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LearningTranscript
00:00:10hello everybody here is michael from new left and today it will be an interesting discussion
00:00:16about the cities and the future of our cities because uh well most of people on this planet
00:00:22are living in cities so to understand better where we are headed to is kind of interesting
00:00:29also for our leftist and i'm lucky that i found someone who is well versed in this whole topic of
00:00:36urbanization and and global development uh bernard can you please introduce yourself who you are what
00:00:44you do why are you interested in this uh debate about cities how it came to be that you kind
00:00:50of
00:00:50found your way into this particular topic yes of course thank you for the invitation happy to be
00:00:57here um michael um i would like to introduce myself in some remarks i'm born in austria in 1973
00:01:07and after the school when i passed my exam then i worked at the administration of wiener neustadt
00:01:17it's number 11 in the ranking of austrian biggest cities with now about 50 000 inhabitants in my time
00:01:27when i worked there um in the 1990s from the middle on uh it was less and um beside my
00:01:36my work at the
00:01:37administration in the city of wiener neustadt i started political science and journalism and then
00:01:45then i became politician i was member of the city council and then i became surprisingly mayor of
00:01:53wiener neustadt in 2005 because the female mayor was very sick unfortunately and so she retired
00:02:02and she was replaced by me and then i was mayor for 10 years in wiener neustadt and of course
00:02:10then you get uh functions uh i was member of the i would like say of the board of the
00:02:21austrian association
00:02:22of cities and towns i was treasurer there for more than 10 years and after my time as politician i
00:02:31remained interested in cities in the life of cities and in 2003 the former mayor of wiener michael heupel
00:02:42and me we founded a registered association called urban forum and when i left um politics michael heupel
00:02:53asked me bernhard can you um go further on can you do once again and for the future working for
00:03:02urban forum
00:03:03and i told him yes but it must be more professional only a registered association and now it's for more
00:03:11than 10 years uh a small institute a city's research institute uh institute for for public administration
00:03:20and we are well connected with institutes in austria or in europe also with um some in china
00:03:30and we cooperate with universities and universities of applied sciences and i'm the so-called um secretary
00:03:40general of urban forum and so became my interest and it was a part of politics and now it's my
00:03:49job for
00:03:50more than 10 years okay so let's jump into the deep water and talk about cities so first of all
00:03:58how would
00:03:58you decide or define what a city is because kind of under question when we are talking about urbanization
00:04:06let's say in europe and european union i can bring forward something i know about my home country
00:04:13slovakia when it comes when it's compared with finland as an example it's roughly the same size
00:04:18but according to world bank slovakia is mega underdeveloped in urbanization is one of it's actually
00:04:25the worst country in in europe even worse than albania and what do i know but finland isn't but when
00:04:33when i looked at the we have roughly like 3 000 municipalities when it's the right expression
00:04:39finland has only 300 yeah so just huge difference but when i looked at the land card of finland it's
00:04:48not like they have really 300 towns or what it's it's the population is spread across finland maybe even
00:04:55more widely than in slovakia so the definition what is urbanization and what isn't is very shady in
00:05:05my head because finland is one of the most urbanized places on the planet slovakia is well in the middle
00:05:12and the whole ranking and the worst in european union so i don't understand the concept so and i guess
00:05:20i'm not the only one because when you say urbanization and there is this spread of 50 or 40 percentage
00:05:27points and then you look at the objective map what is going on in those countries and you don't see
00:05:34a
00:05:34difference then obviously the world doesn't kind of really mirror reality michael you're totally right
00:05:43um during my remarks now i try to open a paper because i think this would be very um interesting
00:05:55for us to say it in correct ways cool so um some um definitions i think they are very important
00:06:05because
00:06:06um you are so right it's it's not easy to understand but not only for people which um talk about
00:06:15this
00:06:15topic first time also for professional it's it's very very difficult um in the history um the
00:06:23professionals say we have five historical phases of urban development yeah in the ninth and eighth
00:06:30millennium um before christ in palestine this was phase number one uh number two the greek city state
00:06:39polis so i think this is uh well known um number three the medieval city and then very important for
00:06:49urbanization the industrialization uh and so the urbanization in the 19th and early 20th centuries
00:06:57urbanization um urbanization is not uh the same like industrialization but without industrialization
00:07:05urban urbanization couldn't be and phase number five it's now we have also global cities and there is an
00:07:17austrian urban researcher and cultural sociologist uh called manfred russo and he notes in
00:07:27um in one of his papers that uh there is no consensus on what vanity means and it quickly becomes
00:07:37clear
00:07:37that we are dealing here with a phenomenon that is subject to a wide variety of interpretations so i think
00:07:46i think this is what you meant yeah and also um there is no globally accepted definition of a city
00:07:56uniform definition of what constitutes a city but the united nation has valid data for urban
00:08:05agglomerations and so um for professional in this way it's possible to uh compare with uh the the valid
00:08:16data of um urban agglomerations last point in this part i would like to say
00:08:25in austria we have so many difficult historical designations they are called austrian words
00:08:34gemeinde stadgemeinde mark gemeinde they are existing from the middle of the 19th century but now they have
00:08:44no legal significance and um it's only yeah like an honor yeah formally there are additional names
00:08:55assigned by the respective federal states but um without a real sense so i think i hope i could um
00:09:06tell you
00:09:07some let's let's let's let's dig a bit deeper into this because this is interesting question or that popped
00:09:15into my mind why is it so hazy and why when a couple of years back uh we we we
00:09:23met the threshold that more
00:09:25than half of the humanity is living in in towns and cities so obviously you know it's a huge huge
