The Red Locomotive Remembers
In Search of a Neighbourhood’s Lost Identity
Beneath tall pine trees, at the foot of a rocky slope, the red locomotive stands still. Children’s laughter drifts across the playground as they climb and run around its brightly coloured wooden frame.
“People wanted the play locomotive preserved,” says Marjut Klinga, a fourth-generation Helsinki resident. “When so much changed – when so many buildings disappeared – we needed this locomotive. It’s been here from the beginning.”
It is a Sunday afternoon in Mellunmäki, in East Helsinki. Klinga leads us through her neighbourhood, where she has lived for twenty-five years. For her, the turning point came with the loss of Mellari. Since 2008, Mellari had been a 600-square-metre community hub, sustained largely by the residents themselves, within the Mellunmäki shopping centre. For decades, it had pulsated with everyday life: children drawing at long tables, youth exploring the early internet, seniors lingering over coffee and gossip. Beyond the space for the residents’ association, the shopping centre, designed by architect Pentti Ahola and completed in 1974, housed a grocery store, congregation, flea market, restaurant and the office of the local maintenance company – forming the civic heart at the neighbourhood’s core.
In 2017, the shopping centre was demolished. New housing rose in its place, but the neighbourhood lost its centre of gravity. Meeting places fragmented into smaller, scattered ground-floor rooms around Mellunmäki. Many long-standing businesses struggled to continue. Restaurant Provinssi, a local fixture since 1977, survived initially thanks to a citizens’ petition that secured it space in the new development. Although the restaurant relocated, the atmosphere did not. Stripped of what had made it Provinssi, it soon closed.
The redevelopment offered less rather than more. Where the old shopping centre’s central hall had once sheltered events, encounters and unplanned lingering, the new complex provides no shared interior beyond a wind catcher at the supermarket entrance. Hopes for a renewed heart of the neighbourhood were instead pinned on the refurbished Mellunmäki metro station, where many services were relocated after the demolition.
The disappearance of Mellari forms part of a wider pattern. Mellunmäki lies within Mellunkylä, one of Helsinki’s five designated urban renewal areas, alongside Malminkartano, Kannelmäki, Malmi and Meri-Rastila. These districts share similar statistical profiles: higher proportions of rental housing, unemployment and lower incomes, as well as greater linguistic diversity. In 2019, Mellunmäki was selected for renewal, a process scheduled to continue until 2035. The plan aims to increase the housing stock by 20 per cent, adding roughly 2,500 residents to an area currently home to around 9,000 people. The metro station is envisaged as an expanding transport hub, extending eastwards as the future terminus of the Vantaa tram.
Mellunmäki has been reshaped before. Between 2012 and 2015 it formed part of the City of Helsinki’s Suburbs Project (Lähiöprojekti), under the slogan “Sivistys on siistiä” – loosely translated as “Being civil is cool”. Launched in 1996, the programme sought to revitalise suburban districts along the metro line and prevent regional segregation.1
As a continuation of the Suburbs Project, urban renewal has since become central to Helsinki’s strategy against segregation.2 Yet the language of recent policy, such as the previous council’s Place of Growth strategy, reveals a deep faith in expansion.3 Anchored in the 2016 master plan, the vision projected Helsinki’s population growing from 660,000 to 860,000 by 2050.
Public funding followed. In 2024 alone, nearly €16 million was allocated to urban renewal through the urban environment sector. Still, the core target – a two per cent annual increase in housing – has been achieved only once, in 2021. New construction was meant to generate much desired vitality, but low housing prices and a weakened construction sector have stalled projects. Owner-occupied housing has proved unprofitable for developers, while investor-led rental housing is discouraged in urban renewal areas. As the industry contracts, developments are postponed or abandoned. The neighbourhood awaits changes that may come, or may change shape. Much is still unknown as the entire country grapples with economic stagnation.
The 2016 master plan belongs to another moment in history: the optimism of the 2010s, shaped by cheap credit and confidence in endless growth. After the 2008 financial crisis, low interest rates doubled demolition rates in Finland. Cranes filled the skyline as investors sought refuge in concrete. Finland built more homes per capita than any other European country – mostly small flats, constructed quickly and with limited concern for long-term quality. Despite promises of tenure mix, a larger share than predicted of the housing ended up in private hands.
