Being a smart city: the case of Vienna and Seestadt Aspern

Being a smart city: the case of Vienna and Seestadt Aspern

Dongxia He, Juan Sebastian Orozco, Matevž Straus, Nazar Kovalenko, Victoria Remezkova

Vienna, June 2015

1 The Contemporary Overview

1.1 Where is this smartness coming from?

By Victoria Remezkova

What unites Barcelona, New York, London, Nice and Singapore? The fact that they were

granted the title of the “smartest cities” (according to the Economist: High, 2015) surpassing

many others that also made it to the list. It looks like being smart is becoming a new religion

for urban governments. Reading any report about a city’s present state or any strategic

document for its future, we can easily find the word “smart” in it. Many cities around the globe

self-praise themselves to be smart and are including the notion of smartness into their branding

strategy. All others who have not yet reached the title, put “becoming a smart city” among

primary goals in their development plans.

Enormous amount of various global rankings support the buzz around “smartness”. And this is

easily explainable: smartness includes all kinds of things universally acknowledged as good

and desirable in all possible spheres like productive and innovative economy, transparent and

flexible government, high living standards for all citizens, sustainable transportation, good air

quality and less pollution, educated and tolerant citizens (European smart cities 3.0, 2014).

Who would dare to say that these objectives are not worth setting? Which city does not want to

be innovative, green, socially inclusive and successful? Thus, not aiming at being smart, equals

to… being “stupid”.

We could ask what the “smartness” really is: the actual goals that urban governments and other

urban actors try to achieve or just a fashionable label that helps to create a positive city image

on global arena?

This paper consists of six elements, sections. In the first part, we take a look at the context and

try to explain the changes in urban government/governance and economies that have led to the

rise of smart city concept. Secondly, we try to define “smart city”, its aspects and intentions,

while in third part we discuss some of the major critiques of these “smart” approaches to urban

development. Fourth part is dedicated to smart initiatives in Vienna in general and smart project

of a Seestadt Aspern smart city. We take a look at governance and technological perspective,

and in fifth chapter stress some of the main issues with smart city concept and conclude with a

proposal for a “smart red strategy”.

1.2 Context: Why a city wants to be smart after all?

By Victoria Remezkova

On the one hand, the objectives of smart city concept seem to be worthwhile. Being smart is a

claim to make cities more sustainable, ecologically friendly, socially just, technologically

advanced, innovative, and comfortable. In other words, cities are aiming at becoming a better

place to live.

On the other hand, these objectives are set in a very specific entrepreneurial context. The

decrease of the role of nation states in urban life in 1970s, gave (either they wanted it or not)

cities many responsibilities. We can talk about rescaling, in which cities acquire importance,

while the role of state is pushed aside, but not totally dismantled (Brenner, 1999). Cities are

getting more independence in managing their internal affairs, but are losing state subsidies and

national structural support, forcing them to search for new, different ways of sustaining the

quality of living.

At the same time, nation states are also losing the power to control the capital that is becoming

increasingly mobile. This triggers a competition among different cities around the globe that

have the same goal – to attract capital in order to boost their economy. Urban governments are

therefore becoming not just political but also economic agents that try to rule the city as if it

was a company. Here we can see the general movement of Western urban governments from

managerialism to entrepreneurialism (Harvey, 1989).

Managing a city as a firm substantially increases the importance of city marketing and city

branding for the urban agenda. Being a smart city creates a positive business image of a city

and gives it a competitive advantage in the race for capital attraction. Therefore, the “smart

city” label may be seen simply as an indulgence to neoliberal ideology that has become a

mainstream in Western urban politics. Accordingly, in this race for capital improvement of

citizens’ lives acquires a secondary role in urban agenda becoming more of a “side-effect” than

an actual goal.

So, can the “smart city” goal combine these two aspects – making the citizens’ lives better and

at the same time rising the city’s competitiveness? Municipality of Vienna claims that they can

have both.

2 Definition: What is this new Urban Utopia?

By Juan Sebastian Orozco

The use of the Smart City concept is an adaptation of the smart growth movement that was

initiated in the 90s in United States (Batty et al., 2012). This conception of urban planning

promoted compact urban centers to encourage walking, cycling and social interactions between

citizens and was against urban sprawl and planning based on private car ownership.

Even though there is a clear consensus from where the term “smart” was taken, there is not a

clear understanding in the academia of what is to be a “smart city”. Many authors have proposed

different approaches to the concept of “smart” and addressed it in a supporting or critical

manners. In the next paragraphs, we will present the most relevant points of the supporting

discourses about “smart cities”.

The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to offer a better quality of

live: Batty (et al., 2012) defines a Smart City »as a city in which ICT is merged with traditional

infrastructures, coordinated and integrated using new digital technologies«. He also argues that

what makes a city smart is also a short-term decision-making process, based on use of ICT for

improving the quality of living in the long term.

Smart city could improve the quality of life in the fields of security, efficiency of transportation

systems and public services, e-governance and a sustainable built environment. Smart city thus

has the ICT tools and the government structure that allows efficient provision of these specific

amenities. Moreover, it allows and enables urban planners and policy makers to reflect and

make decisions, based on the data collected by the ICT tools.

An example of a huge security system is the Chicago’s, where 24.000 cameras are installed in

the city (Tobin, 2014). Even though the numbers of crimes and car accidents were not clearly

reduced after the installations of the cameras, the supporters of the system agreed that the

information collected could improve the decision making in terms of security and transportation

policies.