00:09:31thing
00:09:32and we can't even define it which is kind of you know interesting why is it so hazy why
00:09:39isn't there a unique concept what a city or town is why every country more or less as far as
00:09:48i know
00:09:48and maybe there are some you know interlaps but more or less i mean the example between finland and
00:09:54slovakia just screams what the fuck because it just it's totally made up you know when you when you look
00:10:01at what's really going on in those countries the differences couldn't be smaller but the
00:10:07official label what is town and what isn't is you know 400 or 40 percent uh difference so it's huge
00:10:17yeah it's more it's i don't understand this so why is it so hazy i think we all why people
00:10:24make it so
00:10:24complicated why why is there not a united nation definition this is what is defined by a city i mean
00:10:31because it boils down into politics into procedures into many things and when it's so hazy then you know
00:10:40yeah it's it's really difficult and it makes a lot of problems of course
00:10:44and i wrote a book um i wrote a book uh during the pandemic and it's called um land of
00:10:54cities
00:10:54yeah it was a question this is the name of of my book i wrote and um i tried to
00:11:02take deeper looks to the development of austrian towns and cities the urbanization comparing with
00:11:11uh trends in europe or whole over the world and i was i think i was really deep um in
00:11:19this case
00:11:20and of course i tried to read as lot as i could and i saw these problems i i don't
00:11:30really know how
00:11:32it became but let me try to give some aspects to you in austria we have a not official cold
00:11:43city
00:11:43lustenow in the province foralberg in the west and in austria it's huge with about uh 25 000 inhabitants
00:11:57for comparing my hometown number 11 in the ranking 50 000 inhabitants so lustenow is
00:12:06half it's it's big for austria because we are very small yeah so but it's not official in city
00:12:13it's a village or what it's yeah it's called i think it's called marktgemeinde one of these
00:12:22cities uh seldom even more hazy are you throws sports and no one understands only you in austria
00:12:28it's it's even more confused people okay thank you yeah it's not a city officially so it's a
00:12:36village maybe but of course of course why it's big it's member of the austrian association of cities
00:12:46yeah so formally no city but of course big for austria member of the austrian association of cities
00:12:54because uh lustenow is very important for the region in in foralberg and also for region's concepts in
00:13:04austria so this is one point and it it it it it it depended on the history um a lot
00:13:12of names
00:13:13and descriptions and descriptions they came from the monarchs yeah it was an honor to get a title
00:13:20yeah and the title was very difficult i know the title was marktgemeinde or so on so it was an
00:13:27honor
00:13:27and so it was called gemeinde like community or like village and so it was not a city we have
00:13:36very
00:13:36very very very very small villages like the wonderful rust on the neusiedlersee rust near the lake neusiedlersee
00:13:45uh very good wine wonderful landscape the the lake everything is wonderful a lot of tourism
00:13:54i think 2500 inhabitants and it's a city because the habsburger the monarchs gave them the title
00:14:05this is so wonderful this is so wonderful and we like the people we would give them the honor maybe
00:14:11they are very very close with uh the emperor i don't know so it's a city and of course when
00:14:19it's a city
00:14:19it must be also member of the association of cities of towns so it's very very crazy i think it's
00:14:28um
00:14:29output of the um output of the history but i don't know that the the whole reason why it's global
00:14:37so
00:14:37splitted i don't know and uh the un has this big problem so there are only two definitions
00:14:48they are really fix um mega city this is clear mega city is a city with uh 10 million inhabitants
00:14:58and more so this is for sure mega city and urban agglomerations yeah and a lot of city globally
00:15:07try to um push up the the number of inhabitants of the of the center but a lot of numbers
00:15:18are not
00:15:19not real and not not true it's uh it's a whole area and they add very often um whole over
00:15:30the world
00:15:30the inhabitants from the the near and the close uh villages so it's very difficult to get valid
00:15:39uh facts and data it's very very difficult i saw that when i wrote my book um you have to
00:15:47be
00:15:48very critical uh obviously it was or is historical phenomena the question is do we in today's world do
00:15:59we accept this haziness and do we live with it or other kind of procedures and and and and efforts
00:16:06to
00:16:07make it more clear you know as as as the world is globalizing we have european union we should in
00:16:13my
00:16:14mind i'll be trying to kind of make it understandable for everyone so that's you know not in one one
00:16:19one
00:16:20land or one country the rules are completely different because then it's really you know it's
00:16:26else so how you see it from the perspective of the development or evolution in the last let's say
00:16:32quarter of a century do we go more into the definition that is kind of understandable but for
00:16:39most people and most uh institution or is it going even more into the more hazier and no one really
00:16:47understands what we are talking about uh way so how you see the development in the last decades
00:16:54i see no way from united nations or other institutions or from the european union to
00:17:01to do it more clear i don't see this way but i also not see the way it's becoming uh
00:17:09crazier and crazier
00:17:10so i think um they try to have the focus on urbanization in its total yeah because urbanization is a
00:17:21mega trend and this is clear there's no doubt urbanization is so important and we have a lot of
00:17:29chances but also so many problems that i think the focus of united nations and other organizations is not
00:17:36to to make it clear uh what is a city what is a town what is a village uh i
00:17:43think they tried to
00:17:44focus on the process of urbanization because this process is um it's not in critics i think so
00:17:52and um the urban agglomerations they are defined from the un and so we can compare and it's also
00:18:02important uh to have it clear what it's a mega city not so important for europe because in europe we
00:18:09have none
00:18:10in europe we have two we have two um in europe we have two paris and uh london and in
00:18:18european union
00:18:19we have now only one because of brexit uh london is away okay so because as far as i know
00:18:26paris is
00:18:27roughly the same size as vienna so they cannot again define it differently because of the urban areas
00:18:33around uh around paris it seems yeah because i didn't know that it's 10 million i've been living
