Riihimäki increases vitality and event supply

Rhymes from Riihimäki is a series of columns in which Riihimäki city personnel talk about current issues and their work.

Elinvoima became visible in the city's organization in 2019, when a domain of elinvoima was formed in the city, which includes the areas of responsibility for land use, cultural and event services, zoning, museum services, environmental protection and building control, as well as elinvoima projects and business matters.

What does Riihimäki's vitality consist of? Vitality is the growth of the number of inhabitants and the number of jobs, as well as the growth and development of the city's building stock.

Riihimäki has traditionally done well in these. Unemployment was still a problem in the city in the past years, but now we have the lowest unemployment among the main railway station cities. The region with lower unemployment cannot be found in the Uusimaa or Kanta or Päijät-Häme regions. Companies have also been actively acquired, but the growth of the number of jobs has been held back especially by the development at Riihimäki Hospital and VR.

The most challenging thing has been to keep the number of residents growing - even in that, a positive bright spot is the fact that after a long time, our detached house plots had to be raffled again among those willing. When it comes to attracting residents, our trump card is a dense urban structure, a smooth everyday life and a lively city center. Centers are under pressure all over Finland, but development in Riihimäki has been the second best of the cities, and the vitality of the center has rarely been on the rise.

There are projects underway comfortably in our city center, new housing projects also bring customers to the services of the city center. I'm especially looking forward to the stylish wooden apartment buildings going up in the Peukaloinen block.

We are still doing active work for the vitality of the city center. We organized a survey about the city center's attraction ideas, and based on that, an event competition, based on which a new city event Lempi festival will be born this year.

Events are a key part of vitality, and now that the corona has subsided, it's wonderful that our major event, the International Wilderness Fair, opened again even more strongly for the 50th anniversary event. We get to meet each other again at our other summer events at Granit's summer concerts, Riihimäki Summer Concerts and Riihimäki Pride.

We will continue to turn to the citizens when we seek development ideas for the city - participation is strength, vitality!

Mika Herpiö
The author is Riihimäki's vitality manager