Juoksuhaudoista jälleenrakennukseen - Siirtoväen ja rintamamiesten asutus- ja asuntokysymyksen järjestäminen ja sen käänteentekevä vaikutus asuntopolitiikkaan ja kaupunkirakentamiseen

Abstract

Siirtoväen ja rintamamiesten asuttamistehtävä oli sotakorvausten ohella Suomen sodanjälkeisen talous- ja sosiaalihistorian tärkein kysymys. Tämän ainutkertaisen asutuspoliittisen tehtävän ratkaisemiseksi säädettiin vuonna 1945 maanhankintalaki. Lain lähtökohtana oli Moskovan rauhassa Neuvostoliitolle luovutettujen alueiden karjalaisen väestön uudelleen asuttaminen. Maata tai asuntoa vailla oli liki puoli miljoonaa karjalaista. Luovutetut alueet käsittivät yli 12 prosenttia Suomen pinta-alasta ja väestöstä. Siirtoväen asuttaminen otettiinkin heti sodan jälkeen valtiovallan ensiarvoiseksi tehtäväksi, jotta yhteiskuntarauha maassa ei järkkyisi. Vaikeiden sota-aikojen yksimielisyys sekä asuttamiselle suopea ilmapiiri syksyllä 1944 käynnistivät lainsäädäntäprosessin, jonka lopputuloksena syntyi seuraavan vuoden keväällä maanhankintalaki (MHL). Lisäpainetta maanhankintalainsäädäntään toivat myös sodan aikana rintamamiehille annetut lupaukset maan ja asunnon saannista. Rauhanteon jälkeisissä asutusratkaisuissa ei rintamamiehille annettuja lupauksia voitu sivuuttaa ja siksi maansaantiin oikeutettujen piiri laajennettiin koskemaan myös rintamalla palvelleita miehiä.

Siirtoväen ja rintamamiesten asutuskysymyksen ratkaiseminen vahvisti yhteiskunnan perustaa ja loi sekä jatkuvuutta että tulevaisuudenuskoa maan pientalonpoikaiselle elämänmuodolle. Perinteisen näkemyksen mukaan suuri osa potentiaalisia vallankumouksen tekijöitä vietti MHL:n ansiosta aikansa peltoa raivaten ja hartiapankkitaloa rakentaen eikä ennättänyt siksi kommunistien toriparlamentteihin. Koska nykyään tiedetään, ettei maanhankintalain toteuttaminen osoittautunut maatalouspoliittisesti kestäväksi ratkaisuksi, on sen merkitys nähty pysyvämmin kommunismin torjumisen valossa. Tässä kohdin onkin hyvä muistaa, että maalaisliiton ajaman asutuspolitiikan tarkoituksena oli ollut jo torpparilaista alkaen vallankumouksen torjuminen ja pientalonpoikien määrän lisääminen. Siksi on luonnollista, että perinteistä asutuspolitiikkaa jatkanut maanhankintalaki sisälsi näitä samoja aatteellisia tavoitteita. Asutuskeskusten siirtoväki valitsi sijoituskuntansa valtiovallan toimista riippumatta omatoimisesti. Monesti entisen työnantajan uusi toimipaikka määritti työntekijänkin kotipaikan. Niinpä kaupunkilaissiirtoväelle löytyi nopeasti töitä, mutta ei asuntoja; siirtoväki olikin suurin yksittäinen syy 1940-luvulla syntyneeseen hallitsemattomaan asuntopulaan kaupungeissa.

Siirtoväen sijoittuminen kasvatti merkittävästi monen kaupungin väkilukua: karjalaisia muutti Helsinkiin jopa 30 000 ja esimerkiksi Tampereelle lähes 10 000. Kaupunkilaissiirtoväki hankki asuntonsa useimmiten omatoimisesti käyttäen ns. toisen korvauslain kautta saatuja varoja, joilla korvattiin Karjalaan menetettyä omaisuutta. Vaikka maanhankintalakia ei ollut suunniteltu urbaaniin käyttöön, se vaikutti myös kaupunkeihin, sillä evakot saivat lain perusteella asuntotontteja asutuskeskuksista. Erityisesti rintamamiesten asuntokysymys hoidettiin suurelta osin kaupungeissa asutuslain pohjalta. Maansaantiin oikeutettujen rintamamiesten ja karjalaisten asuttamisen myötä syntyi suomalaisiin kaupunkeihin kokonaisia uusia kaupunginosia. Tästä ovat hyvänä esimerkkinä ne noin 30 000 asuntotonttia, jotka luovutettiin asutuskeskusten alueilta maansaantiin oikeutetuille.

Täten maataloudellisten vaikutustensa sijaan maanhankintalain säätämisvaiheessa sivujuoneksi jäänyt asuntorakentaminen tuli olemaan MHL:n kestävin ja tuloksekkain aikaansaannos. Vaikka asutustoiminta lisäsi uudisrakentamista kaikkialla, korostui MHL:n asuntopoliittinen puoli paradoksaalisesti ennen kaikkea asutuskeskusten alueella. Laajimmat ja yhtenäisimmät MHL:n mukaiset asuntoalueet muodostettiinkin lopulta kaupunkien alueelle. Siirtoväen ja rintamamiesten rakennuttamat tyyppitalot sijoitettiin aikaisemman aluerakentamisen traditiosta poiketen vanhasta kaupunkirakenteesta irrallisiksi pientaloalueiksi kaupungin laitaosien rakentamattomaan maastoon puutarhakaupunki- ja metsälähiöperiaatteen hengessä. Siksi Rintamamiestaloalueita voi hyvällä syyllä pitää kaupunkien lähiöitymisen esiasteena. Tuhannet rintamamiestalot määräsivät rakennuskannaltaan yhtenäisine ja aikaa kestävine tyyppitaloprofiileineen kaupunkikuvan visuaalisen luonteen uusissa esikaupungeissa.

Tonteille rakennetut rintamamiestalot ovat vielä tänäänkin haluttuja asumiskohteita.

The Land Acquisition Act

Resettling the displaced people and the veterans was along with the war reparations the most important task for Finnish post-war economic and social history. To solve this one-off housing policy problem, the Land Acquisition Act was passed in 1945. The prime starting point for the law was the task of resettling the population from the areas ceded to the Soviet Union in the Moscow Peace Treaty inside the new borders. Over 420 000 Karelians were without land or housing. Pressures were exerted on the resettling operations in the course of the Continuation War (1941-1944) by the promises to give land to veterans and disabled war veterans. To come true with these promises added greatly to the tasks of the post-war resettling and housing policies. The economic size of the reconstruction is well reflected in the fact that resettlement activity had an impact on some 7 00 000 Finns with their family members.

The resettling of the displaced Karelians and the war veterans was based on three earlier models. The first model was the result of the housing policy of the 1920s and the 1930s with the intention of stabilizing the circumstances in society by increasing the number of independent small farms. The second model came from the Rapid Resettlement Act passed after the Winter War, whose purpose was to resettle the displaced Karelians who had been evacuated from the ceded territory. The third model could be the return of the Karelians to Karelia (1941-1944) and the arrangements to reconstruct Karelia which had been returned. The motivation behind the resettlement activity since the days of Finland gaining her independence was to get rid of the land leasing system and to have the farmers become independent. Of all the parties, the Agrarian Party especially believed that the social issue in Finland could be solved only through agriculture. Healthy countryside and affluent population were the backbone of the nation, the party said. The work done by an independent farmer was made the main yardstick for the entire social policy. Agrarian self-sufficiency also reduced the need for social policy. Having a sound system of farming was seen as a counter-balance to the thirst for riches, Socialism and pernicious urban life. It was not desirable to increase the attraction of cities by raising the level of housing for the working class or by improving the social security of the working class. In the agri-idyl, only the small farmer was a reliable torch-bearer for the state.

The Land Acquisition Act which was passed to resettle the displaced people and war veterans was the social policy of Finnish agrarian society. Since there were no welfare services in post-war Finland, getting a piece of land was the equivalent and substitute for social security. High inflation, too, intensified the hunger for land. Although the imposition of war reparations was one starting shot for the industrialization of Finland, the cities for the most part were still unable to exploit the displaced people in the countryside as potential workforce in the situation in 1945. Since the displaced agrarian people were only farmers by trade with no other trades except that of a small farmer, it was natural to place the evacuated agrarian people still in the service of agriculture. This was expedient also for the reason that the country needed more food in short order. In hindsight, it is easy to criticize the meaningfulness of the domestic policy the government followed at the time, but under the circumstances, the alternatives were few: the displaced Karelians had to be made quickly part of society and to be gainfully employed. In this respect, the results were unique, for by 1949 well nigh all Karelian evacuees who had been resettled in the countryside had received their resettlement plots. The gigantic resettlement project was completed in Finland faster than anywhere else in war-torn Europe. That is why there was no need to establish refugee camps Finland.

Passing the Land Acquisition Act was also a legitimacy measure, motivated by the wish to maintain law and order. A number of people believed that solving the resettlement and housing issue of the Karelian evacuees and war veterans would strengthen societal foundations and ensure the continuance of the country s small farmers way of life and their faith in the future. According to the views of the members of the Finnish Agrarian Party, a large number of potential revolution mongers spent their time clearing new farmland and building their houses, because of the Land Acquisation Act, and had no time to listen to the revolutionary propaganda promulgated by the far Left. Undeniably, the passing of the Land Acquisition Act robbed the Communists of strong points in the election which they could have used to demand a radical land reform. Those in charge of the far Left did, however, understand that not even their own supporters wanted the collectivization of agriculture but, above all, a plot of land of their own. .The Land Acquisition Act came into being mostly on the terms of the Agrarian Party and the Social Democrats. It was the Agrarian Party who understood the hunger for land of the veterans who came from deprived origins and took advantage of it. The political Right, who dragged its feet but, nevertheless, supported the resettlement of the evacuated farmers, finally regarded the housing measures as inevitable so as to prevent the Communists social land reform. According to the Land Acquisition Act, land ceded by their owners was turned into farms, homestead farms, fishing farms, homesteads and housing plots. For the evacuees, the most important types of housing arrangements were the first two. The evacuees were mostly resettled in cleared farming land in the South of Finland because the idea was to resettle the inhabitants from the ceded areas in districts where the natural conditions and the wherewithal resembled their earlier living conditions as much as possible. This principle in the Land Acquisition Act naturally placed the heaviest burden on the most fertile southern part of the country. Others who were entitled to receive land and had less interest in farming clearly ended up in the North and the East of the country. The veterans main interest was to get a plot or a homestead from where they could then pursue their activities to earn their livelihood in some other form than agriculture.

The housing efforts meant getting the labor reserves to engage in agriculture and its ancillary forestry. This was done with enormous resource sacrifices in national economy, for the enforcement of the Land Acquisition Act increased the number of small farms in Finland significantly. Since the new farms were formed by dividing old farms, it meant that big land ownership was almost totally abolished in Finland. Despite the fact that a part of the farms established on the authority of the Land Acquisition Act, in hindsight, the Land Acquisition Act has been accused of adding to the number of non-viable small farms in Finland where there were already a plethora of them. The direction the Finnish agricultural policy deviated from those of West-European countries in the post-war period, for in Western Europe their number had been declining and their size growing. This has to do with the fact that in those countries industrialization and urbanization were decades ahead of Finland. It would not be a big mistake to surmise that by pursuing the resettlement process we slowed down the urbanization of Finland by a couple of decades. Instead of the agricultural impact, the housing construction, a sub-plot in the passing of the Land Acquisition Act, turned out to be the most sustainable and successful accomplishment of the law, for the houses were the most valuable new real capital to come out of the resettlement activity. Through the Land Acquisition Act the Government was able to provide the rural population struggling with housing problems with housing they needed, which at the same time meant soaring housing standards in rural life. On the other hand, the continuation of the state financing of the massive house construction in the countryside in the 1950s was a mistake, for the migration from the countryside to the cities was already at that time an irrevocable trend. That resulted in the abandoning of thousands of farms by the end of the 1960s. It is true the housing construction contributed to reconstruction everywhere, but the housing policy entailed in the Land Acquisition Act paradoxically became pronounced in population centers since the war veterans hoped to get their resettlement plots in their home towns. The veterans returning from the front wanted to live with their families in comfortable and wholesome homes in towns and cities. Thus the housing project in population centers gained an unexpectedly larger scope and turned into a large land and housing policy problem. The largest and most tightly knit residential areas were developed in towns and cities.

An Analysis of the Path Dependency: Urban Construction

In the interim period between the wars, the traditional town and city stood out clearly as a whole of its own from the surrounding areas. The ideal of dense construction ruled all the way till the breakthrough of functionalism in the 1930s. Although a major portion of Finnish towns were rural-like commercial town with their low buildings, the housing in bigger cities had become more dense along with the industrialization. The development of urban structures in many a town or city was impeded by the unorganized conditions in suburban areas which had grown in an unstructured fashion. Attitudes towards modern towns and cities were controversial and anti-urbanism was on the rise. The concern about the political consequences of poor housing conditions and the degeneration of urban life gave rise to housing reform experiments. At the background was the rising interest in garden city ideology and detached house living at the end of the 1920s. The most famous applications of the garden city ideology were in the Kulosaari and Käpylä subdivisions in Helsinki. These housing subdivision which sported housing close to nature remained isolated attempts, for the state subsidies for housing construction dwindled towards the end of the 1920s. After that the construction of detached houses was insignificant, without subsidies and done on one s own initiative.

The functionalistic breakthrough took place at the end of the 1920s. The goal was a new architectural trend with the idea of creating a good living environment for everyone. Functionalism included the firm belief that in an environment close to nature one was able to rear better people and to create healthier societies. The emergence of functionalism remained, however, mostly on paper because the depression in the 1930s put a stop to construction activity before it actually got off the ground. In the pre-war period, city planning had no holistic approach and the construction activity was plagued by a lack of central control.

The conditions in the post-war house construction and city planning in comparison with the pre-war period were totally different: smaller resources and a shortage of construction materials forced people to return to simpler construction governed by austerity. Despite the abnormal premises, the one-family houses in the reconstruction period applied the doctrines of functionalism in the functional differentiation of space. In city construction, the garden city principle was applied by moving the new subdivisions from the downtown area to separate zones.

According to the path dependency analysis in historical sociology, the issue of the resettlement of the displaced citizens and war veterans meant a critical juncture, a sudden and rapid change in urban construction. After this contingent event, there was no return to earlier development paths. The first concrete sign of this was the construction of self-contained uniform donated housing subdivisions and veterans communities (1940-1943) outside the established urban structures. The concurrent construction of these one-family-house areas marked the start of subdivisional development gaining ground in urban areas. The technical development with standardized wooden houses offered a chance to renew old city structures.

The sudden housing shortage in cities, which was made worse by the issue of resettling the displaced Karelians and the war veterans, called for drastic measures. Simplified construction in new suburbs was the best and most rational way of meeting the emerging challenge of urban construction. At this stage, the serious housing and resource shortage cut off other alternate developmental avenues in urban construction. According to the path dependency assumptions, history makes some developmental paths more dominant while others become marginal or totally impossible. Conceptions about the nature of townscape and cityscape changed partly of necessity and partly because the housing reformists advocated the building up of garden city districts which represented the ideal cityscape. As a counterbalance to the values and attitudes, there were the Land Acquisition Act, which infringed upon the traditional self-determination principle of cities, the urgency of the resettlement activity, and the shortage of construction materials. In practice, the Land Acquisition Act was the first housing policy law which intervened in the municipal autonomy and the land use and town plan policy of the cities. In any case, these dynamic mechanisms which blazed the way for urban construction made sure that the same self-reinforcing sequences were guaranteed for a long time. Housing development based on the concept of standardized houses changed into constructing residential areas with a majority of apartment houses in the sylvan suburbs towards the end of the 1950s. The means resorted to at the critical juncture meant a new, more sustainable and dominant path for the key structural principles in urban planning. The decentralization of resettlement, typical of the reconstruction period, effected fundamental changes in developmental urban history. The change took place during the urban reconstruction period.

The decentralization of the new construction outside the downtown area of cities was controlled activity. Since the state s role in organizing construction was especially reinforced, centrally controlled construction, streamlining, rationing and planning gained in importance. As early as at the beginning of the Continuation War, the first set of uniform and general plans for organizing and managing of construction work in the entire country were drafted. For example, the private construction was closely controlled, for you could get a bank loan only if you had standard house plans.

In the reactive sequence, which was part and parcel of the path dependency, operators reacted either negatively or positively to the dominant arrangements. The resettlement of the displaced Karelians and war veterans in towns and cities was supported, among other things, by the ideology of suburbs in a sylvan setting which was derived from the garden city ideology and which conformed to the Finnish anti-urban trend. In Asemakaavaoppi by Otto-I. Meurman launched the suburban principles which altered the urban concept as far as city planning was concerned. New districts would no longer be placed in the existing city structure but as separate areas so that there would be an unbuilt area in its natural state between the new suburb and the old city.

The idea was to turn the Karelian and war veteran villages which had sprung up even in a rather unplanned fashion into well-functioning housing cells in accordance with Meurman s plan of organic decentralization. Meurman considered anti-urban and sparse living in one-family houses the most ideal form of residential housing. Esthetically uplifting natural idyll was pitted against urban living and its restless lifestyle. Lahti, the representative city in the study, prepared a street plan in advance for all housing lots created in accordance with the Land Acquisition Act. The zoning authorities in most towns and cities volunteered to work with the resettlement authorities so that the towns and cities would remain in control of the developments in city planning. The idea was to place the new housing districts in the middle of nature and to have them conform harmoniously to the decentralization principle which belonged to the ideology of having the suburbs in the middle of forest areas. For example, in Lahti all the new residential districts which conformed to the Land Acquisition Act were located away from the existing city structures as separate districts. The implementation of the Land Acquisition Act was thus controlled and well-managed. It is true that the locating of the residential districts was not always done in the best possible way, but the intention in planning the residential districts was, nevertheless, to create theoretical milieus in the spirit of the English garden city ideology.

What was characteristic of the post-war residential construction in towns and cities was the planning and constructing of whole districts so that they would fit well in suburban natural sylvan settings where nature represented modern visual cityscape defined by architects. A new type of residential framework emerged when a modern urban environment and the so-called traditional rural environment joined hands. This meant rather sparse urban structures. When at the same time city planning was dominated by new ideas in urban decentralization, we are justified in regarding the group of one-family districts under study as precursors for the trend of having towns and cities get more and more separate suburbs. The model houses the displaced Karelians and war veterans had had built were, contrary to the earlier site development traditions, located as separate one-family-house residential districts in the peripheral areas of the town and city in the spirit of the principle of garden cities and suburbs located in sylvan settings.

Without the Land Acquisition Act, which was passed to solve the resettlement and housing problem of the displaced Karelians and war veterans, model house plans would not have become the most important forms of buildings for nearly two decades. At the same time, resettlement in accordance with the Land Acquisition Act meant in many a town and city, as was the case in Lahti and Helsinki with are representative cities in this study, that resettlement became centrifugal and the urban structure became dispersed. This was, indeed, a significant and visible change in Finnish towns and cities.

As a consequence of the construction activities by the war veterans and Karelians who were entitled to receive land in accordance with the Land Acquisition Act, totally new residential districts sprung up in Finnish towns and cities. Initially, the post-war city plans in most towns and cities served the Land Acquisition Act. In practice all those new urban districts in Lahti which sprung up during the urban reconstruction period sprung up as a consequence of the Land Acquisition Act. In Helsinki, one-family-house residential areas for those entitled to land grew up in more than ten districts. Because of the uniformity and time-worn standardized profiles of the thousands of veterans houses, they dominated the visual nature of townscapes and cityscapes in the new suburbs. That is the reason why this urban reconstruction layer is still easily recognizable today. Sharp criticism was voiced against the urban construction and architecture of the reconstruction period. There was talk about the austere or dismal forties, which included temporary emergency construction and monotonous model houses and war veterans villages. The truth is that there was very little of emergency construction and most reconstruction was according to plans because the goal was the creation of permanent buildings. The war veterans houses put up in the post-war period are today regarded as examples of successful urban construction. Sturdy veterans houses in lush and big plots, monuments of the reconstruction period, are still buildings people want to have in an urban setting. Path Dependency Analysis: Developing Housing Policy Prior to World War II, Finland actually had no state housing policy as a function per se. The prevalent view was that housing policy is something to be engaged in only for a fixed period of time and as necessitated by the circumstances. A brief intervention by the State in the housing market back in the 1920s was an example of the policy pursued. At that time, the background for the state intervention was the desire to allay the squalor in housing and to calm down conditions in society. Since the State was active just in the 1920s, no comprehensive and established housing support systems came into being. A thesis of individualism was prevalent in the country, and the basic starting point was that the task of getting a place to live in was to be left to private enterprise. State and municipal measures were meant to be auxiliary and complementary in nature. Resettlement activities were the only example of progressive housing policy. Prior to the arrival of the housing problem of the displaced Karelians and war veterans, there was an engrained tendency (path dependency) to limit the State s direct legislative and financial intervention in the construction industry. The State was not at all prepared to expand housing policy and public construction. There was no sign of an expansion of public housing policy in sight nor could it be predicted before the critical turning point, represented by the resettlement issue of the displaced Karelians on account of the war and the consequent acute urban housing shortage. Apart from the displaced Karelians, the new issue of the resettlement and housing of war veterans which cropped up in the course of the Continuation War meant a contingent and wielded on unexpected impact on the intensification of housing policy in the post-war years. That was the impetus for a chain reaction. An important trigger for the sudden housing shortage in towns and cities was the Peace Treaty concluded in Moscow in 1940. After the Peace Treaty, over 400,000 displaced Karelians were looking for a new home for themselves. By the spring of 1941, there were over 83,000 displaced people living in towns and cities. The State started to take care of the difficult housing situation by resorting to housing and rent control. In addition to the restrictive housing policy, it was possible to make quick progressive housing policy decisions. The unanimity of the Winter War created political will to back up the housing policy. In the background was the social awakening with joint and several responsibility, which was seen as a collective commitment to humanitarian activity on behalf of the people who had suffered from the war. New laws to arrange the housing issue of population centers were passed with an eye to the housing needs of the displaced Karelians. In December 1940 three new bills were introduced to promote house building. The displaced Karelians were given the priority in getting house loans in all of the three laws. At the same time, the State s progressive housing policy became activated for the first time since the 1920s on account of the housing problems of the displaced Karelians. From the point of view of path dependency, this law which was the forerunner for the State-Subsidized Housing Loan Act should be seen as something of great significance. The law was passed at the early stages of the turning point period which meant that the causal factors of the starting situation came strongly to the forefront in the later reactive sequence. The outbreak of the war anew in the summer of 1941, however, changed the situation. On account of the priority order in force during the war, there were not enough resources available for house construction. The reconstruction of the population centers in recaptured Karelia was prioritized above all other construction. Thus the laws passed to ease the housing problem of the displaced Karelians did not have time to have a significant direct impact. Much greater impact on the housing of the displaced Karelians came from the gift houses from Sweden which provided homes for over a thousand displaced families from Karelian towns and cities. The first phase to take care of the war veteran families housing were the comrades-in-arms houses built during the Moscow Peace Treaty period and the Continuation War. The building of war invalid and comrades-in-arms houses by volunteers played a great role in providing homes in many places. The progressive housing policy in the Moscow Peace Treaty period (1940-1941) and in the Continuation War mainly served the displaced Karelians and the war veteran families. The development of housing policy was speeded up by the help extended to the distressed. Once the Continuation War was over in the autumn of 1944, the housing shortage in towns and cities became really severe in the course of the reconstruction period. Post-war Finland was forced to concentrate her national product on investments serving the war reparations and on resettling the displaced farming population. Additionally, the rationing of contruction materials and labor impeded construction activities especially in towns and cities. Control over house construction was strict. The only housing policy program that served just towns and cities was the Act on Housing Loans for Small Flats in December 1944. The law, which was justified by the resettlement of displaced Karelians and the repatriation of the war veterans, was meant to serve the emergency construction of temporary rental units. The reasons for the urban housing shortage were the final cession of Karelia, the increase in the number of marriages, the number of houses destroyed in the war and the uncontrolled migration from the countryside. Since the war had inhibited not only the house construction but also the demand for housing, the housing shortage now also afflicted others besides the detached Karelian. Because of their special position, the detached Karelians were favored in the reconstruction period in restrictive as well as progressive housing policy decisions. At the end of the day, the revival of house construction in the post-war period was not possible without state-subsidized housing loans. One important hindrance that stood in the way of planning new housing policy was the agrarian values of the Agrarian Party. It is therefore understandable that the Land Acquisition Act, originally meant for agrarian circumstances, became the main housing policy line even in the population centers. The impact of the housing policy in the Land Acquisition Act was all the greater because society had to adapt itself to the realities of the period of deprivation: applying the Land Acquisition Act in towns and cities was advantageous to the State, for work done by those entitled to a grant of land played a vital role in the house constructing activity as prescribed by the law. Those building the new houses were able to realize savings in the construction costs by using their free time and labor. Even though the application of the Land Acquisition Act in population centers meant tying housing policy and city planning to traditional settlement policy, the construction of houses, for the most part, fell within the framework of modern urban planning. Thus the resettlement activities became part of ordinary urban housing production. The biggest problem was naturally the fact that construction in accordance with the Land Acquisition Act was being managed by the Ministry of Agriculture which lacked the traditional knowhow in the field of urban construction. The application of the Land Acquisition Act in urban housing centers was a success as far as housing policy is concerned, for on account of the law, over 20 000 families got a veteran s house of their own. The impact of model houses, built by those entitled to receive a plot of land, on the housing administration became even more pronounced when another apartment was built upstairs for a tenant family. This was naturally against the modern objectives of the home ideology, for in the ideal home of the time, that is, in the model house, only one core family was supposed to live. All in all, the housing policy side of the Land Acquisition Act grew in importance in many a town and city. At the background of the urban application of the Land Acquisition Act were the same ideological objectives as in the societal process of change in the countryside: the ownership of land and a house was reinforced and marked the beginning of a more and more popular trend to buy owner-occupied flats in towns and cities. With the Land Acquisition Act and state-subsidized house loans, state subsidies led to extensive measures in financial assistance to owner-occupied flats. The continuation of rent and housing control did alleviate the housing shortage somewhat, but lack of housing could not be solved by dividing existing apartments. The competition for scarce construction resources showed up in the discussion about the priorities in construction. It often was the cities versus the countryside. Construction took place in the countryside albeit the population of towns and cities in the 1940s rose by 400,000 people. At the same time, the rural population rose only by 50,000 people. The pre-war