Smart cities, open data and participatory governance: the second point refers to the

possibility of smart cities to be transformed by its citizens. Several authors (Batty et al, 2012;

Leydersdorff and Deakin, 2011; Townsend, 2014) agree that a smart city government should

allow access to its information. The availability of data gather by smart city tools opens a door

for civic initiatives that wants to construct another reality with the collected information. »The

way to accelerate change is to plug revolutionary software directly in government databases, «

argues Townsend (2014: 227).

Interesting examples are taking place in Vienna, where several data sets are available to

inhabitants to create different applications that could be useful for the public in general or

specific social and interest groups. In another example, San Francisco hosts annual summer

hackathons, where hackers and city decision makers gather to conceive new tools and solutions

to improve specific problems of the city (Townsend, 2014: 229). In Brussels, a citizen group

developed an application in order to collect data against the decision of the city government to

build four new parking buildings.

Smart city as the new model of urban economic growth: one of the most interesting models

of urban economic growth was proposed by Leydersdorff and Deakin (2011). In their Triple

Helix of Knowledge based economy, smart city is conceived as a vehicle to create and sustain

economic development. The triple helix model of smart city structures its economic growth in

three main pillars:

Firstly, it organizes the knowledge production between universities and industries. In their

view, government should provide policy framework and infrastructure (ICT and built

environment) needed to promote the interaction between these two actors. Secondly, it bases

wealth creation in local industries. Government should thus support development of local

industries base in knowledge based economy and the use of ICT tools. Finally, athors stress the

importance of citizen participation in urban governance.

In conclusion, this model moves from an entrepreneurship-based, knowledge-intensive firms

and market-dependent understanding of a smart city, towards a model of learning organizations,

policy makers, academic leaders and corporate strategies.

After explaining some of the common points that involve the concept of a smart city, we can

agree that there is still a lot to discuss in order to have a clear idea of what smart city means. It

is also important to understand which are the stakeholders involved in the smart city system,

which could be their interests and their objectives. For example, large software companies

leading the market in ICT tool implementations are present in majority of activities related to

the city, offering their tools to cities as the solutions to all the urban problems. Only a better

understanding of the systems will allow us to define what a smart city is and see what a smart

city could be.

3 Critique: The other side of the smart city?

By Dongxia He

As it was mentioned in the last chapter, the smart city concept is widely adopted by many cities

and is accompanied with the key words of technologies and intelligence. There is a handful of

examples from the official websites of the smart cities showing that smart city is somehow

equal to a technology city. In some cities, they even have the (mis)understanding of the

“smartness”, which considereds a city to be smart as long as it is connected with technology.

However, smart city is not just an urban label focusing on the high technology, but is providing

a solution to address social and economic problems using ICT (Hollands, 2008). In another

way, when we call a city smart, it is not due to the installment of the technologies, but due to

how people use those technologies.

Last year Indian government announced that it will build 100 smart cities in the following years.

Moreover, the Indian government is going to allocate 70.6 billion rupees (£762m) to its “100

Smart Cities” plan (Ravindran, 2015). As the urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu

mentioned in the interview, smart cities “would have clean water, assured power supply,

efficient public transport and would not be polluted or congested”, and will “have smart

(intelligent) physical, social, institutional and economic infrastructure”. It looks very wistful

for India. In Palva Megacity, one of the smart city projects, the promoting video reveals that it

was inspired by the big cities like by Singapore and Dubai, and high skyscrapers and the

technological advance were highlighted. It shows not only the ambition of solving the

increasing population problems in India, but also an eagerness to compete with other cities.

However, the planners are very little concerned with the importance of adaption to local

contexts (Vanolo, 2013).

On the other hand, following similar template, characterized by modernity and technology,

many cities and local governments are building their smart, secure and controlled cities. Smart

technologies can become a tool of social control that makes intrusion in person’s private life

almost unnoticeable (Vanolo, 2013). When all the buildings and household appliances are

sensored to get users’ data, which on the one hand will be conveniently applied to the intelligent

lifestyle, it can put users under control as well. In India’s newly built smart city Gujarat

International Financial Tec-City, the most eye-catching building is its “Command and Control

Centre”, whose function is to keep traffic moving smoothly and monitors every building

through a network of CCTVs (Ravindran, 2015). It seems every citizens’ behavior will be

monitored by an intelligent machine. As Sassen (2001) has pointed out: “from experimentation,

discovery, and open-source urbanism, we could slide into a managed space where ‘sensored’

becomes ‘censored.’”

The manipulation of the capital

As the last chapter has mentioned, a rather small number of large IT companies, like Siemens,

Cisco and IBM, are dominating smart cities research and have become the biggest partners of

the municipalities in building smart cities. Taking India as an example again, on the list of

public private partnership, presence of large companies, like IL & FS Energy Development

Company (US), Cisco (US), NEC Corporation (Japan), is striking. These are the one that will

share a piece of big “cake” and benefit greatly from this ambitious plan. In these cases, it is

easy to raise the questions: what if some smart initiative, which started out with social inclusion

as a goal and was funded by the public money, then gets overtaken by private sector and

concerns purely with profit-making? (Hollands, 2008). Does it become a “privatopia”?

(Vanolo, 2013).