By 2025, the mood has shifted. Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine has unsettled Europe’s sense of security, and Finland is in recession. The construction sector has been hit hardest: companies have collapsed, architects and planners laid off, and sites left unfinished. Concerns over energy, water and critical infrastructure, such as energy lines and water storages, have displaced earlier faith in urban growth.
In the rush of the 2010s, housing was driven less by the quality of living than by speculative return. Green corridors were built over; fragile ecosystems replaced by token gestures of sustainability. In Mellunmäki, new buildings are planned for the Bredbacka area, a vital link in Helsinki’s urban nature network. Biodiversity is exchanged for roof gardens that satisfy green-factor calculations – green on paper, but detached from accessible nature experiences and ecological continuity.
Residents have been consulted throughout the city-led renewal process, as planning regulations require, yet their influence remains unclear. At Korvatunturinaukio, the square at Mellunmäki’s centre, Klinga recalls sitting with architects to plan a new home for Mellari. “We talked about the kitchen, the acoustics,” she says. The result was a street-level space with large windows and excellent soundproofing – ideal for events. The rent, however, proved too high. The space became a logistical space for the postal service; the carefully designed rooms now serve as storage. Mellari was relocated to a small and hidden basement elsewhere. The space was functional, but far from what had been envisioned.
After the shopping centre’s demolition, Mellari was run by the NGO Kalliolan Setlementti in new ground-floor premises at the other end of the neighbourhood. Change came again in 2025, when the hub moved to a former day-care centre. The space recalled something of the old Mellunmäki shopping centre’s openness, though Klinga feels it now belongs more to neighbouring Vesala than to Mellunmäki.
Only months later, funding decisions arrived: Mellari would receive no further state support. As new housing rises, shared spaces continue to vanish. “When we first heard about the urban renewal, we were excited,” Klinga says. “We thought it would bring good things.” That excitement has since curdled into frustration. “Absurd plans are being made without listening to the people who live here.”
Continuity – both spatial and administrative – is the precondition of meaningful renewal. Neighbourhoods are not abstract lines on a map, but living archives of memory, relationships and care. Sustaining them requires not only long-term planning, but long-term listening. Local knowledge cannot be captured in a single consultation; it must be gathered, renewed and carried forward.
Participation, then, cannot end when plans are approved or buildings completed. The city’s task is to maintain dialogue, bridge gaps and change course when needed. Good governance demands adaptation in the light of new knowledge.
Where the red locomotive now stands, there was once a forest beside the playground, with a small day-care centre tucked among the trees. From nearby flats, residents looked out over green canopies that softened daily life. When development plans emerged, locals asked whether at least the trees along the street could be spared. They were cut down regardless – not to make way for buildings, but to accommodate site cabins deemed necessary for construction logistics. Later, the developer promised the vegetation would be restored. Today, a single pine stands in the courtyard of the new block: a lone witness to what was lost – meadows, woodland and the living landscape that once shaped Mellunmäki’s identity.
In Mellunmäki, where usable spaces are repeatedly moved, closed and fragmented, the reality of a world that can change profoundly within a few years is starkly visible. Urban renewal must remain open to correction: learning from mistakes, recognising what works and adapting alongside those who live with change every day. Only then can renewal become more than replacement. The red locomotive still stands in the playground, a steady reminder of the value of continuity.
Notes
Santaoja, T., Ruotsalainen, P., & City of Helsinki. Kaupunkisuunnitteluvirasto. (2016). Sivistys on siistiä: Lähiöprojektin toimintakertomus 2012-2015. Helsingin kaupunkisuunnitteluvirasto.
City of Helsinki. (2020). Kaupunkiympäristön toimiala. Mellunmäen ja Vesalan kerrostaloalueiden täydennysrakentamisen suunnitteluperiaatteet. 8.9.2020.
City of Helsinki. (2021). A Place of Growth – Helsinki City Strategy 2021-2025. In the original Finnish document, the term “kasvu”, growth in English, appears in various contexts 43 times. The document in English mentions “growth” 30 times, for example: “One clear indicator of growth is construction. Long-term zoning decisions and city planning are the foundation of all new building in Helsinki, ensuring that new housing and office space is completed every year. Developments like this contribute to population growth, which is a prerequisite for improving the city’s financial resources and investment profile. Resources and investments go on to create functional solutions, comfort and beauty.”