Dublin could learn a lot from the far-sighted vision of city planning and urban design in Helsinki, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor

Finnish may be utterly incomprehensible to other Europeans, but the language of Finnish architecture and urban design is crystal clear - and it carries important lessons for us, if we care to listen and see.

Let's start with the similarities. Finland, like Ireland, is a relatively small European country on the edge of the EU. Its capital, Helsinki, has a population (1.2 million) comparable to Dublin in its metropolitan region.

The Finns drink a lot, too.

The big difference is that everything works. Traffic congestion, as we know it, is virtually non-existent. Helsinki has an excellent public transport system - metro, trams and buses - and a cycleway network extending to around 1,000 kilometres.

Most people - well over 50 per cent - live in apartment buildings, usually five or six storeys high, so all amenities are within walking distance. And Helsinki has no slums or ghetto areas; indeed, it is one of the most socially mixed cities in Europe.

Take Vuosaari, for example. When the planners realised that a preponderance of new schemes were being occupied for social housing, they took corrective measures to make the area much more attractive for owner-occupiers and the private rented sector.

Vuosaari is now being developed as "a town by the sea", with a target population of 40,000. And though it's 14 kilometres east of Helsinki, a metro line means that the city centre is only 20 minutes away. There are good road connections, too, via a landscaped highway.

Ilkka Laine, the city council's planning architect for Vuosaari, explained that all of the newer apartment buildings in its beautiful maritime setting are the products of architectural competitions or, at least, development package competitions in which architecture counts.

His concept of a "planning failure" is that the main metro station was not built directly underneath the area's principal shopping centre; instead, people must cross a not-very-wide street to get to it. Would that planning failures in Ireland were so slight! Though barely more than 75 per cent built, Vuosaari already has all the facilities a new community would require - creches, schools, a health centre and library as well as bars, restaurants and shops. Recreation areas include a beach, a marina and forest walks.

Development has been built in discreet phases since 1990 so that the whole area is not turned into a building site. The next phase will include a 22-storey apartment tower, to give Vuosaari a distinctive landmark, and a wide esplanade leading down to the sea.

Apartment prices, by the way, are quite affordable by Dublin standards.

Even in the smartest-looking new blocks, with boat moorings in front, prices range between €3,000 to €4,000 per sq m (€278 to €371 per sq ft). Thus, a 100 sq m (1,076 sq ft) apartment would cost €300,000 to €400,000.

But there is something much bigger planned for Vuosaari - the relocation of Helsinki's main cargo port to a site just east of it. This represents strategic planning on a grand scale - something we flunked in the late 1980s, when a similar proposal was made for Dublin Port.

The plan, which dates back to the 1970s, is to be implemented by 2008. Not only will it mean that the new freight terminal can be plugged directly into Helsinki's outer ring road and the Finnish railway network, it will also release an area close to the city centre for redevelopment.

Because of environmental concerns over a forested area covered by the EU Habitats Directive, the road link to the new port is to be in a bored tunnel. The port will also have some 250,000 sq m (2.6 million sq ft) of warehousing and an equivalent amount of floorspace for industry.

Meanwhile, the city council is preparing a master-plan for Jatkasaari, where the cargo port is currently located. This will provide some 600,000 sq m (6.4 million sq ft) of housing and 200,000 sq m (2.1 million sq ft) of services and workplaces in a whole new neighbourhood within walking distance of the city centre.

The vast site of 80 hectares (192 acres) is surrounded on three sides by the sea, so care is being taken in its urban design to reduce the wind factor by orientating new buildings to engineer a more placid microclimate, centred on a serpentine public park as wide as Helsinki's Esplanade.

Matti Kaijansinkko, the project architect-planner, says Jatkasaari will be built at a sufficiently high density to support all of the services its residents will require. Two tramlines are to be extended to the area and nobody living there will be more than 300 metres from a tram stop.

Helsinki's planners can already point to the success of nearby Ruoholahti, which has been developed to a master-plan drawn up in 1986. This area became such an emblem of cutting-edge urban design that it attracted "architectural tourists" from all over Europe and beyond.

Ruoholahti's metro station was "opened in the middle of a field", as Mr Kaijansinkko put it, before a single apartment block was built on the site.

Another key decision, which greatly enhances the area, was to cut a new channel from the sea through the middle of it.

Walking around Ruoholahti now is a pleasant experience. The sea channel, with its boat moorings, is crossed by cable-stayed pedestrian bridges. There is very little traffic except on the main street that separates the main residential zone from offices along the road from Espoo.

Six-storey apartment buildings - all designed by different architects to avoid uniformity - are arranged alongside the waterway, with children's play areas, five-a-side football pitches, pocket parks, lime trees and a school with a basketball court in its open forecourt.

Though there are clear distinctions between semi-private and public spaces, there are no gated enclosures here - unlike in the docklands area of Dublin. The area also has a range of neighbourhood shops, restaurants and pubs as well as a supermarket at its metro station.

The biggest hole in Helsinki at present is the former bus station site, right in the heart of the city, where the plan calls for all the buses to be put underground beneath a new complex of offices and apartments. And it's all being done "at risk" by a private consortium.

In the wake of An Bord Pleanála's approval of the masterplan for Adamstown, in south Lucan, it is interesting to note that the delivery of metro stations for new housing areas in Helsinki is funded 40 per cent by private developers if they are built on time, declining to zero if they're late.

The Finns take a long view of urban planning. Matti Kaijansinkko thinks it will take at least 10 years to build out the masterplan for Jatkasaari, but - unlike us - he can have complete confidence that all of the pieces of the jigsaw will fall into place to create a sustainable new neighbourhood.