Monday, June 13

I spent most of the day recovering the terraces with oil. At the end my knees and back felt as though I had spent most of the day recovering the terraces with oil.

In the early evening we head for a meeting at the local church, where three architects from the city attempt to explain the plans that Helsinki has for Vartiokylä. If they had intended to sabotage the plans they could not have done a better job.

Vartiokylä currently has 5,500 inhabitants. The plans call for this to increase by an extra 6,000. The new residents will live in apartment blocks to ensure a proper mix of housing in the area. Itäväylä will become a boulevard by having an extra two lanes added to it to accommodate a new tram system.

Since Vartiokylä does not contain vast tracts of unused land people at the meeting began to ask exactly where the 40 new apartment blocks would go, and how the road would get magically wider without anything getting demolished. The architects either could not or would not address these questions and so the meeting became increasingly agitated and heated.

Helsinki has plans for a number of these boulevards. All the others have disappeared after local opposition. I imagine this one will go the same way.