HELSINKI ALUEITTAIN
16_05_27_Helsinki_alueittain_2015_Tikkanen
16_05_27_Helsinki_alueittain_2015_Tikkanen
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<strong>HELSINKI</strong> IN 2015<br />
On the last day of 2014, Helsinki had 620,715 inhabitants,<br />
which was 8,051 more than a year earlier.<br />
Thus, Helsinki’s population had been growing by<br />
over 8,000 for three years in a row. Between 1990<br />
and 2010 the annual population growth was 4,500<br />
on average.<br />
Population growth in Helsinki and the<br />
Helsinki Region<br />
Helsinki has long ago grown beyond its borders and<br />
today it forms, together with surrounding municipalities,<br />
the Helsinki Region, a commuting area of 1.42<br />
million inhabitants. This region includes Helsinki<br />
and its three closest neighbours Espoo, Kauniainen<br />
and Vantaa, the four of which together form the Helsinki<br />
Metropolitan area. It also includes the ten closest<br />
municipalities around the Helsinki Metropolitan<br />
Area. This peripheral part of the Helsinki Region is<br />
called the Outer Helsinki Region. Ever since Helsinki<br />
became capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland in<br />
1812, its population doubled at 20–30-year intervals<br />
up until the 1960s. At that point, the municipalities<br />
around Helsinki began to grow as the population of<br />
the crowded capital started to look for more housing<br />
space outside the city.<br />
After the 1960s, during which there was a migration<br />
wave from rural Finland to urban communities,<br />
a period of lesser migration followed, but already in<br />
the early 1980s, the Helsinki Region began to experience<br />
considerable net migration gains from other<br />
parts of Finland. This population growth became<br />
even faster in the 1990s, when net migration from<br />
abroad grew strongly. Over the last 10 years, the<br />
Helsinki Region’s population has grown by a total<br />
of 157,000, i.e. by 1.2 per cent a year. In Helsinki<br />
proper, this growth rate has been 1.1 per cent, and in<br />
the rest of the region 1.3 per cent.<br />
During the period 2007–2014, population growth<br />
was very rapid in Helsinki. Since 2007, the city’s population<br />
has been growing more due to foreign immigration<br />
than to population movement from Finland<br />
beyond the borders of the Helsinki Region. The latter<br />
has been very even in recent years. Population<br />
growth in Helsinki has also been accelerated by the<br />
fact that the typical net migration loss to the neighbour<br />
municipalities and the Outer Helsinki Region<br />
has decreased. In 2002–2007, this loss was between<br />
4,000 and 4,800 annually, but in 2013 it was only 370<br />
people. Since then, it has been growing slightly again.<br />
Since 2007, population growth in the Helsinki has<br />
increasingly occurred in the Helsinki Metropolitan<br />
Area, instead of the Outer Helsinki Region as earlier.<br />
While in 2007 both Helsinki and the Outer Helsinki<br />
Region experienced a net migration gain of 3,000<br />
each from other municipalities or abroad, Helsinki’s<br />
annual net migration gain in 2012–2014 had reached<br />
an average of 6,700, versus just 1,000 for the Outer<br />
Helsinki Region.<br />
The number of 1–6 year old children grew rapidly<br />
in the 1990s, peaking in 1997. Between 1998 and<br />
2006, the number of children of that age decreased<br />
by 6,000. In 2007, the number of these children<br />
started increasing again, and in 2012–2014 the increase<br />
was over 1,000 per annum on average.<br />
The number of 6–11 year olds started decreasing<br />
in 2001, and over the period 2001–2009, these<br />
children decreased by a total of 4,700. In 2010, this<br />
age group started growing again, and in 2014, the<br />
increase had reached almost 1,200. The number<br />
12–14 year olds started to fall in 2006, and the number<br />
of 15–17 year olds started to decrease in 2009.<br />
The age structure of Helsinki’s population is<br />
strongly influenced by the post-war baby boomers<br />
born in 1945–1950. The proportion of pensioners in<br />
the population is growing rapidly.<br />
Recent changes in Helsinki<br />
During the period 2010–2012, Helsinki’s population<br />
grew by 25,300. Growth was strongest in the districts<br />
of Kampinmalmi (4,200 people), Vanhakaupunki<br />
(2,200), Latokartano (1,900), Myllypuro (1,600) and<br />
Lauttasaari (1,500). The population decreased in Jakomäki<br />
(-500 people), Alppiharju (-100) and Östersundom<br />
(-58).<br />
In all of Helsinki, there were clearly more dwellings<br />
completed over the years 2012–2014 (4,752 annually<br />
on average) than in 2005–2010 (2,700).<br />
Of all dwellings completed during the period<br />
2012–2014, no less than 87 per cent were in blocksof-flats.<br />
The average size of dwellings was 68 square<br />
metres, versus 72.6 sq.m. in 2000–2009. Over the<br />
period 2005–2009 the annual production of statesubsidised<br />
ARA dwellings fell to just 600 per annum<br />
on average, but in the present decade the production<br />
has doubled. Almost half of all new dwellings