All right, Jocka, let's think back — or rather talk — about the Tampere region. That's your home turf, isn't it?
Yes, yes — still Finland's spiritual capital.
Yeah, and it really is nice to visit. Driving in just now, I was watching how Tappara wiped the floor with Ilves — but anyway, the Nokia Arena is just a magnificent monument. SRV — Kokkila, I think — built it in a bit under cost, so we ended up with a nicer venue than usual. But it really was great to see that all of this was built without, say, Jokerit's Russian money — done purely with Tampere people's own money and development muscle.
Yes. But I'd bring up Särkänniemi — compared to going to Linnanmäki here in Helsinki, the rides are honestly better in Tampere. There was a bit of controversy — the poor dolphins there stirred up some bad press — and that issue was never really cleaned up, but the wristband pricing policy always seems to spark discussion every single summer. Is it, like, worth it?
That's always a good question. Of course, it's a city-owned company, so you'd probably have to ask the board and the CEO about that. Mikko Hautosaari became the new CEO there — he's a great guy and does a fine job — but there's always going to be some criticism, whether it's good or bad. Särkänniemi is just such a huge attraction, with families, families with kids, coming from all over Finland, so there's always going to be whatever it—
—ever it is, someone gets their feelings hurt over it, but it really is a wonderful place. For a lot of families it's that once-a-summer trip to Särkänniemi, and it's not quite the same thing as, say, Linnanmäki, because it's a bit pricier to travel to Helsinki and so on. But we do have to say Särkänniemi keeps developing all the time. The dolphins left a while back, and we'll see what takes their place. There are some pretty good plans in the works, and they'll come out at some point, but right now...
...this huge new roller coaster is coming. Really, just massive — it's opening right around now, since Särkänniemi opens right around these very days, so by the time this episode comes out it may already be open — May Day is right around the corner after all. Impressive stuff — that creaky old roller coaster was actually more intense than this one, if you ask me. I don't get this wooden roller coaster thing — apparently they're putting in a new terrace, right in the middle of Linnanmäki's wooden roller coaster, from what I hear.
...terrace — so that's the big news for this summer. Impressive. And of course Särkänniemi is an absolute legend — I went there a lot as a teekkari [Tampere engineering student], though the elevator was out of order [unclear], so you had to walk all the way up. Yeah, I've walked those damn stairs up there plenty of times as a teekkari. But yeah, that view, the terrace and the restaurant up there are amazing, and the food's good too. And then there's also...
...at least there's been the Sara Hildén Art Museum, so there's more to that complex besides the rides. And then there's the legendary alliance-model project — the tunnel that came out great, the one that leads there. Tampere was ahead of the curve on how these public projects get handled — it was the first alliance-model project in Finland, and since then it's been used in probably dozens of projects all over the country. It was great that people dared to give the alliance model a try, and back then it also had its opponents...
...and now it's held up as the model example, and it was great that the tunnel got built, because that's how we got — specifically, the politicians decided to build the long version — so we ended up with a whole new residential area out of it. Yeah, I actually walked around there. It's still a little bit like Jätkäsaari [the Helsinki district], still a work in progress, but coming along nicely — they keep building more, there are businesses, cafés, a bit of a riverside boulevard and so on. And then I've lived on Lapintie, close to Tampella — I actually had a summer job in Tampella, right on the bank of the rapids, and then we'd go...
...down to Ala-Pispala, that is, Tahmela — and Pispala itself is such a lovely ridge neighborhood, with those stairs, and especially in summer that lookout spot, the rock up top — you take the family up there with a picnic and a blanket. Then there's the Rosendahl hotel area with its lookout tower, and the Pyynikki Brewery area — that's also a really nice valley. Back when I was in middle school there...
...we had to go orienteering in that forest, and I'm honestly terrible at orienteering, so I've got some bad memories from that. But I have to say, if you're any kind of theater fan, the Pyynikki Summer Theatre is absolutely amazing. Last summer we saw 'The Unknown Soldier' there — it's got that revolving auditorium, so they basically get to build four or five constantly changing stage sets: one scene plays, then the auditorium rotates, and suddenly there's a totally different set for the next scene. By Finnish standards, it's genuinely a spectacular place.
Yeah. And then I ended up living in Järvensivu for a while [unclear], and there's real potential there, and in general that whole university area has developed beautifully.