00:18:41there so i would never dare that it's a like you and like you and definition paris is a mega
00:18:47city okay
00:18:47cool cool cool uh what i wanted to ask is always when it's when there is this haziness
00:18:55it's it's intentional partially and it's intentional that means someone benefits so what are the benefits
00:19:03of this haziness i imagine it's the matter of money i guess it's the question that when you are defined
00:19:10as a village you get less or more i don't know when you're defined as a urban area or city
00:19:16or town
00:19:16however you you get more is it is it this kind of people are playing or institutions are playing with
00:19:23this
00:19:24because uh someone benefits from this haziness it's a very interesting question i i didn't think about
00:19:32this um until uh 30 seconds i never thought about this michael but uh in austria it's not um this
00:19:41is
00:19:41for sure i don't think um it's so in other countries but um very interesting and i i think
00:19:48you know it's it's a little bit like tax code the tax code could be very easy but someone benefits
00:19:54when
00:19:54it's not when it's you know 7 000 pages of bullshit i mean it can be one number but now
00:19:59we we have
00:20:00exception this and exception there and those who can swim in these waters are benefiting from this
00:20:07complexity in austria we have lines yeah it doesn't depend uh are you a so-called village town city it's
00:20:15it's not interesting in austria we have lines the first line is 10 000 inhabitants when you when you are
00:20:22above you get more money yeah and more money for inhabitant or more money as a sum of money um
00:20:32um from um from um from the taxes from the federal state yeah um there is a financial comparing
00:20:43between the federal state between the bundesländer so the provinces and between all communities so cities
00:20:53towns and villages so it's a comparing financial system it's really very unfair to them to the
00:21:00communities because the the provinces they they get so many money so much money they get so much money
00:21:10and they press always the cities and the villages it's uh really the same in in germany then the
00:21:20provinces are very mighty yeah because of the federal state federalism the provinces in in germany and austria
00:21:29are very mighty um for example not in denmark they did a very good process to push back the provinces
00:21:38they
00:21:38are really deleted they are nearly deleted now in denmark they have the provinces they have um strong regions
00:21:47uh strong communities and a strong state but not so mighty um and powerful uh provinces in in denmark was
00:21:57a very good
00:21:57process but in this financial system try to to get um more money from other levels um there is the
00:22:10line
00:22:1210 000 and you get more per inhabitant yeah okay when you are so the villages are kind of under
00:22:22pressure
00:22:22because when you are defined as a village below 10 000 inhabitants you are not okay no one is swimming
00:22:28in money but you you are getting less so the development is when you are under 10 000 you are
00:22:33getting uh
00:22:35less but it it's not it became not to to to grow up or to be bigger this was not
00:22:42the reason in the past
00:22:44um and i think 15 000 um and i think 15 000 but i'm not i'm not sure i think
00:22:4950 000 is also a level
00:22:51and then um so so your town is uh in above that level good for you yeah and now and
00:22:59now for um short time
00:23:02we have more than 50 000 and this is the next level 50 000 is the next level
00:23:09uh and uh of because of the modern systems uh all um statistic institutes know pressing uh the button
00:23:20in the moment they know all the inhabitants in all communities in former times you know we had um
00:23:28counting the people yeah or every 10 years counting the people yeah folks ceiling people's counting all 10
00:23:38years and now they know it pressing the button uh and on every first january all them that the new
00:23:47statistics um are open and um wiener neustadt has more than 50 000 inhabitants i think for more than one
00:23:58year and this um is uh so now that uh that the administration um gets more money but i don't
00:24:09know
00:24:09how much it is the rules that you are describing this is valid only for austria or there is a
00:24:15broader
00:24:16consensus that in other european countries is more or less the same in the end you know austria is small
00:24:23but not that small you are exactly in the middle i would say so uh i have to apologize i
00:24:30don't know i
00:24:30didn't think about this financing system a financing system of the communities but i will notice it and
00:24:39it is interesting so uh let me only say one one sentence to this topic michael um i think
00:24:46usa it's um how do you say it's hazy yeah hazy yeah um i think this wasn't a strategy or
00:24:58i i don't
00:24:58think it was a plan yeah to to to press somebody and to push others i don't think i i
00:25:07think it's because
00:25:08of the history and never regulated this is my opinion i'm not sure if this is right but in my
00:25:15opinion
00:25:15it's confusing all the time and um so some called uh village but they are in austrian way not small
00:25:27some they are called city but they are very small so it's it's confusing uh the question about the
00:25:35logic behind this decision that when you are below 10 000 you get less for inhabitants which naturally leads
00:25:42to under development of the villages which i guess that's the question leads to uh people leaving
00:25:50the villages because well when the money isn't allocated there then after a couple of years of
00:25:55life in a village you will kind of try to start to see that and the roads are not repaired
00:26:00or whatever
00:26:01yeah so is there a logic that the policy wants to get people out of villages into the bigger urban
00:26:09areas
00:26:10town cities mega cities whatever i mean you said you don't know exactly whether in other european town
00:26:16or towns countries it's a similar process but let's assume there is because when urbanization is the way
00:26:23forward then villages are dying out no and this approach give them less money only speeds up this
00:26:31development so how do you see this i think in austria uh we have strong conservative parties
00:26:40and it's their wish that people uh do not settle down in cities really this is not a joke and
00:26:50this is
00:26:51valid yeah the conservative parties try that the people stay for a longer time in small villages
00:27:01they they don't want to settle down in cities because you can see it um election trump or you can
00:27:10see it
00:27:11brexit in the uk of course and this is not the meaning of a former politician this is really valid
00:27:20uh cities uh cities are more liberal more progressive more open-minded yeah and the conservatives or the far
