Editing Espoo (section)

=== 20th century ===
[[File:Kauklahti 1920.jpg|thumb|right|[[VR Class Vk3]] steam locomotive at [[Kauklahti railway station]] in the 1920s]]
[[File:Moderne architectuur in Helsinki, Bestanddeelnr 920-4662.jpg|thumb|right|The so-called "[[Hip flask houses]]" in Tapiola were built from 1959 to 1961. This picture is from 1967.]]
In 1920, Espoo was only a rural municipality of about 9,000 inhabitants, of whom 70% were Swedish speaking. Agriculture was the primary source of income, with 75% of the population making their living from farming.{{cn|date=June 2023}}

[[Kauniainen]] was separated from Espoo in 1920,<ref>[https://www.hs.fi/paakirjoitukset/art-2000004593168.html 550-vuotias Espoo on kasvanut aikuiseksi] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230927135426/https://www.hs.fi/paakirjoitukset/art-2000004593168.html |date=27 September 2023 }} – ''[[Helsingin Sanomat]]'' (in Finnish)</ref> and it gained city rights the same year as Espoo, in 1972. However, the border between Espoo and Kauniainen was only defined in the late 1940s.

Espoo started to grow rapidly in the 1940s and 1950s. Shortly after the end of the [[Continuation War]], the population of Espoo grew by four thousand as frontline soldiers and evacuees from [[Moscow Armistice|ceded territories]] (including the [[Porkkalanniemi]] peninsula, leased to the Soviet Union between 1944 and 1956) were settled in the city.<ref name="väliaho">Väliaho, Tuomo: [https://www.hs.fi/kaupunki/espoo/art-2000009026829.html Vielä 1960-luvulla Espoota pidettiin "villinä läntenä", jossa olivat omat lait ja käytöstavat – Silloin kyti juonittelu, jollaista ei oltu ennen nähty] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220829002042/https://www.hs.fi/kaupunki/espoo/art-2000009026829.html |date=29 August 2022 }}, ''[[Helsingin Sanomat]]'' 28 August 2022. Accessed on 29 August 2022.</ref>

Espoo's location right next to the capital city of [[Helsinki]] attracted people working in the capital city to move into the rapidly growing neighbour city, and already before [[World War II]] there were many suburbs along the [[Rantarata]] railway, such as [[Leppävaara]], [[Kilo, Espoo|Kilo]] and [[Kauklahti]] which had formed into an industrial area. After the new Jorvaksentie road (predecessor to the [[Länsiväylä]] highway) was completed, new detached houses were built along it, particularly in [[Westend, Espoo|Westend]]. After the war, many detached houses for soldiers having fought at the frontline were built in Espoo. The highest increase in population only started in the early 1950s when the Asuntosäätiö foundation started construction of the garden city of [[Tapiola]], and construction of a new campus area of the [[Helsinki University of Technology]] started in the neighbouring district of [[Otaniemi]].

In the 1940s and 1950s Espoo grew more rapidly than it could afford. The infrastructure of Espoo was not prepared to handle such rapid growth. There was no time for proper [[zoning]], instead new houses were built as people bought lots in the city.<ref name="väliaho"/>

A major change happened in the late 1940s as the [[Helsinki University of Technology]] moved from [[Hietalahti, Helsinki|Hietalahti]] in [[Helsinki]] to larger premises in [[Otaniemi]], and the planning of the [[Tapiola]] garden city district was started. As the city did not have enough money to fund the construction of the student village in Otaniemi, the [[teekkari|technical university students]] took to the matter to their own hands, both by gathering money through various activities and taking part in the actual construction. About 800 thousand bricks from the Embassy of the Soviet Union in Helsinki, which had been destroyed in the [[bombing of Helsinki in World War II|bombing of Helsinki]], were used to build student apartments in Otaniemi.<ref name="väliaho"/>

From 1944 to 1956 the Espoonlahti bay between Espoo and Kirkkonummi served as the border of the [[Porkkala Naval Base]] under the control of the [[Soviet Union]]. A large part of Kirkkonummi, as well as a narrow strip of the sea and a couple of islands in Espoo were included in the area of the naval base. In Espoo, the [[Kauklahti railway station]] near the border to the naval base became a tightly controlled border station between Finland and the Soviet Union. The land connection to Porkkala went via the Kivenlahti bridge. During the time of the naval base, part of the western coast had been evacuated, and the windows of the houses in the border villages on the Soviet side had to be covered during night time. The windows of the trains travelling through the area rented to the Soviet Union had to be covered with wooden hatches from the outside for the duration of passage through Soviet territory, and could only be reopened upon reentry to Finland.

Unlike the neighbouring city of Helsinki, Espoo failed to develop a proper city centre, forming instead into an area of multiple centres. This was partly because a 1968 zoning plan where Espoo was divided into four separate areas, with the administrative centre situated in Muurala (later known as [[Espoon keskus]]), partly because most of the land in Espoo was not actually owned by the city but was instead in private ownership, directing new construction to wherever it was possible instead of using a proper zoning plan.<ref name="väliaho"/>

The rather tightly populated districts of [[Tapiola]] and [[Leppävaara]] in eastern Espoo underwent attempts to separate from the city of Espoo, from two directions: on the one hand, the inhabitants of the districts wanted them to become independent municipalities, while on the other hand, the neighbouring city of Helsinki wanted to annex the districts into Helsinki. These attempts all failed and the districts remained as part of Espoo, which changed from a rural municipality first to a [[market town]] in 1963 and then to a [[city]] in 1972.<ref name="väliaho"/> The new administrative centre of the city, [[Espoon keskus]], was built in the 1970s around the [[Espoo railway station]] and the old grey stone church in Espoo.

The non-centralised nature of Espoo led to significant differences between its districts. Different parts of Espoo included the wealthy garden city district of Tapiola, large areas that still remained as countryside, and new suburbs such as [[Haukilahti]], [[Karakallio]] and [[Soukka]]. Disagreements between different districts were common and gave Espoo a nationwide reputation of a quarrelsome municipality.<ref name="väliaho"/>

The city quickly developed from a rural municipality into a fully-fledged industrial city, gaining city rights in 1972. On 1 January 1972, when Espoo gained city rights, it had a population of over 100,000, making it into the fourth-largest city in Finland at the time, after [[Helsinki]], [[Turku]] and [[Tampere]].<ref name="väliaho"/>

Due to its proximity to Helsinki, Espoo soon became popular amongst people working in the capital. In the fifty years from 1950 to 2000, the population of Espoo grew from 22,000 to 210,000, mainly due to large-scale migration from other parts of Finland. Since 1945, the majority of people in Espoo have been Finnish-speaking. In 2006, the Swedish-speaking inhabitants represented barely 9% of the total population. The population growth is still continuing, but at a slower rate. In the summer of 2022, the population of Espoo grew to over 300,000 inhabitants.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12515985|title=Espoolaisia on nyt 300 000 – kaupunginjohtaja Jukka Mäkelä kävi onnittelemassa tuoreinta espoolaista|first=Rosa|last=Lehtokari|work=[[Yle]]|date=29 June 2022|access-date=31 August 2022|language=fi|archive-date=31 August 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220831094613/https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12515985|url-status=live}}</ref>