Another thing, which needs to be pointed out is, whether smart city concept is a new type of

“spatial fix”? As David Harvey (2003) argues, “Urbanization is one way to absorb the capital

surplus.” We can see that the smart city concept is often regarded as a tool to achieve urban

development goals. For example, the Palava city in India, which is self-labeled as a smart city,

is a newly-constructed city on a green field. Now it is designed to be full of skyscrapers and

high technology facilities. In a similar vein, many cities are created “out of nothing” – e.g.

Gujarat International Financial Tec-City is resembling a row of skyscrapers popping up above

the Sabarmati River in Gandhinagar, India (Ravindran, 2015). We can see the analogous

situation in other cities around the world, as well as in Vienna, as it will be elaborated below.

The construction of smart buildings and the innovation of the urban facilities attract the capital

flowing to the cities, which reveals the new style of the spatial fix.

Smartness for whom

In some smart cities, the smart city management also promotes the comfortable and convenient

lifestyle, even luxurious amenities, which are symbolizing high quality life of the middle and

upper classes. The creative class (Florida, 2002) which is often believed to be a “smart group

of smart people” is welcomed in smart cities – but what about the technologically illiterate and

the less educated citizens? When the vulnerable group cannot catch up with the development

of the city, it may be even more marginalized – despite smart city’s ambition of creating “ideal

city”.

The smart and progressive city requires the input and contribution of various groups of people

and cannot be simply labeled as smart by adopting a sophisticated information technology

infrastructure or through self-labeling on a nicely-designed website. A progressive and smart

city needs to consider the balance of powers between the use of information technology by

private sector, government and citizens. The meaning of creating a smart city is not to create a

closed smart community, but needs to be utilized socially and politically by the people, it needs

to solve the problems of the people, as well as provide a vision of a better life for everybody.

4 Localisation Cases of Smart City

4.1 What does it mean for Vienna to be smart?

By Victoria Remezkova

The city of Vienna has developed a long-term plan aiming at boosting its smartness. However,

Vienna does not have to start from scratch having already achieved quite a lot in the area. This

chapter will look at what is smart about Vienna as it is now while the following chapter will

discuss the city’s plans for future. All the information was derived from Smart City Wien

website (Smart City Wien, 2015a) and various brochures they distribute for public.

To make it more readable, we would suggest dividing Vienna’s smartness into four wider areas

that come from the definition of smart city concept. These areas are: ecological sustainability,

innovations, social inclusion and high quality of life for its citizens.

Ecological sustainability

Sustainability is usually the first thing that comes into mind in association with a smart city.

Vienna claims to be ecologically friendly in many ways. First, it concerns waste management.

Vienna engages its citizens in separating their household waste, in order to recycle some parts

such as paper, plastic or metal. Moreover, special plants in Vienna turn waste incineration into

heat generation which allows both avoiding burying trash in the ground and produces energy.

Second, the city of Vienna aims at “green energy” generation. This is being done with the use

of “clean” power plants that use renewable energy sources such as hydropower or wind power

for electricity production. Next, in Vienna we can find quite a number of “zero-energy”

buildings that are self-sufficient and do not require more energy that they can generate

themselves. Usually, this is possible due to the installation of solar panels on the roof of a

building. Solar energy is offered for citizens’ use as well through the mechanism of renting the

panels directly from the city government.

Third, Vienna puts a considerable amount of efforts into developing ecologically friendly

transportation system. It includes extended metro and tram systems and the use of zero-emission

buses. In addition to these kinds of public transportation, there is a network of city bikes stations

that also aims at reducing the amount of car travels in the city.

Innovations

Being innovative is considered to be a key element of achieving a smart city goal. The city of

Vienna understands innovation not just in a narrow technological sense but in a broader way

that encompasses various spheres of urban life.

Vienna’s actions in the field of smart urban economy lays in the government’s support for start-

up initiatives which should lower the dominance of transnational corporations in favor of

smaller local entrepreneurs.

In the field of urban governance, Vienna’s main achievement is an establishment of electronic

government which significantly facilitates a number of routine tasks allowing citizens not to

waste time and energy needed for travelling to the city hall.

In the area of research and education, the city of Vienna offers open government data. This

resource is helpful for the works of students, social scientists and researchers from other fields

offering universal access to urban data. The logic behind this claims that if the data have to be

gathered and processed for the city government’s needs, why would not they belong to public

afterwards.

The last innovation field we would like to mention here is the sphere of mobile applications.

Nowadays, when increasing number of citizens use smart phones and other devices that allow

them to be constantly online, the city have to adapt to the changes and provide urban dwellers

with a new mode of services. Thus, in Vienna we can find various urban applications for public

transportation routes and timetables, taxis, city bikes, city maps, tourist guides, parking zones,

etc.

Social inclusion

With ruling social-democratic party, social cohesion and inclusion has been of an outmost

importance for Vienna for a long time. Therefore, in the vision of city of Vienna, smart city is

the one where all dwellers are entitled for a good life regardless of their income and other

parameters. To achieve this goal, Vienna provides a significant amount of public housing (25%

of all housing estate). Providing citizens with very high-quality dwellings of well-planned

infrastructure and sophisticated design is seen as a necessary condition for ensuring that

everyone can fully participate in urban life.

Figure 1: Social housing Vienna style (Source: Matevž Straus)

Quality of life

The city of Vienna claims that offering high living standard to every citizen is their ultimate

goal. A lot of efforts were put into creation of public transportation that is: inexpensive,

territorially expanded, operates 20 hours per day, connects bus, metro and tram lines into one

integrated system and provides accurate real time timetables.