00:27:31right parties have the fear that when people uh settle down in cities that they change their minds and that
00:27:43they
00:27:43change their behavior obviously well yeah of voting and you can take a look to france now uh big problems
00:27:53with very far
00:27:54parties far right parties but the two biggest cities in france are paris and marseille and in both uh
00:28:04won the left wing candidates so this is also the fear in austria of conservative and far-right parties
00:28:15please remain in the villages but in a lot of especially dislocated villages we have less structure
00:28:28we have less um services of public interest in the german language we have a wonderful word unfortunately it's
00:28:38not similar in the english language in german language it's called and the most most evident word in english is
00:28:52services of public interest yeah and we have a lot of problems in the villages in austria with public transfer
00:29:03going by bus or train to kindergarten to school or to uh job to the work huge problems and um
00:29:14less
00:29:15possibilities of um buying things yeah less stores maybe no doctor uh huge way to the next hospital and um
00:29:29less social housing and so on and this puts a huge pressure to the people young but not also young
00:29:39also old
00:29:40people old people old people often live in a house with a garden yeah it's not step three yeah so
00:29:48there are
00:29:48barriers and they are becoming older and older my parents are 87 years old so every step could be a
00:29:57huge
00:29:57challenge yeah and this is the reason why a lot of old people um sell their houses or give it
00:30:08to their
00:30:10children yeah or grandchildren and they go to a smaller flat in a city but in the city uh there
00:30:21are doctors
00:30:22there is a hospital maybe parks yeah for having small walks and an elevator in the house and instead of
00:30:31the huge garden a small balcony yeah having fresh air when i was mayor um and i supported the communities
00:30:42of
00:30:42social housing and they asked me mr mayor can you do the procedure giving them the keys yeah and then
00:30:50i
00:30:50ask a lot of people may ask you why do you settle down now in villeneustadt and then they very
00:30:56often
00:30:56said what i told you we sold our house we gave it to the grandchildren it's um it's not possible
00:31:04for us
00:31:05to to to to check it and now we have a small flat we are very happy we can go
00:31:10to the park and we can go
00:31:12to a restaurant we don't want to cook and so on and so on and the young ones they are
00:31:18they are going to
00:31:20cities because of work or when they want to establish a family is there a kindergarten are there schools
00:31:32and are there um um possibilities for the leisure time sport halls and so on and this gives a very
00:31:42very big pressure to the small villages and now they they have so big financial problems in austria also
00:31:51in germany at this time now it's really the the the problem uh that they have to delete the rests
00:32:03of
00:32:04services of public interest a lot of uh swimming bathes must be closed too expensive the energy the
00:32:13water everything is very expensive so now we have a very big problem um that they have to destroy
00:32:21rest of this structure and this is the reason why urbanization couldn't be
00:32:31pushed back in the past but but a lot of parties don't want this trend well i'm a progressive so
00:32:40i don't
00:32:40mind yeah that's the problem so i mean you know who will be shedding tears for far-right narratives in
00:32:50villages so definitely not me uh what popped into my mind when we are talking about urbanization and
00:32:57this development that people are living villages and going to the cities in my mind i guess and
00:33:03that's the question it goes hand in hand with feminization of the society you know when the
00:33:09in villages people had to usually work manually in cities it goes into the third sector services
00:33:16what not care i don't know so the feminization i guess is uh kind of mirroring the development of uh
00:33:24of the cities would you say so that that's the natural emergency of that more feminine way of
00:33:31leading our lives and and males are becoming more feminine nowadays is it like an established fact or is
00:33:38am i just you know too naive to think that uh the more people live in cities the more feminine
00:33:44the
00:33:44society society is gonna be no no no no no you are not naive and and it goes hand in
00:33:51hand and um um um there are a lot of facts um in dislocated
00:33:58villages in former times the women uh worked at the farm and this is not a cliche they worked on
00:34:06the farm
00:34:08or um they they became teachers so this was very often uh two jobs working uh on the farm
00:34:20or um becoming a teacher and now we have a lot of villages where the the the young women of
00:34:31course don't
00:34:31want to be a farmer and it's very difficult to get a job as a teacher because a lot of
00:34:40schools must be close
00:34:42in the past because two less children because when the young people as i told you when the young people
00:34:51leave the villages then of course there are less children and when there are less children
00:34:58the administration has to close the school so less classes in schools less groups in kindergartens
00:35:07and so less jobs in in uh in these fields and so um especially young women um leaving the
00:35:19villages going to cities and so uh the urbanization is combined with um feminism and then they go to the
00:35:31cities and they feel more free they are not so under control i think this sounds very easy and sounds
00:35:40like
00:35:42yeah like in austria we say cliche yeah uh or like a rumor or like a saying but it's it's
00:35:51part of the truth
00:35:52they feel more free in cities and they have a new possibility of developing and um this is a
00:36:04this is a important part of urbanization but literally yesterday i wrote about it two years
00:36:12two days ago and yesterday it went out europe is the worst continent in the uh child bearing statistics we
00:36:22are at 1.4 so every woman has only 1.4 children ergo we need two point something to kind
00:36:29of sustain the
00:36:31population so it goes hand in hand also it seems that the more developed you are i mean urban you
00:36:38are
00:36:38the less children you have what you say about that maybe this is one reason or i think for sure
00:36:46it's one
00:36:47reason but it's not it's not the whole uh reason because i think it depends also life is very expensive
00:36:57now yeah think about flats of course apartments and flats in vienna are not so expensive than in paris
00:37:06in berlin or in london but it's growing up yeah life is very expensive um 10 15 or 20 years
00:37:16ago
00:37:17um there was like a rule um the flat shouldn't be cost more than 25 percent of your salary of
00:37:31your amount you get
00:37:33from the job and now there are statistics it's in some cases in some cities or some areas nearly
00:37:42about 40 percent of the salary so life is very expensive and in former times of course in the rural
00:37:55areas
00:37:56very often lived the grandpa grandma the grandparents nearby and when the father of the children and the mother of
00:38:08the children worked
00:38:09they had the possibility the grandparents took care of the children yeah and this is a process global
00:38:18i'm interested in china and i see this process in this huge state state china also like in the small
00:38:26state
00:38:28austria and of course when you live in a city very often the grandparents
00:38:35the parents are not not close not nearby they live out of where or they are they died also p
00:38:43also the
00:38:44parents are now older than 40 years ago 40 years ago most p most um women get the first child
00:38:5522 or 25 27 so this was
00:39:00normal now the parents are older but not only the man also the women some get the first children when
00:39:08they are 38 or 40 because they have they have now enough money and um they feel in the right
00:39:19position
00:39:22yeah of their age yeah of their age and then they decide now we want to have a baby and
00:39:29so
00:39:29uh these are also reasons like what you said urbanization cities these are all reasons i think so why we
00:39:38have um
00:39:39uh this uh this uh this uh number of um 1.4 um some statistic i will throw in because
00:39:48it surprised me because
00:39:49when i was preparing that uh oh it was an article it was a video but the data what i
00:39:54learned is that
00:39:55actually vienna isn't doing better than the other european towns and cities that the viennese have
00:40:02actually less children that is the average in europe so that surprised me because you know the
00:40:09affordability of of flats in vienna is actually higher so i naturally kind of was expecting that yeah
00:40:17vienna will be good no and there are other culprits who are not making the children but even vienna is
00:40:23kind of i don't remember exact number but something one point something only like like really very
00:40:30close to one so the austrians don't really have as many children as one would expect in the best city
00:40:38on the planet or second best whatever yeah but you know viennese made it really the life in vienna is
00:40:47relatively easy i mean obviously when when you are considered the best uh city on the planet or second
00:40:52best or whatever yeah but even that couldn't save the the trends that the austrian families are not
00:41:00growing as much as one would need to just to kind of break even and not die out because one
00:41:07that means
00:41:08that the population of vienna will have in one generation which is kind of crazy and to rely on the
00:41:14uh
00:41:15foreigners is a strategy but you know as strategies go maybe we we should do or you should or whoever
00:41:22should do something about these trends because it's sad you know europe is dying out we are the worst
00:41:28continent on the planet so what you say to that and what are the politicians in the all the bodies
00:41:35that
00:41:36you are part of saying about this because you know this is this is this is not secret yeah everyone
00:41:42knows
00:41:42that everyone who wants to know knows that this is going on and it's not like it happened yesterday this
00:41:48is a trend that is with us for years and i don't see much in a strategy you know and
00:41:54the strategy that
00:41:55hey the foreigners will come in well you know i don't think that's the best strategy what i wrote in
00:42:02that article it's actually admission of of failure when this is what you have to do sort of yeah that
00:42:08the
00:42:08you bring in the foreigners we have one big problem in austria and i took a look to to a
00:42:16paper uh we have
00:42:17one big problem it's um the system of child care and uh babysitting yeah this is underdeveloped in in
00:42:27middle europe or western europe yeah we have big problems because in vienna um no no no vienna is i
00:42:35think
00:42:35vienna is really good but um also problems of course every city has problems but i think in vienna
00:42:44child care and babysitting is well developed but in a lot of not only in villages also in a lot
00:42:54of cities
00:42:56these systems are really bad because they are very expensive of course
00:43:02and the ideas for better child care are from the federal state or from the
00:43:12provinces but to pay
00:43:17it's up to the cities and the villages so the idea is from one level and payment is the other
00:43:25one level no that's easy you know i can go with very splendid ideas when i have to pay for
00:43:31it so
00:43:31that's yeah that's that's funny when i when i had speeches when i had speeches about these topics
00:43:38one has the idea and the other one has to pay i said to people they are not um professionals
00:43:48inhabitants inhabitants inhabitants inhabitants or citizens then i said one example please compare it's
00:43:55like i order i order books from a platform an internet i order and i get the books the package
00:44:09but it's up to me to decide that my neighbor has to pay yeah i get it it's my idea
00:44:18books are
00:44:19fine reading is good i order i get it but it's up to me to decide but to pay has
00:44:28my neighbor
00:44:30everybody would say crazy it's corruption illegal of course but it's nearly the same the idea is from
00:44:40the province and the province has the state parliament in austria called landtag the state parliament
00:44:50and the state parliament um decides
00:44:53it's a law and the content of the law is better child care in the communities better babysitting
00:45:03and then they are celebrating we establish better child care for the people on paper
00:45:12yeah yes on the paper and then the villages and the cities get the rules of the law
00:45:19um first january next year you have to start the new system uh of um child care of babysitting
00:45:32and it's not sad but it's clear and you have to pay yeah and this is a huge problem um
00:45:41and so it's not
00:45:42easy to combine to be a mama or a papa and to have a job the job in the village
00:45:50is mostly far away yeah
00:45:53so they have to go by car and end by train or by bus and by train so and these
00:46:00are all reasons why a lot of
00:46:03families they want to have children they are restrictive only one is enough and one child
00:46:13children we can support a lot we can um take a look for a very good school maybe a private
00:46:20school we can um
00:46:23we can uh support with sport or uh playing piano or whatever and
00:46:30i told you michael i'm interested in china because we also cooperate uh with um universities and um
00:46:40platforms about urbanization in china and now they have the same
00:46:47the same way beginning yeah now india is bigger has more citizens than china yeah china isn't any longer
00:47:00the biggest state they had this one child policy for too long yeah for too long and now the people
