From Barracks to Garden Cities

The Finnish Population and Family Welfare League as a Housing Policy Expert in the 1940s and 1950s

Authors

  • Sophy Bergenheim University of Helsinki

Abstract

This article examines how Väestöliitto, the Finnish Population and Family Welfare League, developed into a housing policy expert during the 1940s and 1950s. Through frame analysis, I outline how Väestöliitto constructed urbanisation and ‘barrack cities’, i.e. an urban, tenement-based environment, as a social problem and how, respectively, it framed ‘garden cities’ as a solution. In the 1940s, Väestöliitto promoted a national body for centralised housing policy and national planning. When the ARAVA laws (1949) turned out to be a mere financing system, Väestöliitto harnessed its expertise into more concrete action. In 1951, together with five other NGOs, Väestöliitto founded the Housing Foundation and embarked on a project for constructing a model city. This garden city became the residential suburb Tapiola. This marked a paradigm shift in Finnish town planning and housing policy, which had until then lacked a holistic and systematic approach. Along the 1940s–1950s, Väestöliitto thus constructed and developed its expertise from an influential interest organisation to a concrete housing policy actor.

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Section
Special Issue: Expertise and Its Tensions

Published

2020-05-14

How to Cite

Bergenheim, S. (2020) “From Barracks to Garden Cities: The Finnish Population and Family Welfare League as a Housing Policy Expert in the 1940s and 1950s”, Science & Technology Studies, 33(2), pp. 120–138. doi: 10.23987/sts.60807.