Knowing Vienna quite well and knowing Vancouver at least a little bit, I'd say this is not apples-to-apples. In Vancouver it was the real estate boom that has fueled high-quality residential development: Given the circumstance where such development would fetch high prices, residential development was conducted that would deliver on a level of quality commensurate with high prices (namely: high quality!). A "Gemeindebau" in Vienna is a very different animal: They are built cheaply for the purpose of being cheap, and the quality you get ouf of that is in line with the principle "you get what you pay for" (namely: low quality!)
Vienna has a 100-year history of building public housing for all (2018)
11–20 of 109 posts
Re: Vienna has a 100-year history of building public housing for all (2018)
#12Make renting illegal and it all works.
Re: Vienna has a 100-year history of building public housing for all (2018)
#13Vienna is the most dull and calcified city I've ever lived in, and it's not a growing city. It's not super useful to compare to cities that are thriving.
Re: Vienna has a 100-year history of building public housing for all (2018)
#14Vienna is the most dull and calcified city I've ever lived in, and it's not a growing city. It's not super useful to compare to cities that are thriving.
It's 1920s Vienna that is looked to for lessons about public housing.
Re: Vienna has a 100-year history of building public housing for all (2018)
#15So a hundred years ago the city imposed crazy taxes on land owners and then bought the land for themselves. Then the city built a lot of housing on the now city-owned land via non-profit construction. The article doesn’t make a strong attempt to explain how their housing affordability is “solved” though. How easy it to find a new apartment to rent? How much does it cost? What do you get for that price? How does this…
Objectively, Vienna's housing price index is up 75% in real terms since 1990. While that's not the ideal 0%, it is much better than San Francisco where prices have gone up by 400% since 1990.
Re: Vienna has a 100-year history of building public housing for all (2018)
#16The article states that Vienna's population in 1914 (at the beginning of WW1) was 2 million, vs 1.9 million today. I'm no housing policy expert, but isn't it possible that Vienna's rents are stable and low in part because they haven't had to increase their housing stock in over 100 years? It seems to me that a new-world city like Vancouver that has grown tremendously over that period wouldn't be directly comparable.
The countervailing trend is that the number of people per household has fallen greatly in the last 100 years, so even a city without a growing population needs construction to keep up.
Re: Vienna has a 100-year history of building public housing for all (2018)
#17The article states that Vienna's population in 1914 (at the beginning of WW1) was 2 million, vs 1.9 million today. I'm no housing policy expert, but isn't it possible that Vienna's rents are stable and low in part because they haven't had to increase their housing stock in over 100 years? It seems to me that a new-world city like Vancouver that has grown tremendously over that period wouldn't be directly comparable.
It could also be the opposite, rent stable => population not growing
Re: Vienna has a 100-year history of building public housing for all (2018)
#18So a hundred years ago the city imposed crazy taxes on land owners and then bought the land for themselves. Then the city built a lot of housing on the now city-owned land via non-profit construction. The article doesn’t make a strong attempt to explain how their housing affordability is “solved” though. How easy it to find a new apartment to rent? How much does it cost? What do you get for that price? How does this…
A family member moved there recently so anecdotal.
To find an apartment was easy in their case (4-5 days) the total cost is similar to Berlin and about 50% the price of Dublin.
Re: Vienna has a 100-year history of building public housing for all (2018)
#19Vienna is the most dull and calcified city I've ever lived in, and it's not a growing city. It's not super useful to compare to cities that are thriving.
Vienna is the most livable city 10 times in a row now!
Re: Vienna has a 100-year history of building public housing for all (2018)
#20The article states that Vienna's population in 1914 (at the beginning of WW1) was 2 million, vs 1.9 million today. I'm no housing policy expert, but isn't it possible that Vienna's rents are stable and low in part because they haven't had to increase their housing stock in over 100 years? It seems to me that a new-world city like Vancouver that has grown tremendously over that period wouldn't be directly comparable.
Yes, increasing population generally leads to increasing land prices, so I think that's a good question. There are other things that drive land values up, however, such as just generally increased productivity due to technology and any other factor (because a more productive population earns more and can thus afford to pay more in rent to their landlords).
For a full assessment I would like to see other Austrian cities that have had similarly stable population sizes but don't have Vienna's policies.