The “Vienna Model” has been distorted to accommodate private investment, but its real redefinition must be environmentally friendly.
When it comes to housing, Vienna stands as the epitome of how to do it right, at a time when accommodation is at risk around the world. While there is certainly much to be learned from urban housing policies such as the oft-cited “Vienna Model,” a critical reappraisal is also needed if housing is increasingly to be treated as a public good rather than a private commodity. be. The same is true under neoliberal conditions.
Recently Austrian erste bank He toured Eastern European cities, including Brno and Zagreb, to promote a housing investment program dubbed the “Vienna Model.” This internationally renowned exemplar has been reintroduced as Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in the bank’s public relations efforts.
Under this plan, the land for construction would still be provided by the city, but the housing units would be built with funds from banks, private developers or insurance companies. Homes must be rented as social housing for a limited period (mainly 10 years), after which they come under market control and can be sold and resold, including for private rental.
This “Vienna model” of PPP should be characterized more routinely as follows. Wombau Offensive Vienna, indeed, has been implemented by city authorities as a special privately financed housing program since the global financial crisis. This applies in particular to Seestadt Aspern, a large new urban development on the outskirts of Vienna. This is why a similar procedure is now promoted under the highly reputed “Vienna model” label.
“Red Vienna”
But it is certainly the housing model associated with the Austrian capital that has given it a reputation as synonymous with affordable, high-standard housing and a close-knit social housing network. do not have PPP, which directs public funds to private housing. On the contrary, the good name that the “Vienna Model” enjoys internationally derives from its origins. socialist “Red Vienna” is a housing project carried out in the 1920s. This continued in his century-long tradition of social democratic government in the city, resulting in today 420,000 non-market rental housing units (municipal and co-operative) with the security of tenure that comes with it. Did.
This tradition continues in the Austro-Marxist, left-wing and social democratic traditions that have been exploited to glorify and camouflage efforts to privatize and capitalize urban public spaces. But if Vienna is today recognized as the “most liveable city” in the world, it is a product of its political history.
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We can still see icons of Red Vienna housing and other radical reform programs all over Vienna. Inscriptions carved on the facades of countless apartment buildings from the 1920s to the early 1930s. Hof (in court) often as follows: karl marx hoff— announces in big red letters that it was built by the city. Wombaustur (Housing Tax) is a highly progressive tax to provide housing and other urban infrastructure for the working class. This is frankly declared a small but important victory over capital and its political representatives.
“Luxury” for many people
The “Vienna Model”, practiced by a social-democratic city government from 1920, was interrupted in 1933 by the Catholic right-wing Austrian Fascist dictatorship and replaced by Nazi rule from 1938 to 1945, viz. This meant that apartment buildings were considered of a high standard. It provided quality infrastructure to many people. It wasn’t an act of charity or an emergency measure. The idea was to finance the housing structure itself, making housing affordable for all, rather than funding individuals through subsidies. Subsidies will only go to private owners, as rents will continue to rise as demand increases.
Thinking of housing as infrastructure meant not only giving a “roof” to the poor, but also including innovation and quality of construction. In fact, this has extended to the idea of “luxury” for many, such as rooftop pools in public housing areas.
Housing was a vital part of Red Vienna’s stated program to gradually build a city for the propertyless masses. This represented not only a superblock of public housing, but also a network of public hospitals, bathhouses, libraries, cultural centers, and child care facilities. The city was supposed to be a proletarian counter-universe, a concrete and livable alternative reality, surrounded by a country dominated by sociopolitical conservatism and authoritarianism.
beneficial to some people
Today, the “Vienna Model” for social housing brings to mind a tradition revived after the fall of fascists and neoliberalism in the 1930s. intermezzo Around the turn of the millennium. It is a tradition of retaining social housing units as public property rather than commodifying them and selling them, and actively procuring land to provide land for construction as a prerequisite for affordable housing.
Today, unfortunately, municipalities provide such support not only to non-profit housing associations, but also to private capital investments. In a sense, therefore, to condemn the misuse of the “Vienna Model” by investment banks as a label for PPP schemes that are “well-functioning” (which can be interpreted by some as profitable). I can’t. City government has yet to adhere to the socialist and democratic policies oriented toward the commons and the empowerment of the masses that give meaning to this model.
Moreover, today’s Vienna does not really tailor its social housing program to the working class, excluding a significant portion of the working class. Disenfranchised migrant workers are largely denied access under regulations that allow access to those who have been officially resident for more than two years..
The administration uses euphemisms for this anti-immigrant policy. vienna bonus (Vienna bonus). Under this sonorous name, the traditional paternalism of social democratic governments in the city has been replaced by racist Aspects are given. While the market has developed significantly over the past two decades, it has created speculative vacancies and overpriced apartments that do nothing to alleviate the housing crisis.
racist reaction
Therefore, even though almost half of Vienna’s housing is municipal housing; For housing (220,000 total units) or subsidized apartments (200,000 units), waiting lists and wait times are very long for both types of housing. This lack of affordable housing has led to racist reactions along the lines of “immigrants should be the last to move in and the first to leave.”
A radical democratic politics that remains true to its egalitarian tradition must counter this racist political taint. However, simply appealing to a generous internationalism that pleases those who can afford it will not succeed. We need to combine a critique of racism with a tangible reduction in the lack of affordable housing and improve living conditions for everyone, regardless of their ethnic (or gender) identity.
And today that is not enough. Tackling housing issues is about more than just building more housing developments, while taking pride in the homes and infrastructure that have been built for so many people over the decades. It also means connecting environmental issues. . It means redistributing, refurbishing and making available what already exists at an affordable price. And it’s about creating a new imagination while critically inheriting from a future perhaps lost in the past.
This is what we call the “Vienna Model,” and it breathes new life into it.
This concludes this series. Friedrich Ebert FoundationAbout World Cities
Gab Heindl is Professor and Head of the Department of Architecture and Urban Economics at the University of Kassel, Germany. She is also an independent architect, urban planner, and activist. Her Vienna-based practice GABU Heindl Architektur focuses on public spaces, collective housing, and urban justice.