TAMPERE has retained its status as the most appealing city in Finland, reports YLE.
The over 225,000-resident city has thereby held on to the status for three years despite seeing its appeal diminish slightly from the previous year, according to a survey of public views on the appeal of the 10 largest cities in Finland.
Kari Väisänen, a senior specialist at the reputation advisory firm that conducted the survey, T-Media, told YLE on Wednesday that Tampere received excellent scores for location and economic vitality while outperforming the other cities also in terms of reputation, a measure of administrative and decision-making culture.
“Impressions that Tampere is working together toward a common goal are reflected outward positively,” he said to the public broadcasting company.
The second place on the ranking was shared by Kuopio and Oulu, the latter being the only city to enhance its appeal from the previous year. Jyväskylä came in fourth, Turku fifth, Espoo sixth, Lahti seventh, Pori eighth, Helsinki ninth and Vantaa tenth.
Turku, Lahti, Vantaa and Helsinki were the cities to record the most significant decline in appeal.
Väisänen revealed that the respondents paid more attention to the cost structure of cities, along with safety, residential satisfaction and other issues related to community and the environment. “The further away we get from the so-called crowded Finland, the better the evaluations for these three features.”
Oulu was the only city to enhance its appeal also in terms of cost structure, a surprising finding in the prevalent economic situation, according to Väisänen. The survey results, he told, reflect the cost pressured facing households, with the capital region in particular struggling due to its high cost structure.
Conducted this year for the third time, the survey drew 1,399 responses from 15–65-year-old people between January and January.
Tampere secured the stop spot also in a recent survey of the views of business executives on 13-image related factors for 36 municipalities across Finland, the Finnish public broadcaster wrote in December. The city received the top score for each of the factors, earning praise for its location, business-friendly climate, labour supply and business-academia collaboration.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT