Erja Kettunen

Paired Border Towns or TwinCities from Finland and China

Abstract This paper discusses cross-border cooperation at the level of urban socio-economic systems. Worldwide, cross-border urban cooperation has in several cases produced socio-economic and political coherence supported by various joint programs and efforts. However, the degree of coherence varies and seldom creates socio-economically and politically tightly integrated “Twin-Cities” where the state border becomes highly transparent or obscure. Focusing on Finland and China, our aim is to identify whether the selected border towns represent coherent TwinCities or a more loose type of “paired border towns”. The study uses an empirical examination of three Finnish towns (Helsinki, Tornio, Imatra) and their neighboring towns in Estonia, Sweden, and Russia as a benchmark. Then, a comparative study is made regarding three Chinese cross-border cities facing Russia, Vietnam and Kazakhstan. We highlight the differences in cross-border integration from the viewpoint of shared public sector programs, cross-border enterprise relocation and networking, and integrated social sector in terms of labor market, education and shopping area.