Project Head:

Dr. Viviana Asara

Project Staff:

Mag. Andreas Exner

Mag. Carla Weinzierl

Duration:

September 1, 2016 - August 31, 2017

Funding Bodies:

Jubiläumsfonds der Stadt Wien

Project description:

Our project aims at improving the implementation of Vienna´s Smart City Strategy as an encompassing set of guidelines and a vision including many different actors. To this end, we will assess the relevance of the Smart City concept within public debate and governance. This will be done by analyzing the urban development discourse in Vienna since 2005 and Vienna's public governance arrangement concerning Smart City, with a special focus on selected policy issues. Vienna will be compared to Berlin, a prime competitor of Vienna not least as Smart City, and Barcelona, the "Global Smart City 2015". Thus, we want to elucidate:

1. the relevance of the Smart City concept (by qualitative and quantitative means) and the diverse articulations of its meaning by public administration and the public sector as well as other relevant agents

2. how varying interpretations of Smart City are concretized in diverse policies in different city contexts, with a special consideration of the topics of citizens' participation and urban agriculture

3. and how to secure or increase the ownership of the Smart City framework by a broad set of agents relevant for urban development in Vienna.