Next, high quality of life in Vienna is ensured by the amount of green spaces: Vienna offers

long km of waterfronts, mountains, natural parks called Vienna Woods and smaller human-

made parks all over the city which results in the fact that ½ of all urban territory is the green

areas.

Other achievement of Viennese municipality is the highest quality of water that comes to the

tap straight from the mountains. This has a positive effect on people’s health and allows them

not to spend money and efforts on constantly buying drinking water. They can just use what is

locally available.

Affordable housing is something that Vienna is famous for. As mentioned above, the percentage

of social housing that can be rented for a relatively low price reaches 25 percent ensuring high

level of living conditions for everyone.

The last thing we would like to mention here is high traffic safety. Vienna works hard on its

“Vision Zero” mission that aims on the absence of any fatal accidents happened because of the

traffic.

Goals for the future

Having these foundations definitely helps Vienna to become even smarter. The municipality

developed a long-term development plan until year 2050 called “Smart City Wien” that covers

all aspects of urban life, work and leisure developing a strategy for improvement and

modernizing the city.

As stated in “Smart City Wien Framework Strategy”, “it is the key goal for 2050 of Smart City

Wien to offer optimum quality of living, combined with highest possible resource preservation,

for all citizens. This can be achieved through comprehensive innovations” (City of Vienna,

2014a). The strategy can be visually presented as three intersecting circles characterizing: the

quality of living, resources consumption, and innovations (Fig. 2).

Figure 2: “Smart City Wien” principles (Source: City of Vienna, 2014b)

In this frame, the main objectives for the future are:

Consuming less resources and protecting the climate;

Improving quality of life through innovations;

Guaranteeing social inclusion for all citizens;

Eradicating any gender discrimination;

Making Vienna a city of codetermination and social justice;

Preserving green spaces and using renewable energy;

Providing equal opportunities for all generations (City of Vienna, 2014b).

To sum up, we may say that the municipality of Vienna recognizes the “smart” heritage the city

already has and aims at moving further with enhancing and reinforcing existing “smart moves”.

The “Smart City Wien” strategy has been approved by the mayor, Michael Häupl, and is

currently being implemented in the development projects in the city.

What is special about Vienna?

Having all this in mind, we would argue that Vienna is different from the cities that use “smart”

label to follow neoliberal mainstream. For Vienna, “smartness” is far from being only about

technology, it is mostly about people. As the “Smart City Wien Framework Strategy” puts it,

“social inclusion is a decisive factor; this means that all measures will take account of all people

living in the city” (City of Vienna, 2014b).

We assume that the reason for that is the social-democratic party that has been it power for a

long time conducting socially oriented “Red Vienna” policy. There are not so many cities in

the world with 25% of all housing estate being social housing, 50% of all territory covered with

publicly supported parks and green areas, as well as with such an amount of public institutions

and well-functioning public transportation system.

We will conclude with another quote from the “Smart City Wien Framework Strategy”: “other

cities are primarily concerned with meeting CO2 emissions targets. With the Smart City Wien

process, Vienna is taking a more comprehensive approach. Beyond simply defining

environmental objectives, this process will give consideration to all spheres of life in the city.

It is precisely this approach that for generations has ensured – and will continue to ensure –

Vienna’s success and the high quality of life enjoyed by the city’s inhabitants. That is the

‘Viennese Way’” (Smart City Wien, 2015b).

4.2 The smart city experimental lab: Seestadt Aspern

By Nazar Kovalenko

Let us start with some key facts from the history of the territory of today’s Seestadt Aspern. On

May 1808, fields between villages Aspern and Essling witnessed the battle between Napoleon

troops and Austrian army, which was also Napoleon’s first significant tactical defeat. In 1912,

an airport was opened in the area, which played a very important role in both World Wars and

in interwar period, especially in 1930s, when this was the center of training flights and one of

the main bases of Luftwaffe. The airport existed even after the war, but was closed in 1977

because of the harsh competition from the airport in Schwechat. Consequently, it was rebuild

into a racing track, and in the 1980s, this territory entered a new period: GM opened its engine

plant with 2000 newly-created workplaces (Aspern Seestadt, 2015).

Figure 3: Aspern airfield before development (Source: Schipfer, 2012)

In 1992, the City Council and Vienna Economic Fond had organized meetings of experts and

city planners on the development of this area and chose the concept of architecture group Leiner

for further development. This project proposed building of housing for 12000 people and 6000

workplaces, and was based on the principles of “Urban Partitur”, which would mean the

creation of low-density urban area crossed through with green belts. Due to large amounts of

capital needed for transport infrastructure, this project was eventually rejected (Vienna City

Council, 2015).

Finally, in May 2007, the City Council of Vienna adopted the Master plan of Seestadt Aspern

(Aspern Vienna’s Urban Lakeside). Starting from the basic principles of the airfield

development programme, a two-tier procedure was employed to select a team for drafting the

master plan. In the first stage of the tender, “bidding syndicates from across the entire EU were

invited to submit their relevant experience and project track record in order to qualify for

participation in the awarding procedure. In the second stage, ten selected bidding syndicates

were invited to prepare solution proposals for the urbanistic development of the former airfield

and to submit these together with bids for the drafting of the master plan” (Aspern Airfield

Master plan, 2008). After that, an international evaluation commission, which was composed

of different stakeholders (experts, land owners, political decision-makers and local residents)

submitted the bids of the master plan. In the end, the contract was awarded to the Swedish

architect burro Tovatt Architects & Planners in co-operation with the German project developer

N+ Objektmanagement.