00:47:08don't want to have more children than one and they said this is very convenient to have one so maybe
00:47:16the
00:47:16grandparents can help a little bit and uh we have one son or one daughter and we can support a
00:47:25lot and
00:47:26we do everything for this child but the second child you need a bigger car and so on this is
00:47:32of this is
00:47:34low level in the in the living but these these reasons are very important and in austria it's the
00:47:41the system of of child care uh take a look to scandinavian countries there is it's it's really better and
00:47:51many
00:47:51companies in in these countries they have kindergartens so during the break for lunch the employees
00:48:01can visit their children because they are beside in the kindergarten in austria only very very huge
00:48:08companies have a kindergarten but it's very less and what is your idea why is this kind of development
00:48:16not there i mean this is no rocket science you know to to give to the parents uh the possibility
00:48:21that the kindergarten is next to the office when the office is big enough and we get you know just
00:48:27you know it just screams let's do it you know at the end of the day it's actually it might
00:48:32be cheaper
00:48:33you get some subsidies for government or city or whatever so you don't have to pay for it as the
00:48:38office provider and the company so it's a win-win but we don't do it why i think i think
00:48:46i think um
00:48:47this is because of conservative strategies really the the wife should be at home yeah for a very very
00:48:56long time this was the thinking of conservatives and right parties the wife should be at home and when
00:49:05the wife is at home we do not need child care and we do not need babysitting because the the
00:49:12mother cares
00:49:13or the grandparents are caring when i was mayor it's um about 11 years ago i was in a i
00:49:22was invited um
00:49:24in in on behalf the austrian association of cities and there was a big discussion
00:49:31in the second chamber of the austrian parliament the bundesrat and the topic was um the future of the
00:49:42small villages and they had speakers i thought i'm in the wrong film in the wrong movie because they told
00:49:52things they are 19th century yeah something like that yes uh this said the cross is hanging on the wall
00:50:02and uh the grandmother takes care to the children and the wife the mother of the children is making jam
00:50:13and
00:50:13marmalade really no no joke and it was was live um live on the third channel of austrian tv and
00:50:22i i i was
00:50:23sitting there um on the bank normally it's it's the they are the chairs of the of the government and
00:50:32i
00:50:32sat there and i couldn't believe yeah and then i had to crash the body and i had to say
00:50:37i'm so sorry but
00:50:39that's uh not the truth and that's not the future the truth is that um the villages um
00:50:48are becoming empty because we have no public transfer we have no jobs we have no services of
00:50:55public interest i said it very silent and not emotional i said only the facts and the figures yeah
00:51:04and the dates so this is i'm really sure because of conservative strategies then the wife shouldn't be
00:51:14in work she should be at home and clean the house and cook and taking care for maybe three children
00:51:22now of
00:51:23course in the most of the parties there is a new thinking they know that's bullshit and we need also
00:51:31working women of course but not only in cleaning jobs we need women on the universities in researching
00:51:40yeah in teaching and so on and now i think um
00:51:47the most people see that uh this couldn't be the way but they would it would be the way to
00:51:57the future but
00:51:58of course it's so looks like the paradigm is changing and we live in the middle of of the
00:52:04change not that the feminization the urbanization everything we were talking about the the the living of the
00:52:11villages so we were basically talking about the past and present let's talk about the future so
00:52:18this is what is and what was what is your kind of gut feeling where it's gonna go till the
00:52:25end of this
00:52:26century so what what can we expect and what other planners and people who think about the future how
00:52:33we should set up the cities how we should set up the future what is gonna happen in 10 20
00:52:3830 40 50 years
00:52:40because i just hope that people are thinking about it because the investment should be there because
00:52:45once you invest you have to pay it off so you don't want to do shitty investments you want to
00:52:51do investment
00:52:52that that's that's uh uh providing for people so what's the discussion there let's say till 2050 or
00:53:00after 12 2050 and ideally not only in austria but uh bigger picture i will tell you some numbers michael
00:53:10um uh we are taking a look to the future um
00:53:21in only a small view to the past in 1961 in austria but then we take a look um
00:53:30all over the world in austria 1961 we had only 44 um towns with more than 10 000 inhabitants yeah
00:53:44in 1961 44 and in 2022 we had 87 and it's now the same so okay so it doubled it's
00:53:56doubled and
00:53:57don't forget now vienna has more than 2 million inhabitants and in the german-speaking area
00:54:07vienna is number two only berlin is bigger and very very many people in germany friends in germany
00:54:18don't know this they think hamburg is bigger than in vienna and so on they are very really
00:54:26surprised that in the german-speaking huge area berlin is number one and vienna is number two so now
00:54:35in our mind vienna growing up yeah very important for the regions in europe but
00:54:44um vienna was a so-called um vienna was a so-called dying city vienna shrank continuously every year
00:54:52michael from 1974 to 1988 and the lowest population was in 1988 with 1.48 so about 1.5 million
00:55:08urban inhabitants and it was called the dying city so um the trend in this times wasn't urbanization
00:55:17it was sub-urbanization not to the rural areas but uh close and near in the regions near to the
00:55:27big cities
00:55:27so this is what i want to say and now some um numbers uh of uh global development
00:55:45mega cities i told you a mega city is a city with 10 million or more inhabitants and this is
00:55:53for sure
00:55:54u.n definition 1970 worldwide there existed only three mega cities yeah it was new york and um
00:56:09one city i think it was new york tokyo and the number three is in discussion it is not not
00:56:16really clear
00:56:161970 only three mega cities worldwide 1990 10 so more than three times and 2018 33 and the forecast of
00:56:32united
00:56:33nation for 2030 and this is in four years this is very close 43 yeah in 2018
00:56:432019 529 million 529 million 529 million lived in 33 mega cities and merk mega um um urbanization is a
00:56:58is a trend yeah and a mega trend and uh this trend will not end so um the u.n
00:57:11population division
