Institute for Urban and Regional Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences

Tennøy A., Hanssen G.S., Leknes E.

Urban growth agreements are key tools for achieving the goal of zero growth in passenger road traffic volumes in Norwegian metropolitan areas. Agreements are negotiated in multi-level and cross-sectoral processes where local politicians meet strong expectations and incentives to alter their land use policies and stop sprawl. This paper analyses the effectiveness of the policy instrument in influencing local land use policy, whereby key issues were raised in the negotiations concerning land use, local politicians’ reflections on changing their policies and why they were reluctant to stop sprawl. This research was designed as a comparative case study with three negotiation processes as cases. Data were collected through document studies and interviews with 36 professionals and politicians. Key issues in the negotiations over land use regarded principles of authority in land use planning and decision-making and substantial disagreements concerning land use policies. Local politicians saw sprawl as necessary for attaining local objectives. Conflicting framings of the policy issue, namely ‘stopping sprawl to achieve zero traffic growth’ and ‘continuing sprawl to attain local objectives’, explained the policy controversy that made discourse difficult. The resulting agreements did not directly influence local land use policies but might have an effect in the longer term.

Mattes A., Haselbacher M., Limacher K., Novak C.

Political responses to growing diversity are often characterised by one-dimensional attempts to pin down a collective identity. In stark contrast, we see that young people in diverse urban areas negotiate their multiple, flexible belonging both on- and offline. Young believers, in particular, experience their religion as a powerful category of difference, often related to discrimination or rejection on grounds of their religiosity. Here, the discursive construction of belonging, as discussed in the concept “politics of belonging,” is useful to grasp the formations of in- and out-groups on religious grounds. Individual negotiations of belonging always resonate with political ideas of the nation and the secular and with discourses of inclusion and exclusion. The discursive and structural maintenance of boundaries that separate people into those who belong and those who do not is more than a top-down process. It concerns and involves individuals and their identifications. Here, digital spaces, as increasingly relevant spaces of public exchange, provide new terms for identity work. In this paper, we are interested in the specific role of digital spaces for identification among young believers and for processes of boundary drawing. Building on social media tours and qualitative in-depth interviews with 41 young believers of different religious traditions, we explore individual negotiations of belonging in digital spaces, as well as negotiations in relation to religious communities and political concepts. We find that digital spaces reinforce certain boundaries (e.g., among religious traditions) whereas they facilitate the blurring of others (e.g., confessional structures). This is guided by algorithms following the logic of attention economy that structures social media as well as by the conscious search for digital possibilities of inclusion. At the same time, the online world enables various forms of countering experienced exclusions. Consequently, we identify strategies of young believers to navigate complex discourses of being religious in a secular world and the role of the digital within it. We discuss these empirical findings on religious youth against the theoretical backdrop of a “Politics of Belonging” and we explore options towards a theoretical concept to grasp digital politics of belonging.

Yalciner Ercoskun O., Kajosaari A., Humer A.

This study investigates sustainable settlements—in terms of low-carbon settlements and communities transitioning from oil dependence to local resilience—in urban and rural areas of Austria. The objectives of this study are twofold: First, to examine the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) and Transition Towns Network (TTN) as platforms for alternative lifestyles for urban and rural planning and, second, to comprehend the socio-spatial factors influencing the development of future transition settlements. This study provides updated insights into the concepts of the Global Ecovillage Network in a rural context as well as transition culture in an urban context. In two case studies, we focus on one Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) member, the Cambium Ecovillage near the village of Fehring, Styria, and one Transition Town Network member, Graz, the capital city of Styria. Using transdisciplinary and participatory methodologies, we examine the specific local contexts of these sustainable settlements. Ultimately, the findings of the study about facilitating participatory land use frameworks can be extrapolated from the Austrian context to the broader European context. Conclusions drawn from the results will inform potential future urban and rural land use initiatives concerning ecovillages and transition towns across Europe.