Phases of development

The size of this urban area is 240 ha and realization of it is planned in three stages. The

development agency Wien 3420 AG, owned by GELUP Gmbh (a subsidiary of the Vienna

Business Agency, the Vienna Insurance Group, the Austrian Savings Banks AG and the Federal

Real Estate Company), is supposed to lay out the green spaces and construct the central lake

and technical infrastructure (roads, sewage network, etc.) to kick off the Urban Lakeside

development. The first major phase of construction (2010-2017) comprises of a mixed-use

neighborhood with at least 2,600 housing units (260 student units) as well as offices, retail units,

service providers and research and development institutions. This large volume ensures that

there will be ample local amenities and establishes the intended mixed-use structure right from

the outset. The area has already seen the opening of the underground/metro stations Aspern

Nord on the Northern side and Seestadt to the South, as well as the construction of the lakeside

park (will be opened in a few days). An initial impulse generator here is aspern IQ, a technology

center developed by the Vienna Business Agency. Construction works started in June 2011,

and the center opened in October 2012. Moreover, in spring 2013, HOERBIGER became the

first major company to make a decision to locate in Seestadt Aspern. Others are planned to

follow. (Aspern Seestadt, 2015)

Figure 4: Newly-created lake and metro line under construction in (now Seestadt) Aspern

(Source: Schipfer, 2012)

In the second phase (2017-2022), the rail station and efficient road link to the A 23 motorway

and the S 1 Regional Ringroad will be completed. Further housing and mixed-purpose buildings

are planned to be developed along with the quarter around the rail station and the office quarter.

Finally, during the third phase (2022-2028), the areas adjacent to the rail station, the shopping

street and the underground/metro line will be densified and the mix of use optimized. (Aspern

Seestadt, 2015)

The land use of Seestadt Aspern

The development of a city quarter that is to assume a central function, due to its rich range of

services and shopping facilities, calls for urban volumes and corresponding scales. In spots

where urban variety is the goal, the function and design of buildings must interlock closely with

public space. Objectives such as vibrancy, short distances and a balanced social tissue

presuppose a high degree of mixed uses embedded in a sturdy, flexible spatial structure. (Aspern

Seestadt, 2015)

Figure 5: The variety of uses in Seestadt Aspern (Source: Aspern Airfield master plan, 2008).

Below we discuss main uses in Seestadt Aspern:

Housing. The major part of residential buildings is primarily located on the South and West

side of the shopping street and has close links to the central park and Western green corridor.

Shops are to be located in a specially designated ground-floor levels. “One particular concern

of the master plan is to allow a share of residential units in as many zones of the city quarter as

possible, as this triggers increased vitality throughout the entire day” (Aspern Airfield Master

plan, 2008).

Schools and kindergartens – social infrastructure. A master plan predicts construction of

social infrastructure facilities on dedicated blocks. “These locations include a combined

elementary and middle school with attached six-group daycare nursery (D18) as well as another

elementary school (F9), another co-operative middle school (E8) and a general secondary

school (D14) (Aspern Airfield Master plan, 2008). All these designated infrastructure locations

are situated close to public transport stops and linked to green and public spaces.

Offices and services, commerce and trade. Since offices principally need to be housed in

prime locations, the master plan provides the construction of office buildings mainly on lots in

the immediate vicinity of the metro stations. Trade, personal services, restaurants and cafés,

entertainment venues, but also social and cultural functions should be architecturally integrated

and open up towards public space as much as possible. Passageways, arcades, awnings and

canopies are planned to enrich the streetscape. (Aspern Seestadt, 2015)

The biggest concentration of commercial uses is to evolve along the shopping street between

train station and lake. Industrial uses requiring special buildings, halls and large surfaces will

be mainly located along the eastern periphery of the former airfield, close to the existing

transportation and technical infrastructure of the General Motors plant. (Aspern Airfield Master

plan, 2008)

Cultural facilities. In general, there are no special blocks for cultural facilities at the moment,

“since such locations and structures must fulfil a great variety of requirements: the spectrum is

to range from high-level art galleries and cultural facilities of citywide importance to workshops

and rehearsal studios” (Aspern Airfield Master plan, 2008). Only the sites for a place of

religious worship (H4) and a smaller building for cultural uses on the shopping street (G6) were

already determined in the master plan.

Science campus – research and development. By marking a lot for research and development,

the project creates another location where economy and research activities can co-operate

actively. Essential characteristics of the science campus thus include the possibility of

networking with high-tech enterprises, a high degree of spatial flexibility, excellent public

transport connections, urban infrastructure and an attractive, green environment.

Local amenities in a city of short distances

Aspern Urban Lakeside is breaking new ground to ensure that a functioning network of local

amenities is in place right from the outset. Shops and other local services will be within walking

or cycling distance. Instead of a mall-type development there will be a central shopping street,

with the emphasis on covering daily shopping needs from day one: food and grocery shops, a

branch of a drugstore chain, a bakery outlet, pharmacy, bank, post office and insurance office.

