Vienna Reflections – The Vienna Story

Posted 6 months ago

28 June 2024

A group from the RSUA Study Trip to Vienna reunited today to reflect on their time in the most liveable city in the world (for the third year running!)

They were joined remotely by Maria Vassilakou, former Deputy Mayor of Vienna and Executive Councillor for Urban Planning, Traffic & Transport, Climate Protection, Energy Planning and Public Participation.

Members of the study group shared their first impressions of a walkable and compact city and spoke about their highlights of Vienna’s built environment; specifically the social housing tour on the site of the former North Railway Station and the model of a happy and healthy neighbourhood community in Gleis 21.

Maria shared her expertise in developing social housing that is guided by the city of Vienna’s core belief of ‘creating a city that’s good for its children’ and how this has continued the 100-year-old public housing tradition in Vienna. This tradition now includes compulsory ground-floor public use units, puts open spaces for communities first and promotes mixed use urban developments for the city’s rapidly growing diverse population.

Maria also spoke about the approach to transforming the already built city. As part of this mission, Vienna has developed one of the densest public transport networks for a city of its size and travel on public transport can cost as little as €1 a day when you purchase a yearly pass. .

The city’s Walkability Strategy, introduced in 2012, also played a huge role in this transformation. Keeping cars to the periphery of the city’s social housing developments and using parking fees to subsidise public transportation are key to this strategy. Ensuring residents had access to safe pavements, pedestrian zones, shading, seating, open spaces and drinking water encouraged walking for extended periods of time and also reduced reliance on cars for shorter journeys.

Maria wrapped up the session by touching on the potential for Belfast to use some of these Viennese models to improve life in the city for its residents.