Hofstad H., Dahl C., Følling K., Mouratidis K., Olsen B.O., Sagen S.B., Zeiner H.H.

ABSTRACTResearch on social sustainability has revealed a persistent knowledge gap concerning how to institutionalize social sustainability into urban governance and planning. New knowledge capable of operationalizing social sustainability to concrete community settings and identifying how governance and planning can help building socially sustainable trajectories are needed. This inspires us to develop a typology of community social sustainability coupling relevant theory and new and extensive empirical data. At the heart of the typology are three theoretically derived foundational characteristics—neighborhood robustness, access to every‐day services, and governance structures—encompassing the most essential aspects of community social sustainability. When exploring them empirically, we find that their realization depends on joint contribution from multiple actors. The next layer of the typology thus identifies four supportive conditions strengthening the local capability to address, prioritize and build neighborhood robustness, relevant services, and governance structures. The paper ends with a guide for future research and practice.

Monti A., Tønnessen M.

Schnelzer J.

Rossi S., Harsia E., Kajosaari A., Kyttä M.

Gravari-Barbas M., Guinand S., Lu Y., Shen C.

Abstract Concessions—defined as the urban elements built by Western powers while ‘occupying’ various parts of the Chinese territory—have recently been granted heritage status by the Chinese national and local authorities. However, in many respects, they are ‘dissonant’ heritage sites since they are the result of the several-decade-long ‘colonial’ presence in Tianjin of nine foreign powers. The aim of this study is to understand how former international concessions are featured in museums and interpretation centres in present-day Tianjin. Using an approach that draws on dissonant heritage; literature on postcolonial museums, nostalgia and forgetting mechanisms; and the relationship between museographic narratives and patriotism, this article analyses a corpus of eight museums located in three former international concessions (Marshal Zhang’s Mansion, the Former Residence of Ma Zhanshan, the Museum of Modern History of Tianjin, the Five Avenues History Museum, the Museum of the Department Store Quan Ye Chang, Zhang House, the Astor Hotel Museum, the Tianjin Planning Exhibition Hall and the Tianjin Museum). The analysis is based on a common observation grid and semidirect interviews conducted with museum staff. The article captures and examines the main narratives from three perspectives: 1) revisiting the concession period as evidence of the beginning of modernity in China, which was a time in which celebrity life stories and the emergence of modern urban elements were praised; 2) considering the concessions as a dreamlike past of ‘others’ and ‘elsewheres’ belonging to a ‘foreign land’ and a context far removed from contemporary life in China, which favours the thematisation and leisure of Western architecture; and 3) selecting and targeting narratives focused on the heroes of the Republic of China (1912–1949) and the People’s Republic of China. This paper highlights and further develops how former Western concessions are imbued with a sense of both nostalgia and patriotism and sets out to gain a deeper understanding of the tension between these two attitudes.

Musil R., Kaucic J.

The concept of segregation analyses the unequal distribution of social groups between neighbourhoods. It rests on two assumptions: that of homogeneous neighbourhoods and of a market liberal housing system. Both assumptions are applicable the context of American cities, but they display severe limitations when applied to the European context. Vienna’s housing market is particularly highly segmented, not only throughout the city as a whole but also within neighbourhoods. In the densely built-up area, residential buildings of different segments with different underlying rent regulations and entry barriers can be found side by side. Therefore, buildings are expected to show varying tenant and owner structures, which undermines the idea of a homogeneous neighbourhood. Against this background, we analyse at the micro scale small neighbourhoods defined by 100 m grid cells in a case study of two inner-city Viennese districts (districts 6 and 7) characterised by a particularly vivid housing-transformation and commodification dynamic. Using a novel and fine-grained dataset combining building information with the socio-economic data of households, we investigate the patterns and dynamics of income inequality and income segregation, as well as the relationship between housing market segments and socio-economic patterns. As data comprise two cross-sections for the years 2011 and 2020/21, changes in the neighbourhoods during the house-price boom period are also considered. This leads us to ask the question: How do housing market segmentation and its related changes affect income inequality and segregation at the micro scale? Our analysis delivers two main results: Firstly, we show the existence of marked social variation and related dynamics at the micro scale, even within a small urban area. Secondly, we show that the spatial distribution of housing market segments has a strong impact on income inequality in the neighbourhood.

