Certain areas in the capital region are becoming home to sizable numbers of immigrants but fewer Finns, the national daily Helsingin Sanomat writes.
“THE ETHNICALLY Finnish population in the capital region has started moving out of those areas with a high percentage of immigrants. The development can be seen by looking at the clear growth in speakers of foreign languages in individual districts. In Espoo’s Suvela, for example, the number of people speaking non-Finnish languages grew from 7.6 per cent to 20.7 per cent between 2000 and 2009.
Researchers call the phenomenon ‘white flight’. In other words, the number of ethnically Finnish people goes down whilst the number and percentage of immigrants goes up as children are born and people move to the area. In addition, ethnically Finnish people have started avoiding areas with a lot of immigrants.
The term “ethnically Finnish people” refers to those people who speak Finnish or Swedish as their native language.
These findings form part of a doctoral thesis being prepared by Katja Vilkama. She has analysed statistics about people moving houses. These statistics reveal that certain residential districts have a clear concentration of immigrants: Espoo’s Suvela, Vantaa’s Länsimäki and Helsinki’s Kallahti, for instance.
In total, there are dozens of these concentrations in the capital region, argues Vilkama. This development is, however, only in its first stages in Finland.”