The solutions to building the post-
crisis world will be discovered from the
strengths during the crisis. In govern-ance,
a high level of societal trust will
still be a better option than authoritar-ianism.
Interconnectedness will still
provide better and faster solutions than
sporadicity. Economy build on multiple
strengths recovers better than reliance
on seemingly simple single solutions.
Equality will create stronger commu-nities
also in the future.
The corona crisis has taught us that
epidemics and future disasters will am-
© JETRO STAVÉN
© JETRO STAVÉN
Who is
Jan Vapaavuori
After an extensive career in Fin-nish
national politics Jan Vapaa-vuori
became the Mayor of Hel-sinki
in June 2017. As his first task,
he set forth a city strategy, laying
ground for an ambitious four-year
agenda. The strategy champions
Helsinki as the “most functional
city in the world” with a special
focus on sustainable growth, digi-talization,
global problem solving,
creativity, and the best possible
conditions for happy everyday
city life.
Vapaavuori served as Minis-ter
of Economic Affairs in 2012-
15 and as Minister of Housing in
2007-11. Since 2015 he worked as
Vice President of the European
Investment Bank. In addition to his
career in politics, Vapaavuori has
a long-standing career with the
City of Helsinki as Member of the
Helsinki City Council and as the
chairman of the City Board.
Vapaavuori graduated as
Master of Law from the University
of Helsinki.
plify the extremes in our societies. The
strengths become necessities and over-coming
weaknesses defining factors in
our survival. From this perspective, the
Finnish system and division of respon-sibilities
between the state, munici-palities,
and cities seem to work well.
One must build on those strengths and
not get caught on a myth of a “broken
world” where the only way forward is
more centralization and less individual
liberties. Cities will be at the forefront
of this question.
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