In addition, plenty of cafés and restaurants are envisioned. To reduce the use of car, two bike

parking spaces and 0,7 car parking spaces per housing unit are planned in Seestadt Aspern

(Aspern Seestadt, 2015).

Moreover, several mobility projects are already planned:

o Urban Lakeside bike fleet – the cycle hire system for travel inside and outside

Urban Lakeside;

o Hallo Dienstmann! – the delivery service for Lakesiders;

o Lotte – a bike trailer that can also be used as a shopping trolley;

o Bike park – safe, innovative cycle parking facilities;

o Car sharing – a car-sharing pool for Lakesiders;

o Urban Lakeside map / Mobility map – for easy use of all forms of transport;

o Digital noticeboard – an information platform for Lakesiders;

o Promotion of the shopping street – local shopping facilities right from the outset;

o aspern ReCycle – cycle repair service for Urban Lakeside (Aspern Seestadt,

2015).

4.3 Tech-talk: How is smartness researched in Seestadt Aspern?

By Matevž Straus

Research activities in the field of smart city concept and smart technologies in Seestadt Aspern

are persued by Aspern Smart City Research (ASCR), a company founded by Siemens (44 %)

and several publicly owned companies (Wien Energie, Wien Netze, Wien 3420 and Vienna

Business Agency) (ASCR, 2015). Its main goal is to concentrate research on innovation of

urban energy systems with the core topics of energy efficiency and CO2 reduction, including

renewable energy generation sources and storage technologies (ASCR, 2015), while using

Seestadt Aspern as real-life laboratory, since it offers an unique opportunity to conduct research

with real data of the built-up energy infrastructure of buildings, network and users. Moreover,

as Seestadt Aspern provides a very diverse mix of residential, office, educational and leisure

use, it is a good testing ground for »smart city« research activities.

Figure 6: Corporate structure and budget disambiguation of ASCR (ASCR, 2015)

ASCR's strategy, for which it has 40 million EUR budged for 5-year period, lists four main

fields of research activities, namely smart buildings, smart grids, smart ICT and smart citizen

(ASCR, 2015).

Figure 7: Comprehensive research activities in Seestadt Aspern (ASCR, 2015)

Smart Building

In the field of smart buildings, main focus are the integration and optimization of various

energy-related subsystems into an overall system, self-optimization of buildings, analysis of

customer behavior with regard to new technologies and possible new tariff plans. These could

achieve reduction of peak demand in buildings, while the building would be used as a "memory"

in the electricity and heating network … This means that the buildings would not be just

consumers of energy or self-sufficient elements, but would also actively participate in the

energy market, either by selling standard products to energy distributors or control energy for

the network operator (ASCR, 2015).

Smart Grids

Secondly, in the field of smart grids, ASCR's programme main interest are urban low-voltage

networks, especially network monitoring (e.g. definition of concepts for the meaningful

grouping of measuring sensors, defining metrics, automatic calculation of threshold values …),

integration of decentralized control voltage in the main operations, network data analysis and

developing of efficient maintenance and repair strategies (ASCR, 2015).

Smart ICT

Main focus of smart ICT research activities are analysing and processing of different

information from the urban environment and analysing of the end customer behavior with

regard to the new ICT technologies (ASCR, 2015).

Smart Citizen

Despite programme's focus on technological aspects of smart city concept, ASCR

acknowledges the importance of »human condition«. As it is written in the programme, new

technologies and solutions can only be successful if people accept it and add value to it. Thus

an important part of research are also social sciences and research of usability, with special

focus on data protection and data security (ASCR, 2015).

However, it can be argued that social aspect of its research is still rather limited – despite many

activities to build trust (monthly open-doors days for research objects, coupons for participants

…) only around apartments 90 out of 213 in D12 testbed housing block have agreed to

participate in the research and allowed collection and analysis of (their) data. Moreover, even

though research deals with (smart) citizens, it is mainly technology oriented (data protection

and data security issues), but does not take into consideration broader social aspects of (urban)

living that are inherently connected with energy consumption (e.g. consumerism,

transportation/mobility …).

Seestadt Aspern is often branded as »smart city« - however, only relatively small part of it is

»smart« in a purely technological sense as only three buildings are fully monitored and analyzed

and only parts of it are part of network monitoring. ASCR has three smart building testbeds in

Seestadt Aspern (Juli, 2015):

- Dormitory (D5B) for 300 students with photovoltaic panels (250 kWp), electrical

storage (120 kWh), heat in hot water storage (2x8 kW) and smart heating, ventilating

and air conditioning (HVAC).

- Housing block D12 with 213 apartments with seven different heat pump systems (800

kW), solar heat panels (90 kW) and hybrid (heat + electricity) solar panels (60 kWpth),

photovoltaic panels (15 kWp), hybrid solar panels (20 kWpel), soil energy storage (40

MWh), hot water storages, electrical storage (20 kWh), smart heating, ventilating and

air conditioning (HVAC) and home automation system. The building is completely

autonomous and not connected to the grid at all.

- Kindergarten/elementary school (D18 block) with two heat pumps (510 kW),

photovoltaic panels (29 kWp), solar heat panels (90 kW), hot water storages with

heating elements (70 kW) and smart heating, ventilating and air conditioning.

Moreover, additional smart grid testbed exist in Seestadt Aspern with 12 transformer stations,

24 transformers, 1 transformer with tap changer, different types of transformers (amorphous,

…), smart meters and additional grid monitoring devices (Juli, 2015).

