Vienna is one of the European cities with an exceptionally high proportion of public, non-profit and collective assets. Land, municipal housing, subsidised and non-profit housing, municipal properties and a dense network of public spaces shape the cityscape, ensuring that large sections of the population have access to affordable housing and a high quality of life. These assets are the result of decades of forward-looking urban policy and represent a key location advantage, as well as a social achievement — an achievement that must be recognised, actively nurtured and further developed. At the same time, as in many growing cities, pressure is mounting due to the accumulation of private capital in the real estate sector.

How is decision-making and control over land, housing, and public space distributed in Vienna among the public sector, non-profit organisations, and private actors? How is this balance shifting? What tools can the city use to secure and expand its collective assets?

Examining international examples, such as cities with pronounced vertical segregation or exclusive, privately controlled neighbourhoods, reveals the consequences of an unregulated shift from public to private ownership: increasingly exclusive urban development shaped by a select few, with limited democratic participation. Such urban spaces can be observed internationally (and increasingly in Austria): for instance, the progressive shift from public to private assets reduces design input and participation, restricting accessibility and leading to increased value extraction by a small number of individuals. This study explicitly uses such examples as a point of reference for what should be avoided — not as a forecast, but as a description of the direction in which Vienna should not move.

The study aims to highlight the strengths of public ownership, identify risks at an early stage and pinpoint concrete tools with which Vienna can secure and expand its collective assets in the future. The findings will be published alongside concrete case studies and diagrams that clearly illustrate existing Viennese models of best practice and potential risk developments. A mini-glossary of key terms written in both scholarly and accessible language will complement the study. This study is intended to serve as an early-warning and guidance system for the future. It aims to improve understanding of the implications of financially powerful private actors investing in urban development processes, real estate-related decision-making, and governance structures. It also seeks to identify the tools and instruments with which the city can safeguard its collective assets at an early stage:

It raises awareness of the extent to which decision-making and control over the design, planning, use and accessibility of urban spaces are distributed between the public and private sectors, and of how this balance is shifting in current urban expansion projects. This is achieved through graphical representations in the tradition of Otto Neurath’s visual pedagogy.
Develop and convey a historically grounded understanding of pre-democratic and anti-democratic policies, not to equate current conditions hastily, but to highlight differences precisely and identify potential early warning signs.
To examine how knowledge about the distribution of property and property relations can be systematically incorporated into planning processes and public discourse, and made transparent, including through a comparison of Vienna’s policy instruments with international best practice examples.

Strategic guidance for strengthening the public good and decommodification: Drawing on land policy, cooperatives, non-profit housing, municipal housing and community housing led by civil society, as well as fiscal and tax instruments, this section will present practical examples and strategies for safeguarding the public interest and curbing the commercialisation of urban spaces.