290103 SE Seminar aus Humangeographie (2021W)

Sustainable urban development needs to consider and to find solutions for a wide range of challenges. Among those challenges are climate, demographic, and political change, which at the city district level are related to the functioning and use of open space, housing, commerce, mobility, etc. These challenges raise the question how integrated development and planning approaches that address this complexity and balance between the requirements of urban sustainability can be successfully implemented. Further questions are: How powerful are digital infrastructures and systems to trigger and contribute to a more sustainable development, e.g. in terms of optimizing services and their accessibility? And, how does this relate to social innovation and nature-based solutions, and particularly, how does the integration work?

The seminar addresses this complexity of sustainable urban development, and cities in general, by exploring the Seestadt Aspern (Vienna) as an illustrative example. This district, currently under development, is often considered an outstanding example and model of sustainable urban development in Europe. It offers the opportunity to take a necessary integrated view on sustainability through critically scrutinizing and challenging different aspects considered as “sustainable”, “innovative” and “future- oriented” during the seminar. This includes among others document and media analyses, field trips, planning and conducting workshops and interviews with planners, investors, entrepreneurs and local residents connected to the Seestadt Aspern (topics and methods to be proposed and selected by students). On this basis, students contribute to a common integrated understanding of the complexity of sustainable urban development with in-depth knowledge on individually selected topics, which will lead to a “decision support framework” (Joint outcome).

Note: The seminar will be held in English, but sufficient German language skills to be able to read and understand German texts about the Seestadt and to conduct field work are required.