Sanna Ala-Mantila’s research while affiliated with University of Helsinki and other places

Rising residential socioeconomic segregation is a globally acknowledged phenomenon that also occurs in the Nordic welfare states. Our study provides a comprehensive view of residential socioeconomic and ethnic segregation across 20 Finnish cities, including both large and smaller cities. We highlight the importance of the scale of analysis by comparing the results from a residential area classification to other neighbourhood definitions, including zip code and statistical grid levels. Instead of relying on a single city-level indicator, we also zoom into different residential area types and illustrate the development of their socioeconomic and ethnic structure between 2000 and 2018. The results show increasing levels of socioeconomic segregation in all studied cities and scales. The increasing levels of segregation are linked to the relative deprivation of residential mid-rise areas built from the 1960s until the 1990s and to the increasing positive selection by income and education in the residential low-rise areas built after 2000. The results for ethnic segregation are more diverse showing increases in some cities but decreases in others. The overall average of ethnic segregation in the 20 studied cities has slightly decreased although ethnic minorities are still overrepresented in the socioeconomically disadvantaged residential areas.

As a result of the ongoing urbanization megatrend, cities have an increasingly critical role in the search for sustainability. To create sustainable strategies for cities and to follow up if they induce desired effects proper metrics on the inter and intra-urban development is needed. In this paper, we analyze the sustainability development in the 20 largest cities in Finland through a residential area classification framework. The results based on high-quality register data show concerning trends in some sustainability measures, and divergent trends between cities and residential areas within. Overall, while densities have increased modestly, we see no clear signs of decreasing car ownership rates. Further, also manifestations of social sustainability seem to be insufficient in many locations–especially in residential mid-rise areas from the '60s and '70s, and '80s and '90s.

The income elasticity of carbon footprint is a summary variable often used to describe the relationship between income and carbon footprints. Previous studies primarily calculate this elasticity using emissions intensities per monetary unit. We surveyed the Nordic countries, allowing us to directly calculate carbon footprints from responses about quantity and types of activities rather than only from spending, which alleviates issues with the traditional method. As a result, we curtail an inbuilt relationship between income and carbon footprints, which leads to the conclusion that the relationship between income and carbon footprints may be smaller than previously thought. Our method produces an income elasticity estimate that is approximately one-fourth of the highest estimates that exist, and 30% lower than the smallest current estimate. Furthermore, we introduce a new summary variable called climate concern elasticity of carbon footprint. This variable provides valuable indications for the relationship between pro-climate attitudes, pro-climate behavior, and carbon footprints. With this new indicator, we open up a new framework to investigate the relationship between peoples climate concern and their carbon footprint. This framework and improved knowledge on income elasticities can guide policymakers and future research and provide new methods to estimate carbon footprint distributions.

Current national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions accounts and mitigation targets are mostly based on territorial GHG accounting. While several analyses present future trajectories describing how nations could achieve emissions targets, there are relatively few analyses from the consumption-based perspective. Simultaneously, there is a broad literature on consumption-based carbon footprints of individuals and regions, but without connection to the remaining carbon budgets and associated mitigation pathways, nor to the current levels of human development. This study contributes to these debates by downscaling the 1.5-degree target to an individual scale for 152 countries, following the IPCC’s SSP1-1.9 pathway. We compare the calculated limits to current carbon footprints and show how the individual carbon budget can be operationalized on a national and regional level using Africa, Europe, and the USA as examples. We show that while GHG emissions in Europe and the USA greatly exceed the budget, in Africa the budget allows even growth in the short and medium term, and the emission cuts later if the remaining carbon budget is equally allocated regardless of the historic emissions. Finally, we modify the planetary pressures adjusted human development index (HDI) with consumption-based carbon footprints to highlight how different accounting principles underscore the uneven development between nations. We find that the average carbon footprint of many highly developed nations is as much as seven times the climate-sustainable limit. Furthermore, these same nations perform poorly when measuring their development level with the consumption-based emissions updated planetary pressures HDI. However, in the majority of nations (80% of the global population) the average carbon footprint is near or below the climate-sustainable level, but not in any of the top HDI countries. Our findings highlight that stronger policy and swift changes are needed to bring the carbon footprints of the residents of affluent countries to a climate-sustainable level.

Cities are increasingly profiling themselves as active agents within sustainability transformation. Despite many apparent efforts, discussion on “sustainable cities” has often focused on narrowly defined problems and ignored the interconnectedness of ecological, social, and economic issues that extend beyond the boundaries of formal city regions. Hence, this paper highlights the need for approaches that take into account the multifaceted nature of urban sustainability. We use planetary urbanism and urban metabolism as conceptual lenses to demonstrate the embeddedness of cities in planetary ecological systems and social structures. We present two examples of urban initiatives, one from strategic level and one from practical urban planning, both highlighting the relevance of planetary urbanisation and urban metabolism. Our examination calls for rethinking prevailing ideas of cities as forerunners of sustainable development and highlights the importance of collaboration in curbing potentially harmful sociospatial divisions.

As a result of the ongoing urbanization megatrend, cities have an increasingly critical role in the search for sustainability. To create sustainable strategies for cities and to follow up if they induce desired effects proper metrics on the development of neighborhoods are needed. In this paper, we introduce a neighborhood classification framework and demonstrate its use through an analysis of the 20 largest cities in Finland. The high-quality data available for Finland provided solid grounds for development, but the framework is widely applicable to other locations. The classification is freely available for use and has a multitude of potential applications.

This analysis examines the geography of subjective wellbeing within a single country via a novel dataset consisting of more than 26,000 respondents embedded in 3100 postal code areas in Finland. We include a detailed indicator on the level of urbanity of the respondent’s location derived from a 250 × 250 m GIS grid, contextual measures of the postal code area´s socioeconomic status as well as proximity to the nearest urban locality and capital city. This analytical framework model makes it possible to examine both individual and contextual determinants for perceived quality of life (QoL). In addition, we include individual-level measures on mental health (Mental Health Inventory MHI-5) and satisfaction with housing and neighbourhood characteristics. The results show that when controlling for socioeconomic factors living in an inner urban area or a neighbourhood (postal code area) with a high unemployment rate are associated with lower QoL and. Also, the share of population with a tertiary education in a postal code area has a positive effect for individual QoL. However, the effects of inner urban living and unemployment rate become insignificant when including mental health indicators and perceived loneliness. In sum, the results confirm and add more detail to earlier findings on lower QoL in urban context and connect living in inner urban area to mental health indicators. As such, the analysis provides further evidence for the positive QoL effects of more rural living while having an access to health and other services.