Abstract
This article discusses the opportunities and challenges for resource-wise development strategies in regional planning. Spatial planning integrates the key aspects, transportation, housing, and food production which are, on many occasions, stated as the most significant consumption factors causing environmental impacts. In light of the challenges that regions are currently facing in Finland, we are drawing attention to the role of strategic spatial planning as demand-responsive resource management, a theme which is still inadequately addressed within regional development and planning in Finland. In many other fields of society, innovative data-based products and demand- and user-driven services are considered important sources of success in the future. Such strategies combine different types of service providers, like deliveries for groceries or restaurant meals, mobile healthcare services, or public transport with on-demand services. We highlight the fact that a regionally large and sparsely populated country, such as Finland, cannot achieve success solely through centralisation. Instead, smart networking, co-creation, and innovative cyber-physical solutions are vital for the utilisation of the entire country’s resource potentiality. In conclusion, we underpin the need for a framework, which would offer a strategic support scheme for resource-wise development, resource optimization, and closure of yield gaps. In our view it is necessary to begin to envision, strategise, and develop user- and demand-responsive development strategies with a specific aim for sustainable, resource-wise ways of life in northern regions, also outside the growing urban centres, and innovate solutions that help individuals, communities, and the whole society to renew and manage resources wisely.
Highlights
It is a well-known fact that most parts of Northern and Eastern Finland are vacating almost at the same speed as the southern metropolitan region is growing [1]
This tendency has gained much attention in the Finnish media, and the argumentation for metropolitan development as an overall gain for the entire country is supported by many advocates who see the opportunities this brings to sectors, such as the housing construction industry, for instance
Systems 2017, 5, 10 the resource-rich areas in the peripheral north, planning authorities are often unable to efficiently respond to situations where adaptation is necessary, due to either industry closures or new emerging projects and investments related to bioeconomy or extractive industries, for example
Summary
It is a well-known fact that most parts of Northern and Eastern Finland are vacating almost at the same speed as the southern metropolitan region is growing [1]. Systems 2017, 5, 10 the resource-rich areas in the peripheral north, planning authorities are often unable to efficiently respond to situations where adaptation is necessary, due to either industry closures or new emerging projects and investments related to bioeconomy or extractive industries, for example This may either lead to a considerable delay, or even cancellation, of the projects, or launching large-scale projects without considering adequately their impacts, as witnessed in some recent cases in Finland. Small and medium-sized rural population centres are, the most neglected scale of inquiry in terms of sustainable resource management, even though many features uphold the idea that they can, in terms of their suitable size, be well-fitted in many types of local self-supporting energy service or environmental technology solutions [17].
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