Now Järvensivu is set to be developed further going forward. In the coming years it'll get even nicer — these deck-over-the-tracks projects are essentially extending along the rail line.
Yeah. And this might actually be my favorite part of the whole Tampere development story — specifically this rail yard area.
So now that the Nokia Arena is there, the next thing coming up is basically another building complex following on from the Nokia Arena — on the other side of the bridge, the North Deck — and then the next one, and the next. It's called the 'Asemakeskus' [Station Center] project, we're handling it in the city board, and going forward it'll get covered over more and more. So there'll be a whole new part of the city built right on top of the railway. Yeah. And that reminds me — since I live on Kalevankatu in Helsinki — that's when the Clarion...
...tower — well, that got 'toned down' a bit since apparently you're not allowed to have phallic symbols around here, but in Tampere they really committed to the 'Mordor Tower' properly — it draws people in [unclear] — yeah [laughs], and that was that right away. And just this past Monday — we're filming this on a Thursday, right? — on Monday, in the city board, we advanced the project for the neighboring hotel. A second tower is going up right next to it — Towers.
So yeah, we'll have Twin Towers going forward. [laughs] Tampere is getting twin towers, basically. That got advanced just this Monday in the city board. They'll be impressive going forward — hopefully nobody, you know, aims a little Cessna at them or anything like that. But anyway, that's how it is. It'll be a great spot, with the deck too — Tampere's drone squadron will probably shoot them down, I'm sure. But then there's also the Ilves Club and the Ilves Hotel — I should give them a mention too, even though it's not really related as such...
...to Ilves, but the hockey culture there is strong, yeah, and generally the whole sports scene — the football stadium and the Tammela Market Square area — is really lovely. And I have to say, part of the reason Tampere is a bit financially tight right now is those big projects, but on the other hand, we currently are, and have been for years, the most sought-after city in Finland. And speaking of the Tammela stadium, it really is...
...genuinely a great football stadium — easily the finest in the country. Same with hockey — we've got easily the finest arena in the country, the Nokia Arena. These are definitely the kind of draw factors whose real value won't be measured until maybe 20 years from now, because, for instance, KuPS even had to play their European match in Tampere [laughs] — so Tampere was, for a moment, the home ground of a Kuopio team. Yeah. That just goes to show...
...that we've genuinely dared to bet big up front on these large projects in Tampere. And that'll surely continue going forward too, although in the next few years we'll probably need to ease off the throttle a little, not push quite so hard. For example, right now everyone knows — probably the viewers too — the Hakametsä ice hall, Finland's most beautiful and, historically, maybe the most significant ice hall — well...
...right next to it, a new arena is coming. There'll be a high school and something for maybe 3,000 to 5,000 people — a sports-and-concert-hall type venue.
Not really a symphony orchestra venue or anything, but you could definitely put on a band gig there.
Then the Hakametsä halls themselves are getting rebuilt too. So the whole Hakametsä area is developing really fast right now as well. Yeah. When I lived over in Järvensivu, we'd sometimes walk over the ridge to the swimming hall area, and that's genuinely great too, that it's developing. And otherwise, the route out to Hervanta has gotten its tram line now, and I've actually lived in Hervanta myself — it used to be sort of its own separate little enclave, but now that area's been connected in as well...
...into the rest of the city. Yes. And going forward, the tram to Vuores will run the same way, via Lahdensivu, and I have to say — there was a lot of debate at the time over whether trams even made sense, and Turku is debating it right now too — but currently 80 percent of Tampere's urban growth is happening along the tram line. Yeah.
So I think that these days you genuinely can't find good arguments against the tram anymore. That's a separate matter, of course — everyone has their own opinion on whether it's worth extending further, now to Pirkkala, what gets built out in Ylöjärvi, and so on. But when it comes to having a tram within the city of Tampere itself, I think even its fiercest critics have probably realized by now: wait a minute, this actually turned out pretty well. Yeah. And then there's that horizontal dimension — Tampere is, in a way, built around that rapids area...
...kind of squeezed in around it, so it's actually brought a vertical dimension too — and Näsijärvi and Pyhäjärvi sort of dominate the scene, so there's room for a real sailing culture as well, and the whole summer-city feel is just fantastic. Yeah, yeah, this is really... I'm enough of a Helsinki native that — hey, by the way — I've sometimes wondered whether I should just get a second place in Tampere after all. Yes, yes, that would be pretty...
