Changing Vienna...began with a visit to Copenhagen

Working for a member of the Vienna City Council (Christoph Chorherr of the Green Party) I have been fortunate to become part of various processes initializing sustainable projects in Vienna. One of the key questions I always have to think about is: how do cities learn? How can we improve innovation in an administration that is quite self-confident and governed by a party with absolute majority on the city council? 

The funny thing is that on several projects, Copenhagen turned out to play an important role in getting a project on track.

Here are two examples:
- When we launched the idea of a biomass power plant in Vienna, the scepticism of decision makers was dominant. (link to case) It was the excursion to existing power plants in Scandinavia that opened the eye. The delegation of representatives of the City and different companies was headed by independent experts. The message was: it is possible! I will never forget this trip through Denmark, Sweden and Finland, visiting different projects (e.g. Eskilstuna in Sweden) and following a discussion on the bus about what we had seen, learned and what the new impressions meant to a project in our city. It was not only about learning, but about group dynamics, too. At the end of the day, it was obvious that there was in fact a willingness to act. We can do it, too. And…the first stop on the educational journey was Copenhagen.

- Another example is the bike rental system. We always proposed to start a project in Vienna like the Copenhagen bike-rental system. It took many years to achieve a GO from the city. The first attempt was one of the most discussed projects in Vienna, called Viennabike. But after half a year it failed. Vandalism, no registration and theft made the continuation of this project impossible. Why? Because the Copenhagen culture of respect and appreciation of such a bike “for free” was not transferable to Vienna. So an improvement had to occur before launching a new system. This was exactly what the major advertisement company of Vienna GEWISTA did. Citybike Vienna established a new technically improved system (the same as in Paris) with electronic registration. The costs of development were expensive, but it works. It now has 60 stations and is highly used by residents and tourists. Maybe sometimes failure is necessary in order to find new solutions. 

Both examples show that learning from others does not mean to simply reproduce an idea from another area in our city or any other city in the world, but to improve it and integrate it into the specific culture of the area, keeping a close eye on the conditions and opportunities. But without curiosity and open-mindedness we may not find a lot to integrate and to improve.

So I am really looking forward to post inspirational ideas on the sustainablecities.dk blog and to follow exciting cases about diverse cities presented on this platform.