Turku, 9 March 2020
Turku is forecasted to be a growth centre much as the cities of Helsinki and Tampere, even in the scenarios for the year 2040. If the growth continues its steady upwards trend, meaning an annual increase of 2,000 residents, Turku’s population will be over 210,000 at the end of the current decade.
The universities in Turku promote innovation and offer an increasing number of courses. One example of this is the Master of Science in Engineering programme of the University of Turku expanding in the fields of Mechanical Engineering and Material Technology. Another example is the start of Chinese language courses.
Even though Finland’s demographic development and forecasts show that the size of age groups will decrease, Turku’s development as a student city seems to be on an upward trajectory in terms of studies offered and the number of students.
The percentage of people living in rental housing has increased in all the largest urban areas in Finland. Turku is now Finland’s leading city in terms of the percentage of households living in rental housing, the percentage of people living alone, and the increase in rent levels for open-market rental housing.
TYS uses the support forms of ARA (Housing Finance and Development Centre of Finland) to produce reasonably-priced housing for students. The newest housing location is Aitiopaikka, which was completed in 2019 and is a great example of how rental housing and student housing can be both high-quality and reasonably-priced at the same time. The Foundation is also modernising and maintaining its old building stock, the newest example of which is the modernisation of sections A–E of Kuunsilta, which started in 2019 and ended in early 2020. If necessary, we can also give up some locations, through which we can contribute to the overall development of the rental housing offering. In 2019, the Foundation sold a housing location named Aamurusko.
