Pauliina has a background in real estate economics – an interdisciplinary field that combines economics, land management, and planning – and she specialises in the governance of land from both administrative and policy perspectives. Her ambition is to develop knowledge that helps to address land-related crises, including housing, security, climate change and biodiversity. She is particularly interested in questions related to goal conflicts and sustainability trade-offs in land use and development, as well as the design of effective and socially just land market interventions.
Senior Research Fellow
Pauliina Krigsholm
Spatial Story
’Why do you have a Swedish surname’ was a question I got asked regularly when growing up in Rovaniemi, the biggest “city” in Lapland, the northernmost and predominantly Finnish-speaking part of the country. To answer that question, I had to learn some things about my family’s history but also about the shared history of Finland and Sweden. I learned that during the time Finland was part of Sweden, a form of military service system called the allotment system (Swedish: indelningsverket) existed, in which a small number of farms was responsible for providing a croft, farmland, and equipment for one volunteer soldier who joined the army. The soldiers were also given a soldier’s name that was connected to the croft they were inhabiting. Many soldiers kept the name after the service and passed it on to their children. Somewhere close to Rovaniemi located a croft whose soldiers were given name Krigsholm.
Growing up in the north means learning to live with extremes. As cliché as it is, the days really are short during the winter and long in the summer. I left Rovaniemi around the age of sixteen, making first a couple year visit to the region of Southern Ostrobothnia before settling to Helsinki, the capital city of Finland. Helsinki felt like home right away and I ended up staying there also after my university studies. While being firmly based in Helsinki and Finland, working in research and academia provided me opportunities to travel and spent time in various places from Vietnam to Switzerland. Now, this career path has taken me to Nordregio and Stockholm. I suspect I need to continue answering the familiar question about my surname here in Sweden as well. Here, though, I hope it is less likely I need to spell how my name is written.
Publications
Krigsholm, P., Puustinen, T., & Falkenbach, H. (2025). Pursuing municipal land use interests in densifying cities: How municipalities strategically apply land value capture contracting to trade-off economic value of density for other gains. Urban Studies, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980251365014
Puustinen, T., Valtonen, E., Krigsholm, P., & Falkenbach, H. (2025). Assessing the comprehensiveness of the land policy toolbox: An analytical framework. Land Use Policy, 159, 107812. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2025.107812
Riekkinen, K., Krigsholm, P., & Penkkilä, O. (2025). Monitoring and restricting real property ownership on national security grounds: The case of Northern European countries. Land Use Policy, 157, 107630. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2025.107630
Itäinen, K., Krigsholm, P., & Riekkinen, K. (2025). Beyond the title-deed division – developing a holistic framework for characterising mature cadastral systems. Survey Review, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/00396265.2025.2510819
Krigsholm, P. (2024). Characterising the Ultimate Ends of Municipal Land Policy: An Analysis of Land Policy Aim Setting in Finnish MunicipaPlanning Theory & Practice, 25(5), 660–676. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2024.2441225
Lönnroth, T., Krigsholm, P., Falkenbach, H., & Oikarinen, E. (2024). Advancing understanding of the linkages between local land policy interventions and the responsiveness of housing supply: Intervention mechanisms in the Finnish context. Land Use Policy, 141, 107157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2024.107157
Adekola, O., Krigsholm, P., & Riekkinen, K. (2023). Adapted institutional analysis and development framework for understanding customary land institutions in sub-Saharan Africa – A case study from Nigeria. Land Use Policy, 131, 106691. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106691
Krigsholm, P., Puustinen, T., & Falkenbach, H. (2022). Understanding variation in municipal land policy strategies: An empirical typology. Cities, 126, 103710. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2022.103710
Puustinen, T., Krigsholm, P., & Falkenbach, H. (2022). Land policy conflict profiles for different densification types: A literature-based approach. Land Use Policy, 123, 106405. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2022.106405lities.