00:57:13um has the so-called world urbanization prospects and in 2018 uh the u.n calculated that the ratio of
00:57:27urban to
00:57:28rural areas in austria will be 70 to 30 in 2050 so in about 25 years we will have 70
00:57:39percent living in urban
00:57:41areas and 30 percent living in when i remember correctly now it's 60 40 now something like that
00:57:49yes it's about 60 40 you are right yeah and the united nations population fund
00:57:55uh had a uh calculation um five billion people will be living in cities by 2030 and by 2050
00:58:1050 global this figure will rise to 6.2 billion 6.2 billion um global
00:58:206.2 billion um global people living in cities or urban agglomerations
00:58:25so this process is clear and it's very interesting because in 1992 in 1992
00:58:35the united nations stated in an official paper the future is urban but in 1992
00:58:46most people lived in rural areas so this was not for sure to say the future is urban when
00:58:56i make postings when i do postings on linkedin and so on nearly always hashtag the future is urban but
00:59:05now this is easy to say but not in 1992 so it was like a prophecy i think so so
00:59:14this process
00:59:14happens is clear but the difference is clear but the cities are growing up in austria we have one percent
00:59:22um
00:59:23and not sorry not in austria in winnaustadt my hometown we have uh per year one percent uh new inhabitants
00:59:33so 50 000 um 500 new people no 500 new people 3 000 per year are coming to winnaustadt they
00:59:46settle down
00:59:47but of course people are dying people are leaving yeah so 500 netto in two years
00:59:59thousand thousand of course there is a limit because of the area yeah so it's not possible to growing up
01:00:06growing up growing up because it is possible it's just it's a political decision no yeah maybe in the
01:00:14end these mega cities they you know they stand and shanghai was just a village couple of decades
01:00:19back in china no shenzhen was a village of fishes now it's the new it's the new um
01:00:27center in the world for research by the way this is something the zoning i wanted to ask you about
01:00:34uh
01:00:34why is it so restrictive uh the the exactly as you said now not the expansion of the of the
01:00:42urban areas
01:00:42the uh the kind of eating up of uh of the lands around the towns that it's so restrictive and
01:00:52so
01:00:52conservative and that's in my eyes that's one of the reason why the living spaces are so expensive
01:00:59because you know just when you can't develop new things easily and and quickly and it takes ages
01:01:07obviously you know everything gets money so why is it so as i said conservative it's really
01:01:14conservative and i i always um was a fan is there a catch is there something again as i said
01:01:21someone
01:01:21benefits out of it because this just doesn't make much sense we know that the cities will be growing
01:01:27population okay in europe not but even here it's gonna not totally declining no and the cities are
01:01:34restricting themselves and putting themselves into straight jackets of of zoning and then and then the
01:01:43affordability crisis emerges out of it i i'm not saying this is the only reason but it's definitely not
01:01:48zero point percentage points of that reason so why is it so complicated
01:01:54uh it's so complicated uh it's so complicated because maybe it's up to the human uh to to to want
01:02:01uh to be a a king
01:02:04of of of an own empire yeah so take take a look to the firecraft the fire brigade um they
01:02:15want to be
01:02:15separated because that and they have a a boss a commander yeah he wants to be the commander of the
01:02:23fire brigade
01:02:24yeah when they they are combined on or when there is a fusion with another fire brigade then there can't
01:02:33be
01:02:34two bosses there can't they can be only one boss and maybe one will lose his function as a commander
01:02:42so
01:02:42it's up to the humans yeah so i think um this is one of the reasons um we have a
01:02:51small village they have
01:02:52no money they have no no might but some want to be the mayor yeah and several people want to
01:03:03be
01:03:03member of the council and one wants to be the um chair of the administration the secretary of the
01:03:13of the of the village administration yeah and if there is a fusion with the neighbor village
01:03:22only one can be the leader of the administration only one can be the mayor so this was a reason
01:03:29why there was no development uh for the structures that they are stronger but now um it's a brain drain
01:03:42and so many people leave the villages that they do not find a boss of the firecraft or nobody wants
01:03:52to be
01:03:53the doctor in these small villages because two less patients uh in some areas the structure is not good
01:04:02enough uh for the mobile phones yeah uh so huge problems and now but we are late now we are
01:04:10very late
01:04:10denmark is really an ideal they did a process for 30 or 40 years and they tried to put the
01:04:20people the
01:04:21inhabitants on this way when they thought it's too much pressure to the people and the people uh don't want
01:04:29the next step then they waited yeah they put out pressure and then they need the next step and next
01:04:36step
01:04:36and now in in denmark we have um only i think 98 98 cities i think uh in denmark 5
01:04:49.5 million inhabitants
01:04:51and 98 um communities villages but they are all cities in austria we have 9.1 uh millions or not
01:05:04double
01:05:04than denmark and we have 2092 villages and cities 2092 more than 2000 so you can see the structure
01:05:18and this is expensive and we need the money for education for child care for health now this is
01:05:27what the finns did when i spoke with someone in finland a year ago about this 300 as you were
01:05:34describing
01:05:36communities or cities or whatever compared with 3000 in slovakia this is what this was one of the
01:05:41reasons now imagine you have to pay 3000 mayors yeah instead of 300 and this all chebank around them
01:05:50no so as many goals double structures we have so so many double structures yeah and of course this is
01:05:58expensive now i think now the problems are in the mind of the most um functioneers and the most uh
01:06:09politicians but now we are very late now we are very late and now the pressure because of so less
01:06:15money
01:06:15and so big financial problems the pressure is huge and uh no um the next maybe something good will come
01:06:24out of it now maybe under this pressure people realize and there are good examples as finland or
01:06:30or denmark that this this isn't sustainable you know let's i don't i don't want the situation because
01:06:38it's dangerous less money for public services but there is a chance a chance to to do now really good
01:06:47solutions for the future uh we need more inter-communal cooperation but we also need fusions of of
01:06:58uh communities we do need this i i i i said i say this for about 20 years uh i