...sensible. And I have to admit we've had a bit of tunnel vision, or let's put it this way — maybe we didn't really see the growth slowing down here in Tampere, because at the time we made decisions like, say, Näsisaari — building this so-called 'Tampere's Dubai,' an artificial island made of sand, which the tram will run through going forward, or already does run through now — but there are supposed to be quite a few more apartment blocks going up on both sides of it. That kind of artificial-island solution isn't going to get finished any time soon. But then again, there's Hiedanranta, over on the Lielahti side...
...a brand new, gorgeous residential area is coming there, a culture house, and so on.
So yeah, we definitely have plenty of investment opportunities. And I think, given the current economic climate, it would be the responsible thing for us — say, the city board and city council — to take a look at whether some of these big projects that haven't been built yet should be put on ice for a while, put on hold for, say, five years. Yeah. If it's still just in the zoning stage, then, speaking as a member of the National Coalition Party, I'd say it's about time to take a bit of a critical look...
...at that list. Yeah. By the way, I actually used to go to that beach there as a kid, and I think there was a Lapland Hotels spa there too. That's an interesting one — it's nice. There really are great neighborhoods in pretty much every direction. Yes, but the thing is, Tampere, like a lot of other cities, is definitely struggling a bit with its own growth.
Mm. And it's a bit like — will that growth actually pay off in the future? And I think if you look 50 years ahead, or 30 years ahead, we'll probably look back and say it was a bit rough there in the 2020s, but thankfully we got through it. Yeah. It's nice to hear that the [unclear] mayor has still taken on some collective responsibility for this, but it's always a bit like that — it's easy for the left to push through those big projects — and speaking of which, you mentioned Turku, and...
...and especially the Vantaa light rail — those were, in a way, easy calls a few years back, easy, easy — but now the money genuinely is starting to run out, and the health and social services reform has taken away the ability to funnel social security and healthcare cash flow into urban development, so now the use of that money is a lot more tightly controlled. Yeah. And then, maybe the biggest burden of all — Turku probably weighs on it some too, I don't know how much — but we've got these unemployment penalty payments, which come to 50 million, and you can do an awful lot with 50 million. Yeah.
So this is really key. We need to be able to bring that cost down to a minimum here in Tampere, and in my view it was a pretty poor move by the state to go with a model where we're now, in effect, carrying responsibility for something that doesn't really belong to us directly. But we do have, for example, one really central initiative that I'm personally pushing, or trying to push forward wherever I can: we have a huge number of long-term unemployed people on the books who genuinely are no longer fit for work...
...haven't been for a long time, and yet they can't get onto a pension. So we, as a city — and other cities too — really need to be able to hire, say, doctors to assess whether someone is fit for work or not. If someone is clearly what you'd call a 'man of the woods,' living out there somewhere — well, maybe not literally under a bridge, but something along those lines — and is clearly no longer fit for work in any capacity, then we simply have to get them...
...onto a pension. There's no point in them still being on the books at the employment office, reporting, you know, applications and so on. This is a really key issue, in my view, for the whole country, but especially for us here in Tampere — we need to clean up the statistics so they actually reflect reality. Yeah. Well, this really got me going — the hometown pride is flowing here — so please, do get in touch with me. It would be interesting — like I mentioned in the main episode — I could use some excuses to come...
...to Tampere more often, so one option would be joining some company there — say, a board, or an owner's advisory role of some kind — so don't hesitate, reach out.
Any specific requests on that front? Well, no — I mean, AI work can basically be applied to anything. Basically, from what I've learned, you can automate or analyze even really difficult problems to the point where you already get a first-derivative-level solution, just by running confidential data sets through my whole AI arsenal. Yeah.
So I [snorts] find that companies don't dare to do this, and yet they get an absolutely insane first-derivative benefit when I run some critical company problem's data through my systems.
So there you go. Yeah. This is just kind of a gift, in my opinion, that could be put to a lot more use going forward. Society thanks you.
That's right. Yeah. But thanks, Jocka — and if this is how you found your way here, make sure to check out the main episode too. Yes. Thanks so much to our guest. Yeah.