Riihimäki's new vitality director Anna-Riitta Kujala: "People make the city vibrant"

At work in Riksu, there is a story series in which the employees of the city of Riihimäki talk about their work.

Anna-Riitta Kujala, 42, who started as vitality manager in August, summarizes that vitality is the core of all urban activities, the heartbeat of the city. People are at the center of vitality, i.e. residents, entrepreneurs, people who work in the city and tourists.

"The task of the vitality director is to ensure that there is room in the city for the vitality that people then generate."

Kujala praises his work as inspiring and interesting. The most important thing is to get the right people to work together. The three core words of his own activities are together, openly and boldly creative. You can achieve a lot only together with others.

Tightness is an architect's dream

"Riihimäki is an attractive place to live because it is extremely interesting in terms of urban planning. On a Finnish scale, it is a city that is exceptionally closely built around the station."

Kujala sees good conditions for increasing attractiveness. Hämeenkatu is a nationally significant, historic shopping street. The railway park is the city's green lungs in the very core, and Voimala and the train depots have material for a wide range of cultural and business activities.

The city has started a downtown revitalization project because the vitality of the downtown has decreased.

"The goal is to increase the attractiveness of the city center and the number of visitors through, among other things, various events and marketing campaigns. The center is the best gathering place, where you have to create the conditions for encounters."

More places to stay in the city

In addition to urban planning, the director of Vitality is responsible for building control, environmental health, cultural and museum services, and next year also employment and integration services.

In addition to being an architect, Kujala has a Master of Arts and studied land use planning and management. Previously, he worked as a regional architect for the city of Vantaa and managed Kivistö's town planning and urban development.

"There are seven centers in Vantaa that compete with each other for resources. In Riihimäki, we are developing one city together. I've gotten to know Riihimäki by walking and cycling, and it's a distinctive and compact small town that's bigger than itself."

Kujala considers what happens between the houses to be the most important thing in urban planning. He highlights two vibrant cities in Central Europe.

"In Antwerp, Belgium, everywhere there is organic green and planned space for being and hanging out. It is important that there are places in the city where you can hang out without having to buy. Riihimäki needs to have more greenery and places to hang out, for example benches and children's play equipment here and there."

Kujala often visits her sister in Emsdetten, a town the size of Riihimäki in Germany. There is a lively market every Saturday where local producers sell their products. The market is so attractive that it draws townspeople there to meet each other, even if they don't buy in huge quantities.

Running and yoga

Kujala works in two teams. The city manager leads the city's management team, which includes all industry leaders.

"In the management team of my vitality industry, there are heads of areas of responsibility whose fields of work are zoning, land use, environmental protection, building control, environmental health, cultural services and events and museum services. I believe that we will further develop cross-administrative close cooperation groups, because we specifically want to develop vitality together. That requires experts everywhere."

In his new job, he follows a hundred-day plan. During the first 30 days, he gets to know his own team, and within 60 days, he tries to meet all the stakeholders of the continuous cooperation. The townspeople will get to know each other within 90 days at the latest.

"I can hardly wait for Riihimäki Day, when I will definitely meet a lot of townspeople. I also try to go around all the lunch restaurants in order to bump into rickshaw pullers. Lounging in cafes is my favorite, and there are five nice cafes in Riihimäki just off Hämeenkatu."

Kujala lives in Helsinki with her husband and two teenage children and takes the InterCity train to work every day. The train therefore has a total of two hours of effective working time every day. There are no plans to move to Riihimäki as long as the children's schools are finished. But later it would be interesting.

In her spare time, Kujala runs, does yoga and reads. He usually runs in the morning, unless he jumps on the Riihimäki train at seven. Then the run moves to the evening.

"Running is like meditation for me. I haven't run on Riihimäki yet, but I've walked and cycled a lot. On a summer bike trip, I discovered the beautiful and clean water Hirvijärvi, which is a bike ride away from the station."

Text: Reija Ypyä