juxtaposition of towns and cities on one hand and the countryside on the other hand became more pronounced in the reconstruction period. The differences of opinion became manifest especially in housing policy. In addition to the Land Acquisition Act and the restrictive measures, the Acts on State-Subsidized House Loans were passed in 1949. An extensive government activity in the urban housing construction was now a fact. The new state-subsidized house loan system (ARAVA) was charged with the goal of stimulating the slack construction efforts in towns and cities and to ease the poor housing conditions. The Acts on State-Subsidized House Loans were facilitated by the relative strengths of the political parties at the time, for the reins of power were in the hands of a Social Democratic minority government. A contextual factor to keep in mind is that public opinion had started lending support to socio-political reforms by the government. The Agrarian Party was vehemently opposed to the passing of the laws and many others voiced their doubts about putting the moneys for the housing finances in one pile. In the reactive sequence of the path dependency, the operators react to the prevalent arrangements either for or against. The Agrarian Party held the view that there should be increased construction especially in the countryside so that the flow of migration of people from the country could be stemmed. At the same time there would be less pressure to move to the towns and cities and the urban congestion could be alleviated. The unwelcoming attitude of the Agrarian Party can be explained by the fact that there seemed to be no brownie points for the party nor its supporters from the State-subsidized House Loan system. That is why the party in the opposition was against the passing of the laws and wanted to cling to the old system which was based on resettlement activities. Urban housing policy loomed as a threat to the resettlement activities the Agrarian Party was so keen on. In this respect, getting behind the founding of the State-subsidized House Loan system was a rational political choice for both the Social Democrats and the Communists and the National Coalition Party although there the Right was not knowingly engaged in creating an institutional housing policy system. In any case, the situation could have given rise to another type of choice. It is true that there were arguments for the passing of the State-Subsidized House Loan Acts in the view that the housing issue for urban displaced Karelians could not be solved, but there were no special considerations for the displaced people in the law. The war veterans, too, had to experience the same type of disappointment. Despite the fact that the provisions in the State-subsidized House Loan Acts did not mention any groups by name, the displaced Karelians and the war veterans were the those private groups in need of housing who were the developers of state-subsidized apartment buildings. Apart from that, ARAVA financed construction was mostly in the hands of real estate developers. Despite the tenacious efforts of the housing ideologists, the ARAVA legislation did not, at first, support social house construction, for the apartments were given to the well-to-do. Additionally, in the conservative atmosphere in the 1950s, the ARAVA system got more and more criticism. The Agrarian Party, especially, repeatedly wanted to make cuts on the ARAVA appropriations or to dismantle the entire ARAVA loan institution. According to the path dependency assumption, the establishment of an institution makes it more likely that it will be reinforced. That is what happened because there was a clear turnaround in housing policy in a socially more expedient direction: in 1959 the objectives of the ARAVA system became more clear when the displaced Karelians and war veterans were given priority in getting the loans. Favoring the said special groups went along with the post-war idea whereby the focus of social police should be in lending support to the displaced Karelians, the war veterans, the war widows, and the disabled war veterans. Because political operators considered the favoring of the displaced Karelians and the war veterans morally justified and proper, the institution was renewed. The new State-subsidized House Loan Acts were passed with wide majorities in the spring of 1959. Earlier the ARAVA had been strongly impugned, but now, for the first time, it received strong legitimacy from all population circles. In housing policy, there was no returning to a situation where its task was merely to react to acute crises.

The resettlement and housing issue of the displaced Karelians and the war veterans created a sudden and unexpected change in the development of housing policy. From this contingent event sprung up a new path for housing policy expansion. Path dependency is a mechanism that joins events in a series of purposeful and temporal special measures. The Emergency Resettlement Act, the 1940 House Construction Acts, the joint efforts of the comrades-in-arms, the gift houses, the Land Acquisition Act and the ARAVA laws form a path-dependent continuum towards the instutionalization of housing policy and general social policy. In all the above mentioned laws which promoted housing policy and in housing care measures, we find either the displaced Karelians or the war veterans or both groups together, being prioritized.