, creating demand for new housing, transport links, and services. At the same time, climate change is no longer a distant threat but a lived reality. Heavy rainfall, record-breaking heat, and the gradual loss of urban biodiversity are already shaping how the city functions.
Planning for this dual challenge is not straightforward. Densification is central to Helsinki’s planning vision, promoting compact growth and rail-based transport. Adaptation, however, depends on reserving land for stormwater management, cooling, and other functions that often compete with housing delivery.
My thesis, conducted in collaboration with the City of Helsinki through the HELSUS Co-Creation Lab, examined how these two goals are reconciled in planning documents and governance practices, and where tensions arise. The research combined a policy document analysis with expert interviews and applied the Policy Arrangement Approach (PAA) to explore how discourses, institutions, actors, and resources shape the relationship between densification and adaptation.
When Growth and Adaptation Collide
One tension is between green space and the delivery of housing. Helsinki’s Master Plan 2016 acknowledges that densification reduces green areas if park quality improves, a logic that has left ecologically valuable sites such as Stansvikinkallio forest under pressure. The city’s Stormwater Management Programme also encourages vegetation in new developments “where possible,” but vague criteria make results uneven.
Rail-based densification introduces another challenge. Tram and light rail projects are tied to expectations of dense development. Once built, growth must follow to justify the investment. Rail is rightly seen as a mitigation tool, yet opportunities to pair it with adaptation, such as green corridors or stormwater retention along tracks, are rarely realised.
Adaptation written into zoning plans also suffers from weak follow-up. Green roof requirements are mandated, but aerial images from Kalasatama show many buildings failing to deliver. Without consistent monitoring, rules risk remaining aspirational.
Flood risk governance shows both progress and limits. Helsinki has advanced hydrological models and hybrid solutions such as retention tanks beneath parks. Yet construction is still allowed in flood-prone areas if infrastructure is promised, creating reliance on engineered systems whose performance may not withstand future extremes.
Why This Matters
The way Helsinki navigates these trade-offs will fundamentally shape its resilience for decades to come. Inconsistent adaptation risks increasing vulnerability to heat, flooding, and ecological loss. It also has profound social implications, affecting equity in access to green space, housing, and public transport. Green spaces not only regulate temperature and stormwater but also provide essential well-being benefits; if they are sacrificed for housing, their loss will not be felt equally across neighbourhoods. The governance choices made today will determine whether adaptation becomes a central planning principle or remains secondary to growth.
Pathways to Integration
The thesis highlights the importance of early adaptation and argues that it must be mainstreamed at the earliest stages of planning, not added afterwards. This requires clearer regulatory frameworks, stronger interdepartmental coordination, and more binding mechanisms to ensure that climate resilience goals are not sidelined by development pressures.
Several key measures could support this shift. Adaptation targets should be embedded directly into zoning criteria and development agreements during the next Master Plan revision, moving beyond symbolic strategies.
Allowing moderately higher buildings in selected areas, such as transit hubs, would ease pressure on land and open space for green infrastructure. Making better use of vertical space can create flexibility without sacrificing ecological networks.
Governance continuity is equally important. Re-establishing a permanent cross-departmental adaptation team could overcome siloed responsibilities and provide much-needed coordination. Stronger participatory processes would also allow ecological concerns to influence plans early rather than reactively.
Finally, financial and land-use tools must align private development with public goals. Land use fees and additional building rights could be tied to resilience criteria, ensuring that infill projects contribute to adaptation rather than undermining it.
Looking Ahead
Helsinki’s experience illustrates a broader challenge for cities worldwide: reconciling the drive for compact, efficient urban growth with the need for climate resilience. Lessons from Helsinki suggest that even in cities with strong sustainability ambitions, adaptation is at risk of being overshadowed unless governance structures are strengthened and clearer regulatory frameworks are established. Integrating adaptation into the very logic of urban growth is therefore not just a technical task but a political one, requiring long-term commitment and cross-sectoral collaboration.
This blog post is written by Saku Suhonen based on his master’s thesis, supervised by a member of the Urban Environmental Policy research group.
Read the full thesis:
Suhonen, Saku (2025). Governing Trade-offs Between Climate Adaptation and Urban Densification: Policy and Governance Challenges in Helsinki. Master’s Programme in Environmental Change and Global Sustainability, University of Helsinki.