According to Vanity Fair, “the Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized (though not devised) by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature.” Inspired by the Proust Questionnaire, we have put together a set of 32 questions designed to reveal the true nature of 4CITIES alumni. Or to at least give us some insight into what they are up to and what makes them, as students of “the urban”, tick.
1. What is your name?
Pekka Marjamäki
2. Which 4CITIES cohort were you a part of?
Cohort 3 (2010-2012).
3. Where and when were you born?
Turku, Finland, in 1985.
4. Where did you grow up?
Most of my childhood and teenage years were spent in a village called Rajamäki, about 50 km north of Helsinki. When I was a very young child my parents took our family to live in Samoa (then Western Samoa) for a couple of years. They did it out of curiosity more than anything else, I think. When I was a couple years older, they did the same again and took us to Guyana for about two years. Short but significant interludes.
5. What did you study before 4CITIES?
Majored in English. Minors in History, Philosophy, and Russian.
6. Why did you join 4CITIES?
In 2009, I took stock and realized that I had no idea what I wanted to do with an English degree and that I didn’t know where I was and what I was doing. So I googled Master’s programs in Europe. 4CITIES seemed almost perfect, as I’d always been interested in architecture, sociology, demography, maps, etc.
7. What is your fondest memory from 4CITIES?
Socially, let me pick Maette’s birthday party at our shared flat and the pie we baked the next day to apologize to the neighbors. Academically, that one course where we organized guided walking tours around Vienna.
8. What was the most important thing you learned from 4CITIES?
That a generalist usually has a better idea of what’s really going on than a specialist.
9. What (if anything) have you studied since 4CITIES?
Nothing.
10. Where do you live now?
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
11. Where else would you like to live?
Would love to live in Brussels again. Somewhere in Central Asia.
12. Which city have you never visited but would most like to?
Tokyo.
13. Where is your favorite non-urban place to be?
Cottage by a lake.
14. What kind of work are you currently doing?
Working for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), AKA UN Migration. Managing projects and teams, overseeing implementation, soliciting donors to keep us running, etc.
15. What other work have you done since graduating?
Transcriber at a hospital, visa officer at the Finnish Consulate in Petrozavodsk, internship at UN Habitat HQ, immigration officer at the Finnish Embassy in Addis Ababa.
16. What job would you most like to attempt?
Comic book artist.
17. What urban-related job does not exist but should?
They need to bring back janitors who live in the buildings they care for and whose contracts are directly with the tenants.
18. What about cities do you enjoy the most?
Walkability & cyclability, cultural offerings, architecture, the fact that they tend to bring out people’s individuality, variety in general.
19. What about cities do you enjoy the least?
As I age, I’m more and more bothered by (some types of) inescapable noises. Air pollution. Big city dwellers can be a little snobbish and disconnected.
20. What about cities do you find most interesting?
Cities are so unnatural and unnecessary in that they aren’t necessary for the fulfilment of any of our basic (or even advanced) needs (and there were no cities for most of homo sapiens’ existence), yet they’re obviously inevitable and obviously part of human nature and sprang up everywhere independently.
21. What about cities do you think is over-emphasized or over-hyped?
Whatever the city’s marketing department’s branding says, I guess.
22. What about cities do you think is under-appreciated?
The modernist mass housing suburbs 1950-70s, though I guess that’s changing.
23. Why do you think urban studies is important?
You need a multidisciplinary approach to even begin to appreciate the complexity of a city.
24. What is one myth about cities that you would like to bust?
That city folks are more rude than country folks.
25. If you could time travel, what city and year would you visit?
One of those recently discovered cities in the Amazon whenever they were at their biggest and busiest, so I guess 2,500-3,000 years ago.
26. What is your favorite imaginary city (from books, movies, etc.)?
Minas Tirith from the Lord of the Rings movies looked pretty cool with all its layers and levels.
27. What would you like real cities to learn or take from this imaginary city?
Nothing concrete comes to mind, so just to protect good from evil. And care for your trees!
28. What books, authors, or films would you recommend to someone who wants to better understand “the urban”?
I remember a David Harvey book being a real eye-opener on some of the forces that influence how cities develop, but can’t remember the book’s title.
29. What changes would make cities more livable?
Avoid segregation of all kinds at every level.
30. What are the most important changes cities must make in response to the sustainability crisis?
Cities with green-left-liberal majorities should disregard the vocal and powerful opposition and enforce strict policies on transportation, energy efficiency, bans on demolishing buildings instead of renovating, etc. Maybe it WOULD be a socioeconomic disaster, but don’t we agree that that’s coming anyway?
31. If you could change one thing about your city, what would it be?
Cyclability.
32. What question have I not asked that you would like to ask other 4CITIES alumni?
Which fifth city would you have added to the 4CITIES program and why?