Besides these testbeds, ASCR monitors two additional buildings as benchmark objects (D10

block with mixed use and C4 block with offices).

Figure 8: Testbeds in Seestadt Aspern (map by ASCR (2015), own visualisation).

5 Observation and Discussion

5.1 Governance: How Seestadt Aspern is going beyond IT-smartness?

By Matevž Straus

As expressed on Stadtteil Management's website (Stadtteilmanagement Seestadt Aspern, 2015),

»process [of creating Seestadt Aspern] brings challenges, but at the same time a lot of chances.«

This notion emphasizes that Seestadt Aspern is not only an urban neighborhood with smart

technologies, but a symptom of »reorientation in attitudes to urban governance« as discussed

by Harvey (1989, 3), notably urban entrepreneurialism. This approach toward developing a city

is characterized by »traditional local boosterism integrated with the use of local governmental

powers to try and attract external sources of funding, new direct investments, or new

employment sources.« (Harvey, 1989: 7). Moreover, Seestadt Aspern can be also described as

entrepreneurial city (Jessop and Sum, 2000), as it fits Jessop’s and Sum's (2000: 2289) three-

part definition: it pursues innovative strategies intended to maintain or enhance its economic

competitiveness vis-a`-vis other cities and economic spaces; these strategies are real and

reflexive, pursued in an active, entrepreneurial fashion; the promoters adopted an

entrepreneurial discourse, narrate the city as entrepreneurial and market them as

entrepreneurial.

It is not surprising that those strategies are adopted in »Red and Green« Vienna, dominated by

left and green parties. As noticed by Harvey (1989, 5) »even the most resolute and avant-garde

municipal socialists will find themselves, in the end, playing the capitalist game and performing

as agents of discipline for the very processes they are trying to resist.«

On a micro level, this can be observed on several instances, here we stress just the major ones:

- Shopping street is managed by a shopping street manager that regulates location of

functions and shops by adjusting rent prices to achieve a »good mix«. Since the street

is managed in public- private partnership between Wien 3420 and Spar retail company,

the positive externalities are internalized in a way that is beneficial for leading private

partner.

- Community building by Stadtteilmanagement (consortium of the Caritas of the

Archdiocese of Vienna, PlanSinn - Office for Planning and Communication,

SubauftragnehmerInnen abz * austria and Tatwort) (Stadtteilmanagement Seestadt

Aspern, 2015). Stadtteilmanagement is a contact point and meeting place for the

residents of Seestadt Aspern and is supposed to create bridges between citizens and

various actors and institutions active in the area. This is done at Info Point and with

several social and cultural activities (within PUBLIK culture and communication

programme), featuring events and join-in activities from readings to urban gardening

and the "ReCycle" bike repair workshop, cultural summer activities, walkshops, art

projects, smart citizen workshops, giving out welcome packages. Special attention is

paid to interim/temporary uses as Seestadt Aspern is not build-up yet and many of the

sites still wait for construction works to begin (Stadtteilmanagement Seestadt Aspern,

2015).

- Urban governance structure in Seestadt Aspern is rather complex with Wien 3420 acting

as publicly owned real estate developer (selling land in order to implement master plan),

several public bodies overseeing the processes, construction companies and non-profit

building developers acting as plot developers, public Vienna Business Agency

developing the economy of the Seestadt Aspern, Stadtteil Management building the

community … What blurs the urban governance structure even more are ownership

relationships between actors as most of the actors are publicly-owned, but act as private

parties in the decision-making processes.

- Improving the life at the construction site – relatively successful management of the

conflict between inhabitants and still ongoing construction works, creating dust, noise

and addition traffic by spraying roads and work areas to suppress dust and use of wheel

washing facilities at the main site exits. Moreover, waste is reduced by recycling

materials on site, while material excavated to create the lake – some 600,000 tonnes of

gravel, sand and soil – was reused for landscape modelling.

- Prospective clustering of sustainable industries, such as e.g. healthcare, sports and

fitness, medicine and wellness, green technologies, the leisure sector and outdoor

tourism, as well as life sciences and the ecological and organic sectors, in Seestadt

Aspern follows the notion of urban externalities and agglomeration/urbanization

economies. Wien 3420 is already renting out space to research-oriented institutions that

are active in the development of sustainable technologies and is trying to attract larger

companies with infrastructurally-equipted plots as well as small start-ups with “Mingo”

offices in aspern IQ.

- Use of state-of-the-art branding and marketing activities to attract residents, developers,

companies, investors and media coverage. The brand creation is best described by

Schipfer (2012; see picture for timeline).

Figure 9: Timeline of branding of Seestadt Aspern (Source: Schipfer, 2012)

5.2 Issue: What about privacy and data security?

By Victoria Remezkova

The group discussion after the presentation revealed in a way opposing points of view. On the

one hand, it was noticed that having technologies and people operating them knowing every

detail of one’s private life might cause some security issues. For example, if the light sensor

was not in use for a week, this could be a sign of empty apartment, which could become a

motivation for a robbery.

Moreover, the group expressed some concerns related to giving away the data that is private in

character. Home is considered to be safe and private place as opposed to public space, which is

everything that is located outside. Accordingly, people find that uncomfortable to let someone

from outside know what is happening in a totally private space of their homes. That is especially

reinforced by the fact that smart house inhabitants are not aware who and for what purpose

might use their data.

