City as a Growth Platform: Responses of the Cities of Helsinki Metropolitan Area to Global Digital Economy
Abstract
:1. Introduction
- How the representatives of city government and local development agencies perceive and conceptualize the platform economy?
- How have cities conceived local interests and local embeddedness of economic development in the context of the globally-oriented digital platform economy?
- How have cities addressed and documented the aspects of the platform economy in their strategies and in their economic development policies?
- What are the factual policy measures and initiatives designed to meet challenges associated with the platform economy?
2. Methodology
3. Theoretical Framework
3.1. Evolving Urban Growth Machine
“A city and, more generally, any locality, is conceived as the areal expression of the interests of some land-based elite. Such an elite is seen to profit through the increasing intensification of the land use of the area in which its members hold a common interest. An elite competes with other land-based elites in an effort to have growth-inducing resources invested within its own area as opposed to that of another. Governmental authority, at the local and nonlocal levels, is utilized to assist in achieving this growth at the expense of competing localities. Conditions of community life are largely a consequence of the social, economic, and political forces embodied in this growth machine.”[11] (p. 309)
3.2. Platform Economy
3.3. Social and Economic Consequences of Platformization
3.4. Globally Connected Urban Growth Platforms
3.5. City Governments’ Adjustment Strategies
4. The Case of Helsinki Metropolitan Area
5. Empirical Analysis
5.1. Understanding Platform Economy
“Is it a familiar concept and is its content clear? Technically speaking, I can say straightforwardly that maybe not to me.”(Interview 3)
“It’s both a threat and an opportunity; we’re not quite sure which one it is at this point.”(Interview 5)
“Indeed, it is probably the kind that everyone understands some aspect of it, but all that it will affect–that large-scale change or turning point–well, I think, all that remains pretty unclear to everyone.”(Interview 7)
“These are just those problems that we … cannot figure out even conceptually, that is, what is now the challenge to cities with this rising platform economy. That is what we have here [considered]. Indeed, the ‘previous round’ was in a sense clearer, we could say, [requiring] just a kind of strategic positioning.”(Interview 6)
5.2. Local Embeddedness and Disembedding Tendencies of the Platform Economy
“For the platform builder it [i.e., the platform] is a business as itself, but for others, it’s not really that per se, but it’s the basis on which to build a part of the value chain or an aspect of a process. […] In my view, it’s a distribution channel among many.”(Interview 3)
“The way the platform economy, or a business model like Amazon or Uber or something, is defined globally, that kind of definition of the platform economy does not quite work when applied to the city.”(Interview 6)
“In the platform economy, I believe, the most difficult thing to understand will be that those companies don’t have to come from Espoo.”(Interview 2)
“Are we also able to build interesting, in a sense place-bound yet digital development platforms and environments that would be linked to one another in the spirit of platform economy because these companies–big or small–would need one another? […] Also, for large players in an industry, it’s important to know that if they supply certain technology solutions, how and by which means they can build that ecosystem locally, too.”(Interview 4)
“If we take the narrow definition of the digital platform, in which someone opens to products and end-users sort of opportunity to do transactions among themselves and then takes only its share from governing the platform, in this sense the city has very few developed digital platforms that we could use in the same way. And that is a particular kind of restriction in this respect. Besides, there will be to some extent these data security and protection practices regarding the city governments ability to secure its service provision.”(Interview 6)
5.3. Strategic Approach to the Platform Economy
“Neither uses the word ‘platform economy’ [interviewee refers to the city strategy and the economic policy priorities of the city], […] but then again, our entire city strategy starts from the fact that we wish to enable things, and that is strongly associated with platform economy. [The fact] that it is there, is not mentioned explicitly, yet the entire mindset is based on enabling; so if we would be restricting all the time everything and regulating all the time everything, then there would be no chances for platform economy. And this same [thinking] cuts across the priorities of our economic development policy as well.”(Interview 7)
“It may be that we do not have a sufficiently strategic grasp of this. […] In my view, there is no clear integration of the kind of mechanism that would allow us more strategically consider these different technologies, different trends as for example this platform economy, regarding how certain industries are changing, how the consumer behavior and its channels are changing, and how we react to that.”(Interview 5)
