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Abstract
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Background Tesoma is a typical Finnish suburb in western part of Tampere, built in the 1960s and 1970s. The total sphere of influence reaches almost 20 000 residents. Income and education levels in the area are lower than the city average. Residents of the area face several social challenges: unemployment, interruptions in education and even social exclusion. Also the housing prices are among the lowest in Tampere.The city of Tampere is running a development project called "Own Tesoma". The project is divided into subprojects and the aim is to achieve well-being and attractiveness in the whole Tesoma area. Residents have been involved in the project straight from the start and have taken concrete part in the planning and the developing of their neighbourhood.
Description of the problem Safety issues attribute heavily to Tesoma's poor imago. This creates several challenges when strengthening attractiveness and vitality of the area and investing in urban infill.
Effects In 2015 the Own Tesoma -project mapped security and safety issues in Tesoma based on criminal statistics and residents' experiences. During spring 2015 six guided walking tours were arranged and residents could in groups find out the challenging parts and places of the area. After mapping the most problematic places, city officials together with residents considered possible solutions for a safer living environment.According to statistics and residents Tesoma is a safe place to live. Security challenges are typical and common to other similar suburbs. Clear challenges from residents' point of view are growing traffic, poor traffic behaviour and accessibility as well as the uncleanliness and vandalism, which create an experience of the unsafe surroundings.
Safety issues will be developed in the future through cooperation between residents, businesses and other actors in the area. In 2016 there will be several different experiments aiming to increase safety through new partnership models. The main target is to increase traffic security and strengthen the sense of community and belonging.
Conclusions By the conference we will have more information available of the process and security in the neighbourhood of Tesoma.
Abstract from Safety 2016 World Conference, 18-21 September 2016; Tampere, Finland. Copyright © 2016 The author(s), Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions
Language: en |