Across the Austrian capital of Vienna, tiny oases have sprung up out of parking spaces and other bare patches of once-grey streets.

A scheme, introduced in 2015, lets residents apply for a 4000 euro grant to create a free, open green space in their neighbourhoods. Some 300 have since been completed.

Maria Vassilakou — until this summer the city’s Deputy Mayor — said it is a prime example of bottom-up change to make the city happier, more walkable, and friendlier for kids. “It is, I would say, contagious,” she said. “People realised the state of their neighbourhoods could change. They could enjoy outdoor life in front of their front doors without owning a garden, without having a balcony.“

Renewing the old

Vienna — long known for a commitment to gender mainstreaming in its planning — has also been focusing on improving life for its youngest residents.

It is, said Vassilakou, something of a no-brainer: "A city that's good for children is good for every generation," she said. “It’s about what we all want for our children. We want them to grow up in a healthy environment, we want them to roam around freely and play, we want them to have contact with nature... and these are all things we want for ourselves as well."

There are two strands to the city’s work: improving its existing spaces, and ensuring new developments are best optimised for children and families.

“The outside of the houses is the inside of the city”

Those working in the city’s government like to quote American-Canadian urbanist Jane Jacobs: “the outside of the houses is the inside of the city”.

“We have to think about public space as the common living room of all citizens,” said Bernhard Steger, director of the city’s planning department, “instead we often just park our cars there and so do not use the potential.”

One ambitious project, completed in 2015, saw Mariahilferstraße, a major shopping street, turned into Europe’s longest shared space for pedestrians.

The plan involved pedestrianising some sections of the bustling thoroughfare, while in others introducing “shared space” between people and vehicles to a far more ambitious extent than had previously been implemented in Austria.

It proved controversial at first, with business owners and others nervous about cutting off vehicle access. A referendum over whether the project should go ahead saw it win with just 53% vote share.

Yet in a recent poll, 75% of voters said they would have voted in favour, given the chance again. Several subsequent, similar plans on other city streets have proved so popular with shopkeepers that they were voluntarily part-funded by local businesses, according to Vassilakou.

Other moves to revamp existing space include the grant scheme, as well as the installation of a “hanging terrace” over a central metro line, which has been turned into a new urban park.

Key to transforming streets into child-friendly public spaces, said Vassilakou, is to ask: “Are they places? Or are they transitory non-spaces?" The latter, she said, “are always crossed as quickly as possible over the shortest distance".

The city conducts analysis on streets it is preparing to transform. It uses “social spatial analysis” — in which passersby are asked about who uses the space and why — as well as measuring the pace of pedestrians as they move through the street.

A city-wide strategy sets out a vision to connect all open and green spaces across the city to encourage walking and cycling.

Exploring the new

The second strand of the city’s work involves making sure the city’s ambitious “new urban quarter” developments — major public-private projects transforming former brownfield and railway sites — work for children and families.

These new developments, one of which contains space for some 40,000 people to live or work, are designed with nine principles at their heart.

The principles cover some more practical considerations. For example, ⅔ of homes within them must be publicly-owned or subsidised to ensure affordability for young families. They ensure safety; the only car parking is to be found in communal garages at the edges of the development. Each quarter must have good transport links.

"It's not about a project here and a project there, it's about pieces of a city"

But these places are also meant to be beautiful and healthy. All the new developments must include “vast” green spaces at their centre, and one even has an artificial lake for swimming in summer.

The new urban quarters are ambitious. "It's not about a project here and a project there,” said Vassilakou, “it's really about pieces of a city."

Working together

Vienna’s plans mean bringing together public servants from different departments, alongside other sectors.

Each new urban quarter is a highly collaborative project, overseen by a consortium including landowners, housing corporations, and the city.

The masterplan for each new development is created by the city and influenced by workshops where architects, mobility planners, transport planners and others work together alongside representatives from the city, landowners, and nearby communities.

Meanwhile designs for the built objects within the quarters are chosen through competitions featuring nonprofit and for-profit housebuilders.

And budgets are set during meetings, held three to four times a year, drawing together ministers from across the government with a superordinate “city management” tier of officials who coordinate the work.

As with any budget discussions, these involve debate and compromise. But Vassilakou said the secret to forging consensus is that: “There is a cross-generational — over and beyond all political preferences — shared, continuous commitment to Vienna's historical commitment to social housing.”

This shared mission can be a key ingredient of collaboration across departments, she said, pointing to Medellin in Colombia as another example of a city that has transformed itself through a firmly-held mission.

"A shared value, and of course a historical shared plan,” said Vassilakou, “leads to shared commitment.” — Josh Lowe and Amelia Axelsen