Bolkvadze K., Sümeghy D.

Suitner J., Haider W., Krisch A.

Experimentation is key for accelerating local transformations. Experimentation discourse, however, is often biased towards technology. We introduce the notion of socially innovative experiments (SIX) and their contribution to transformative local development as a counterbalance. We conceptualize SIX in local development and study over 100 SIX in Austria in terms of spatial context and their interactions with space. Results show that (1) SIX with a place-based approach are more likely to spark change than unbound interventions, (2) rural SIX face more barriers while at the same time being more substantial for successful local transformations, and (3) thorough spatial embedding is thus key for ensuring SIX' contribution to local transformations. We hence advocate for local caretakers and transformation hubs to oversee local challenges, promote exchange and learning between experiments, and take on the patronage of SIX for transformative local development.

Kajosaari A.

AbstractQuestions of spatial scale infiltrate Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) in multiple phases of the data collection from the design of a PPGIS survey to the use of the produced spatial knowledge. This paper provides an overview on how spatial scale and scale effects influence the use of PPGIS tools and the validity and usability of the spatial data they produce. The paper approached scale from two complimentary perspectives: as a concept in human geography and as an attribute of cartographic representation in geographic information science. This discussion is organized around three main viewpoints on scale and PPGIS, namely (1) scale in data collection denoting the geographic extent of the study area and the study population, (2) scale in survey design manifested in technical issues, cartographic representation, usability, and design of the mapping activities, and (3) scale and scale effects in the analysis of PPGIS data and the production of spatial knowledge. Together, these views on scale outline the main scale-related issues to consider when planning a PPGIS survey or working with secondary PPGIS data.

Oleksandra D., Aasland A.

Abstract This article illuminates how Ukrainian refugees residing in Norway perceive “home” in spatial and temporal dimensions. By synthesising the “here and there” dichotomy with the concept of “home constellations”, the authors elaborate a theoretical scheme illustrating the nuanced and multifaceted notions of home that emerged during interviews conducted with Ukrainian refugees in Norway in 2022–2023. The variety of home notions reveals at least four possible scenarios of interactions between “home A” and “home B”: (1) Home “where I am from” (home A in Ukraine); (2) Home “where I am now” (home B in Norway); (3) Double home (both home A and home B); (4) Absence of home (no home). This article shows that Ukrainian refugees’ “homing desire” to create, feel, and believe in a home existing in the present serves to overcome the multilevel uncertainties of the future caused by the temporary nature of collective protection and the unknown prospects of a safe return to their homeland.

Alizadeh H., Kohlbacher J., Mehan A., Yousefi Z.

Schorn M., Barnsteiner A., Humer A.

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a discursive change in the representation of urban-rural mobilities in the Austrian public media. Before the pandemic, a narrative of 'rural decline' had dominated the media discourse. Media have since changed this narrative to one of counterurbanisation as a result of the (perceived) effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on residential location choices. However, in contrast to media perceptions, scientific debates were more reluctant to identify a Covid-induced counterurban movement. In this paper, we take the opposition between the media representation and the scientific evidence as a starting point for a critical investigation of the media representation of counterurbanisation in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Following the approach of discourse coalitions, we investigated the actors and the coalitions they had formed to promote a Covid-induced 'counterurbanisation story'. We could identify two coalitions that created two variations of the Covid-induced 'counterurbanisation story': a prudent and an idealised discourse. These two discourses were promoted by different actors with different interests. Through our findings, the paper adds another layer to study of the construction of a 'counterurbanisation story'.