City Living

Aleksanterinkatu, Helsinki

A little over a week ago a Finnish newspaper announced that Helsinki has been voted as the best city to live in the world by Monocle magazine. Well done, I thought, a very adventurous and bold choice, which no doubt will create some heated debate. I also wondered if the vote will get any mention in the week’s Financial Times, since the editor-in-chief of Monocle happens to have a column in FT’s weekend edition. I wasn’t disappointed. Tyler Brûlé did indeed wrap is column around the subject of what makes some cities great and others simply awful places to live in. However, to my surprise, he did not reveal the winner but only the bottom ten from twenty to eleven. The top ten, he said, was to be released the week after. It appeared that the Finnish newspaper was rather ahead of its time. Monocle magazine did not publicise the result until this past week. Hence Mr Brûlé abstained mentioning the winners in his column.

But time in the newspaper world moves quickly and only two days after trumpeting Helsinki’s success, the Finnish paper in question published another article criticising the city and its planners. Completely trashing the most recent construction developments. I was confused. Finns had the privilege before the rest of the world to know that their capital has beaten places like Zürich, Munich and Tokyo, only to use this knowledge to criticise themselves before the congratulations start pouring in and the real debate begins. Typical Finnish psyche. Why is it so damn hard for us to accept complements? It seems we rather shoot ourselves on own foot than boldly raise our collective head and hold it high and proud! I get that nobody likes a snob and it is good be able to take criticism, but sometimes I get fed up with the eternal doom and gloom. In fact I got an old newspaper cutting that hits the bullseye in describing the Finnish psyche: “When a Finn is criticised he listens, when he is caned he turns the other cheek, but when he is thanked he farts!”

Anyway, in this weekend’s column we finally got the top ten from Mr Brûlé and also insight to some of the criteria he had used. Number one was water. Not just the quality of drinking water, which for me personally has always occupied number one spot, but also the pressure by which water gushes out from city dwellers’ water tabs and shower-heads. I could not agree with him more! After many years in Manchester I’m yet to live in a flat were shower experience has not left me feeling more damp squib rather than completely trenched. For that one needs to stand outdoors at any given day, but alfresco showering isn’t quite my thing and my neighbours might quickly resort to the old bill. It seems that Tyler Brûlé has been struggling with the same problem in London, which I find depressing. I had always though that the issue with poor water pressure has been down to my bad luck or locality, but reading the column by Monocle’s editor-in-chief lets me to believe that this is a countrywide problem. Conclusion: I don’t have a chance for a decent shower as long as I live the UK. Like I said depressing, especially since I have always valued water and thought of it as one of, if not the one most important element that plays central part in our life regardless who we are and where we live. It is the great leveller, apart from death. I have to admit that I do often miss the silken feel of fresh water on my skin. But back to the criteria. Good windows and balconies are mentioned as well. Simple things, which any expat Finn living in the UK, I’m sure, can appreciate and understand why they would be part of the criteria.

So well done Helsinki for beating competition from the likes of Melbourne and Sydney! It only shows that sun

Green tunnel of Pohjois-Esplanadi, Helsinki

shine and eternal summer isn’t all that makes a city liveable. Helsinki should be even more proud of its top place as it was measured in the midst of winter.

As I’m not living in Helsinki, I try to find little things and details in Manchester that make this city a little more bearable to live in. I like cities in the early hours of summer mornings. The slice of time between when the last of night’s creatures have crawled back in their holes and before the first people start their dull journeys to work. The time in between when nature reclaims the city back to herself. All the sounds of human activity have died out and as I dive into the tunnel of green my ears are filled with the cacophony of bird song, rustling and buzzing from trees and surrounding greenery. The warm summer morning’s air is stiff with intoxicating smells: sweetness of honeysuckle and roses with some bitter notes from daisies. I continue deeper into the tunnel. Even the faintest city sounds die away and I feel like I’m wrapped in a big fragrant blanket. Nature is full of life and I with it!

It sounds and feels like nature has taken back what has always been hers. Normally we are too busy and buried in city sounds that we fail to notice her most of the time. She is there sneaking in the parks, along aqueducts and canals, waiting for that brief window in time to claim back what has always been. I feel a little bit like an unwanted intruder. I can sense puzzled and disapproving invisible eyes staring at me. “What is that hideous two-legged creature? What is she doing here? It’s our time and place now!”

I take deep breaths and press on enjoying the fresh air! I want to fill every living cell of my body with the delight of morning dew. Sun is not high enough to have warmed and dried the air. I can recognise some hint of musky cypress in the air as well, reminding me of mornings by Rhône with winds blowing hot and dusty air from North Africa. Luckily it is not that hot in here and open aqueduct radiates coolness underneath the folding trees. I would give anything to add the sound of passing river currents to world of sounds surrounding me now. If I really strain my ears I can just about make out water trickling somewhere near the bottom of the aqueduct. Despite the recent downpours we haven’t had enough rain this summer. Sometimes water-level is that high it nearly breaches the embankment and water just about manages to force its way underneath bridges without bringing them down altogether! But not now. Now you have to concentrate and get past blackbirds before you realise there is a stream out there somewhere.

Greenery has already turned into more subdued and darker colour. Only in some shadowy ditches you might spot some delicate green sprouting trying desperately catch-up its peers in growth. A mallard couple wobbles happily along the cycleway. “Kwak, kwak, kwak!” Obviously they are having a some sort of domestic, so I just mutter my ‘good mornings’ and hurry on. I’m sure there used to be quite a few foxes around here as well, but I’ve not seen any so far. No wonder the mallards were so nonchalantly strolling a way away from water. When I entered the green tunnel at first the bustling birds stopped eating and hopped away on some near by branches as they heard my approach. As I turn and begin to make my way back, to my surprise they no longer even bother stop eating! I’m obviously been identified as a harmless village idiot, invading their world at the time when no humans are allowed.

Little by little I can hear more traffic on near by roads. Lorries and trucks rumble on to feed the ever hungry belly of the city. First commuters begin to appear. Blackbirds start to tune down their ear-splitting singing. I continue my slow return from the cover of green blanket back to the hustle and bustle of city. One more glance behind me as the tunnel spits me out, closes and disappears behind me.

Morning sun is already high and warming the dusty asphalt. I can smell the car fumes and dirt again. The first wave of commuters are now well on their way to work and engines are rumbling on the roads. While I was still sucked in the green tunnel at one point I almost began to wish that the world outside would have gone quiet and its roads empty. An eerie silence in the city, but for how long it would have lasted, I wonder. I’m sure nature would have quickly ceased its moment and there would have been an explosion of green from the tunnel. But it had not happened. Not this time.