Vienna is growing especially in the outskirts

by time news

The conflict over the Lobau tunnel highlights the strong growth in Vienna’s suburbs. A fifth of all Viennese now live on the other side of the Danube. With a few exceptions, the strongly growing Grätzl are mainly on the outskirts of the capital, as shown by figures from the Vienna State Statistics and Statistics Austria evaluated by APA and OGM. This poses serious challenges for transport policy.

The number of inhabitants increased the most in 2020 in the Leopoldau (plus 15 percent), where a large housing project is being built on the site of the former gasworks, and in the district around the Laaerberg (14 percent). Aspern, Seestadt, Stammersdorf and Oberlaa and Unterlaa have also grown. Conversely, the districts in the city center have shrunk with a few exceptions, as the APA / OGM Graetzlananalyse shows: by more than four percent Altlerchenfeld in the 8th district, almost three percent by the Karmeliterviertel in the 2nd district. The trend was defied by St. Marx and the Arsenal in the 3rd district, as well as the Nordbahnviertel in Leopoldstadt.

“The population is reaching its limits, especially in the densely populated inner-city area,” says Johannes Klotz from OGM. In fact, the proportion of the ten inner districts (1st to 9th and 20th district) in the total population is slowly but steadily decreasing – from 28.4 percent in 2011 to only 26.9 percent this year. Since 2011, 32,000 additional Viennese have also joined the inner districts. In the same period, however, Favoriten alone increased its population by 34,000 and the two districts on the other side of the Danube grew by 72,000. Almost every fifth Viennese now lives in Floridsdorf and the Danube city (373,000 people).

However, public transport is much worse developed here. In a 2019 study, the Chamber of Labor calculated that although almost all residents in the inner districts can use public transport of the highest quality, in Floridsdorf it is only seven out of ten, in the Danube city only six out of ten and in Liesing only half. The proportion of motorists is correspondingly high there: if there are just under 350 cars for every 1,000 inhabitants in the inner districts, there are 400 on the other side of the Danube and 500 in Liesing.

This is a challenge for urban planning, emphasizes Vienna planning director Thomas Madreiter, because it could also shift the high proportion of public transport in total traffic (“modal split”). “If you are not careful, it can happen that you worsen the modal split for demographic reasons,” says Madreiter to the APA.

However, Madreiter does not see a reason to forego the Lobau tunnel. “We spend three times as much money on public transport as we do on road construction,” emphasizes the planning director, pointing out that a third tram connection between Floridsdorf and the Danube city will be created with line 27 by 2025. The S-Bahn will also be expanded. But in the eastern Danube city, 25,000 apartments for 60,000 people are planned: “To think that it would work without a street – sorry to say, but that’s nonsense.”

Madreiter also does not see soil protection as an argument against tunnel construction. Of course one could prevent the development in Vienna. But residential construction projects in the country would have consumed land many times over. “Anyone who is serious about soil protection has to campaign for a development in Vienna at central locations.”

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