080072 SE B610 Society: "Urban space as contested terrain: Who does the city belong to?" (2019W)

Reclaiming the city: public space as contested terrain

Currently, public space is experiencing increasing regulation and, in media debates, is becoming the venue for social conflicts and the attribution of alleged "marginalized groups". If you look at the public space, you must not be dependent on local urban politics, as is currently the case in Vienna, using the example of the Prater, subway stations and parks; it shows or follows corporate logic, as in the case of the train stations.
The starting point of the course is the question "What significance is currently attached to public space?". Depending on the group of actors, different perspectives and answers will be found. For some population groups of the city, public space fulfills a central function, as a place of communication and communitarisation (see Dangschat 2008, Reinprecht 2012, Dlabaja 2016). Following the analysis of Richard Sennett (2008), the public usage of urban spaces is vanishing. For other groups of the population, such as the homeless, beggars and other vulnerable groups, public space is often the only accessible and available space.
The question of the possibility of shaping the city and of participating in decision-making processes has been taken into consideration in recent years in the context of the "right to the city", as well as the basic demand for the right of "inclusion", "visibility" and "affordability" of public Spaces (from Harvey 2013, Dlabaja 2017). Using the example of Mariahilfer Straße, various research questions will be investigated by different research methods. The point for the processing of the research fields is a common urban exploration.

Research questions:
Which problems are vulnerable groups in public space facing?
How and by whom is the right to city demanded?
How do vulnerable groups organize their interests?
How are marginal groups perceived by different user groups?
Which control mechanisms are effective in public space? Which contact points and institutions are the contact persons for these user groups?
Which barriers are there from the point of view of the respective groups?