On the other hand, though, these concerns might be seen as an exaggeration since the data

collected be smart house technologies is usually very general and do not give away any specific

private information – such as turning on and off the lights, separating rubbish, using heating

and air conditioning, etc. As expressed by one of the classmates, we should not care if someone

knows when we turn on the lights. Collected data is meant to be used in a generalized and

aggregated way, as it is done with the results of sociological surveys, for example. Population

censuses also collect citizens’ “private information”, such as their denomination, income,

marriage status, etc., but people usually understand that is serves important policy purposes and

do not mind sharing their data. It might be argued that the data collected by smart technology

functions in a similar way – it supports the research process aimed at making the cities greener,

more energy-efficient, less waste-generating, etc. Therefore, privacy issues can be regarded as

a NIMBY effect – people generally support technological progress and more eco-sustainable

way of living, but refuse to share their data that would facilitate the process.

5.3 Issue: Role of large private companies

By Juan Sebastian Orozco

Nowadays, large ICT companies are behind the new narrative of the city. They are telling us

how our lifestyle in the cities of the future will be. The daily life problems of a metropolis will

be solved by sensors, programs, ICT networks that will allows us to focus on what really

matters. The smart city will solve the traffic, environmental and health problems where the past

industrial revolution has led us (Townsend, 2014: 8).

But why the large ICT companies are pushing that hard to spread the word about smart cities?

Why are they present at every city fair or at any event that could lead them to mayors? Why do

they have this dominant role in the implementation of smart city concept? Cities are huge, and

rather untouched market. According to Townsend (2014: 7) the potential capital of the market

is nearly 100 billion dollars, a number that changes the business orientation and strategy of

many businesses.

Large ICT companies, such as IBM, Cisco, Schneider Electric and Siemens (that are main

competitors in the smart city market (Navigant Research, 2015)) are convincing the cities that

they have the solutions to cities' problems. Outsourcing has become the main mantra – and it

does not only reinforces the notion that a city cannot solve own problems, but also that these

companies are the only ones that have the solution. With this situation, investments that could

create city's “know-how” to address todays or future problems, are supplemented by

expenditures that help large companies to concentrate knowledge in their hands. These main

enterprises are taking advantage of their privileged position to use public funds for research

purposes (a clear example could be Seestadt Aspern).

In conclusion, the smart city narrative is conceiving the city as a product of the ICT companies

not as a result of the learning process of the government itself or citizens-led ICT initiatives for

a better life.

6 Instead of conclusion: Can smart entrepreneurism be a red strategy?

By Matevž Straus

At this point it is worth pointing out the relationship between social and economic policies and

goals in the case of Seestadt Aspern. A rather strange cooperation and complementation

between social policies and goals (social and subsidized housing, encouragement for

cooperative buildings, public transport, relocation of Wien Works to Seestadt Aspern …) and

economic policies and goals (public-private partnerships with Siemens and Spar, city branding,

prospective export of »smart« know-how) can lead to an uneasy feeling. It surely opens up

several questions, such as:

- Is smart city only a tool of wealth creation for the rich or does it have broader benefits?

- What is the role of technology in ensuring well-being of citizens?

- Does urban entrepreneurism always lead to uneven development?

With this paper we wanted to stress that highly contested and often criticized smart city concept

and use of technology in improving quality of living in cities CAN have positive consequences.

As argued by Harvey (1989: 5) in the case of urban entrepreneurialism, part of which is smart

city concept, it » may open the way to a non zero-sum pattern of development. This kind of

activity has certainly played a key role in capitalist development in the past. And it is an open

question as to whether or not it could lead towards progressive and socialist transitions in the

future.«

Even though the idea of smart city research and development, led by public actors with

cooperation of some private actors as in the case of Seestadt Aspern, can be criticized as an

exploitation of public funds by private companies, it can also have beneficial long-term

consequences. Since there is a tendency for private capital to systematically underinvest in long-

term research and development (since these investments are too risky, the appropriation of

results not guaranteed and ROI (Return On Investment) is too low or even uncertain), public

investments are the only way to increase radical innovation in the field of urban living

technology. As argued by Smith (2015), »technology is more than just a weapon for inter-

capitalist competition; it is a weapon in struggles between capital and labor«.

Moreover, urban entrepreneurialism and smart city concept understand the city as collective

corporation – a city as one entity, interacting with others and representing itself for itself. This

idea has, according to Harvey (1989: 16), “a long history in the pantheon of progressive

doctrines and practices” (e.g. Paris Commune). This can have positive outcomes – smart city

as a collective corporation is not inherently “bad” in intent and result – it is rather the “generality

of inter-urban competition within an overall framework of un-even capitalist geographical

development which seems so to constrain the options” (Harvey, 1989: 16), leading to realistic

and pragmatic decisions, instead of meeting local and maximizing social welfare.

Thus, smart city research and development CAN have positive outcomes. Today this field is

dominated by large private multinational corporations, while public authorities are only

providing the “laboratory” and competing for attention of large private actors. To overcome

this, a strong public (or common) actor and research programme is needed – an open-source

initiative that can free up the smart city. As argued by Smith (2015), “we need to unleash the

full potential of human ingenuity. The way technology advances is already socialized in

important, if restricted and inadequate ways. We can finish the job and make sure that its fruits

are put to the benefit of ordinary people.”

Appendix

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