The Contemporary Inner City and Families

This chapter picks up at the birth of the renaissance of the inner city. It shows a shifting emphasis in planning from the suburb to the urban core, simultaneously with housing becoming a commodity rather than a basic need. The chapter shows, with examples from Helsinki, that with the growing number of children in the inner cities, planning and policymaking was lagging behind, and the emphasis was still on providing family-friendly environments in the suburbs. Today, however, planners and politicians have become interested in attracting urban families to the core, both through the regeneration of old inner-city neighbourhoods, and by developing former port and industrial districts into residential areas. The chapter concludes that a new type of middle-class family ideal has emerged in planning.