Most people live close to cultural services – but in many municipalities distances are long
Cupore has published a summary of key findings and conclusions on the availability of cultural services across regions and population groups.
The availability of cultural services refers here to the physical distance between the population and a service.
The analysis was carried out at the request of the Ministry of Education and Culture and is based on calculations produced for the Ministry by Aalto University.
Key findings
- The distance between the population and cultural services varies by type of service. Most of the population lives within a short distance of a library. The availability of other cultural services, such as theatres, cinemas and museums, is clearly weaker from the perspective of distance to the service.
- At the national level, the availability of services in terms of physical distance appears fairly good, as a large share of the population lives in urban centres where most services are also located. However, differences between municipalities are considerable. In particular, in Eastern and Northern Finland the population lives on average farther from cultural services than in Southern and Western Finland.
- Differences between population groups are mostly moderate and similar across all service types.
- Changes between 2018 and 2022 are small. For the services examined, the service network has remained relatively stable.
The results indicate that the distance between the population and cultural services primarily reflects the urban and regional structure. A large share of the population lives in areas where cultural services are readily available, but in many municipalities the distances to services are long.
Distance to services is one of the key factors affecting the availability of cultural services, and distance may act as a structural barrier to participation. At the same time, the use of services is influenced by many other factors, such as mobility opportunities and transport systems, financial resources, time use and life situations, as well as the supply and content of services.
The analysis was produced as part of the Availability of Cultural Services project. In addition to the findings now published, the project released visualisations of the population’s distance to cultural services in January.
