Bridging The Gap Between Reality and Utopia: How to provide empathetic services to citizens

Finnish cities attract people from different social, economic and
cultural backgrounds thanks to their job market and infrastructure.
As cities become diverse, policy-makers and researchers should
consider various stakeholders in the community when designing
services. On the other hand, growing diversity also triggers
unexpected or new challenges for the city and its members.
Authors view incomparable benefits of service design for
developing and delivering utopian services to citizens. In fact,
bigger cities such as Helsinki and Espoo have already established
solid design strategies at practical levels. In this context, our first
research goal is to investigate the current strategies for tackling
ongoing challenges in cities and to identify differences.
Additionally, given that every city has its character and different
challenges, designing services must be customized to its citizens.
Customizing the city’s services requires an empathetic attitude
toward its members. Therefore, this study highlights the necessity
of empathetic design to build a utopian Finnish city.