“We pursue a strategy according to which we don’t focus on them at all [interviewee refers to platform companies and content providers, such as gaming companies referred to by an interviewer]. In other words, it is, at times, somewhat difficult with differences in the industrial structure, as we know that the gaming companies don’t really want to come here. They rather cluster in Helsinki, and when thinking of software more broadly as well as other ICTs, then in Espoo, too.”(Interview 5)
“We‘ve not necessarily been particularly actively involved in platforms, but it might make perfect sense to take a more active role in this.”(Interview 5)
“We’re not aiming here at ‘double-click world,’ some new institution or important actor, but rather, bringing them inside the clusters, industries, I think, is how we might succeed.”(Interview 3)
“Let’s take the Six City Strategy, the six largest cities in Finland, with varying themes. The greatest achievement of a small country, maybe also in a certain sense a learning outcome, has been how the six cities have first learnt to trust one another, […] the only advantage of this kind of small nation is the asset generated by working together.”(Interview 3)
“I believe that cities may be too small. Rather, we should have cities and the national level pondering together how it would be possible for Finns to do business and build more firmly such a platform.”(Interview 5)
5.4. Nascent Policy Measures and Actions
“In Espoo, we might have already done some things associated with the platform economy, without really realizing it, for we’ve been opening the city as a kind of platform. Just like the service center in Iso Omena [shopping mall] is a really good example of how we’ve already done it, without paying attention to it. The issue is how we could adopt a way of thinking that aligns more with platform economy.”(Interview 2)
“It seems that the platform builders always take their own cut, but when one builds on it, there is another cut, of which gaming industry is evidently a good example. But there must be a host of other similar applications and solutions on which it is possible to build a range of different kinds of solutions.”(Interview 5)
“In Helsinki, now [2018] they pilot a kind of Uber of the Seas and hope that it will happen, that is, in practice it deals with access to archipelagos. It is in our interest that people can get there, to enable recreational use. It is not economically viable to open ferryboat connection, but it is sensible that we designate stops and that there are in a way structures in place, but then the transaction takes place through a platform, thus someone selling a boat [ride] and another paying for the boat time.”(Interview 6)
“Our goal has been to generate, through open data, opportunities for others to create business.”(Interview 6)
“I believe one of the most concrete platform economy initiatives has been the opening of data.”(Interview 3)
“Well, how to attract skilled people to the city is probably the most important issue in the end.”(Interview 6)
“So, do we have any specific, exciting expertise to offer internationally for the creation of platform economy and its preconditions? When companies are searching for investment opportunities and location, at least among our client companies always the first reason why they come to Helsinki [is] know-how, [then] the exciting start-up buzz, and the third reason may vary; some say it may be the services we offer, or otherwise it may be something like a safe environment, or good educational opportunities for children.”(Interview 4)
6. Discussion
7. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
Interviews |
Harri Paananen, Economic Development Manager, city of Espoo, interviewed by M.L. and H.L. on 15 May 2018. |
Tomas Lehtinen, Data Analytics Consultant, city of Espoo, interviewed by H.L. on 6 June 2018. |
Jose Valanta, Director of Economic Development, city of Vantaa, interviewed by M.L. and H.L. on 6 June 2018. |
Marja-Liisa Niinikoski, CEO, Helsinki Business Hub, Helsinki, interviewed by M.L. and H.L. on 6 June 2018. |
Kimmo Viljamaa, Economic Development Manager, city of Vantaa, interviewed by M.L. on 11 June 2018. |
Santtu von Bruun*, Head of Competitiveness and International Affairs, city of Helsinki, interviewed by A.-V.A. and H.L. on 15 August 2018. |
Marja-Leena Rinkineva*, Director of Economic Development, city of Helsinki, interviewed by A.-V.A. and H.L. on 15 August 2018. |
* von Bruun and Rinkineva were interviewed at the same time (joint interview). |
Appendix B
Interview questions |
|
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Anttiroiko, A.-V.; Laine, M.; Lönnqvist, H. City as a Growth Platform: Responses of the Cities of Helsinki Metropolitan Area to Global Digital Economy. Urban Sci. 2020, 4, 67. https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci4040067
Anttiroiko A-V, Laine M, Lönnqvist H. City as a Growth Platform: Responses of the Cities of Helsinki Metropolitan Area to Global Digital Economy. Urban Science. 2020; 4(4):67. https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci4040067
Chicago/Turabian StyleAnttiroiko, Ari-Veikko, Markus Laine, and Henrik Lönnqvist. 2020. "City as a Growth Platform: Responses of the Cities of Helsinki Metropolitan Area to Global Digital Economy" Urban Science 4, no. 4: 67. https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci4040067