Local Welfare Systems in Rural Finland as a Representation of Sustainable Development

Abstract

This chapter will discuss whether the place-based approach to welfare that is characteristic of many rural locations in Finland provides a path towards a new kind of socially, economically and ecologically sustainable welfare culture. In doing so we will review how the local welfare systems in two Finnish rural localities – the village of Ullava in western Finland and the municipality of Ilomantsi in eastern Finland – are constructed and functioning and how they meet the requirements of sustainable development.