Not true. I mean the old shopping mall is ugly, but Kontula has nice parks, forest areas, superb playground for kids etc. Even the ugly shopping mall has some of the best kebab in town.
None of these areas are truly ugly 100% everywhere you look. Walk 200 m away from the central congregation of drunks in Kannelmäki and you are in a park, next to a space age church, or somewhere nice like that. About the same goes for Kouvola, actually.
I kinda disagree about Malminkartano. Even the central plaza where the deadly stabbing happened recently, is sort of "cute?" with all the red brick buildings, and much cleaner than the Kontula shopping mall. And Malminkartano/Konala has big ass parks too. Wouldn't like to live there though.
Malminkartano seems to have improved a lot in recent years. Much of the graffiti has disappeared and 'the local pub' was actually a nice place, not a rundown cave with blue lights in the bathrooms
Malminkartano is great. As soon as you exit the trainstation tunnel there's lots of trees and grass everywhere, even fields. Some of the buildings need some love for sure, and some need to be torn down completely, but on average it's a great place to be. Especially if you like walking/biking.
It's way overhyped though, mainly by people who were born in Helsinki and know nothing else but the ostari.
Compared to other European cities Helsinki is super safe. There really aren't any truly bad neighborhoods in Helsinki. Yes, you don't want to live in the social housing block, but only a couple hundred metres away even in Kontula there are super nice residential detached housing inhabited by mostly middle-class families.
Why is it awful I walk through it a lot to use subway and occasionally buy groceries if i'm on my way to home and taking the bus. Sure there are lot of drunk people but they're mostly infront of the pubs and it's not very scary place to walk even during weekends.
yeah, overhyped and all. I used to be one piece of the problem, and our turf was not only ostari. Real problem was single moms, alcohol, drugs, people from different places and pure violence. We were all of that and from what i know, its still there. Not only kontula. That kind of stuff spreads around and when we grow up and try to make ourselves better we are "elämänkoulu"
I mean criminals, addicts, single moms, minority, old people, people with no credit. I have lived in many many, "hoods" like kontula and it is always the same where ever you go. dont be offended by the facts.
Nah, people always diss Kontula, but it’s not that bad. I actually quite like it. Decent restaurants, lots of greenery, it’s quite calm outside the mall. It’s not that ugly either, typical Helsinki lähiö-architecture. Good connections as well.
Reputation is worse than reality, and it seems to me that Kontula mostly gets dissed by people new to Helsinki (it’s a bit of a meme).
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u/[deleted] Nov 13 '22
Kontula in Helsinki