01:07:08was bashed very often as a
01:07:10enemy of the communities but uh i'm not an enemy and i know i know it's small villages they can
01:07:20be wonderful
01:07:21yeah wonderful landscape maybe a a river or a creek or a lake or a vote everything is wonderful but
01:07:32the we cannot leave uh we cannot live uh from grass and flowers yeah we need traffic and we need
01:07:42um
01:07:43services of public interest and so the next steps must be more uh inter-communal cooperation and we also
01:07:53will need um fusions of of villages last topic i wanted to discuss with you because well we are nearing
01:08:02this one and a half hours uh i know about you that you are not a big car aficionado me
01:08:08myself i'm not
01:08:09either i never owned a car and i'm proud not car owner and the discussion i want to end up
01:08:18this uh
01:08:19interview with is the future of not only cities but in general the development of uh of mobility in the
01:08:29near future of a couple of decades because i imagine that the uh artificial intelligence how do
01:08:36you call it the self-driving cars slash taxis will be a huge paradigm shift in this whole way how
01:08:44we
01:08:45move from a to z because in my eyes cars were always stupid and now it's just screaming that it's
01:08:53it will be
01:08:54stupid once the uh artificial intelligence and the self-driving cars arrive looks like it's a couple of
01:09:05cars because 90 percent of the time it just stands somewhere and and rots when actually you don't want
01:09:12to waste your resources on something that you don't use most of the time many people do i always thought
01:09:18it's crazy uh tell me how you see the future will it be public transport will it be some merger
01:09:24with uh
01:09:25private companies like uber or whatever that people will because not only it's expensive it takes a lot of
01:09:32space in towns and cities it's it's dangerous it's uh unhealthy the benefits really never outweighed
01:09:41the costs and now it's just becoming more and more obvious and last thing i gonna interject this
01:09:48question with i was in copenhagen a month ago compared with vienna the amount of electric cars is
01:09:55truck bearing and the bicycles as well so obviously very different approaches to mobility are possible
01:10:04and it's not question of money this is the funny thing that people thought you have to buy a car
01:10:10because it's a status symbol in copenhagen you have a stupid bicycle so you know like at the end of
01:10:19the
01:10:19day in in a city you get probably with similar speed from a to b with a bicycle than with
01:10:25a car so
01:10:26how you see the future what is gonna happen i published um a book called the future of urban mobility
01:10:36in 2020 and when my work was done and i had the book in my hands nobody was interested
01:10:47because the covet pandemic began and so unfortunately this book is really unknown but me and a lot of
01:10:57authors thought deeply about the future of urban mobility uh michael i would like to say some number when
01:11:06i was young uh all the young people wanted to have the driving lines license when they are 18
01:11:16now in vienna our capital uh the age when they do the process and when they get the the the
01:11:26driving license they are 21 so this age was growing up this would be
01:11:35crazy 20 years ago to not have the driving license with 18 and now the driving schools
01:11:43have to do a public relation because a lot of young people in huge cities like vienna also in other
01:11:51european cities they are not really interested uh doing the driving license and to having a car
01:11:59because the parking spaces are less and the public transfer especially in vienna is really top yeah so you
01:12:09have the so-called s train uh speed train but it's a local train and you have a very good
01:12:17system of the
01:12:18tube the underground and you have also um the tramway and you have buses so i think it's ideal and
01:12:26i know a lot of
01:12:27people they sold their cars they sold their cars and they said i go by car when it's necessary for
01:12:34um
01:12:35holidays or when i have to transport um heavy things but then is a possibility to use uh car sharing
01:12:44uh otherwise they use a bike or the public transfer but it's a big uh topic of urbanization we spoke
01:12:57long
01:12:57time uh about dislocated villages there is no public transfer maybe there is a bus in the morning and one
01:13:06in
01:13:06the evening yeah so they need a car and they need a car to to to go to the store
01:13:12to buy the things for the
01:13:14daily living and they need a car to go to the job but um there are parking spaces um
01:13:25at the train stations so you can um park the car and then you can continue your trip to the
01:13:36job by
01:13:37train and i have only a bike and um when i have to go to vienna and this is three
01:13:44times a week for
01:13:46appointments and meetings then i go by bike to the train station in winterneustadt and then i go by train
01:13:54to
01:13:54vienna and then mostly i i i use the underground and i have a bag and my helmet is inside
01:14:04the back
01:14:05so this is normal now but the the rural the rural areas they have a lot of problems when you
01:14:12live in
01:14:12some rural areas like my friends then you need a car of course because it's not really possible to go
01:14:20to
01:14:20the job yeah but let's talk about towns and cities let's talk about the future not about the past the
01:14:26places of the past so yeah of course how do you expect the development is gonna go will will there
01:14:33be only public transport or no a little bit mixture of sprinkling of cars because when the self-driving cars
01:14:42are a will arrive and what i'm reading in america's and in some chinese cities the the spike is huge
01:14:51in
01:14:51triple digits how how much it's used so i'm curious and maybe even a question so do you know when
01:14:59it's
01:14:59gonna come to europe on to vienna the self-driving cars and self-driving taxis did you hear anything
01:15:07not at the moment okay no no not yet but i think it will be a mixture um um going
01:15:14by walk going by
01:15:15walk is also a a new trend yeah not uh using a car or also a public uh transfer for
01:15:22for 10 minutes walk
01:15:25yeah so i think walking is a new perspective also going by bike or a lot of e-bikes in
01:15:33cities and the
01:15:34public transfer and also using the car of course vienna is is a big city two million inhabitants uh when
01:15:42you have to go to an area far away from the center maybe you have to to need to use
01:15:50the car or
01:15:51transporting heavy things or or so on so it will be a mixture but we see it the trend is
01:15:58is um is clear
01:15:59um more public transport more walking more going by bike yeah but it will be a mixture um i'm not
01:16:10sure
01:16:10when uh self-driving cars will really come uh and self-driving uh taxes they are now in use in
01:16:23asian states
01:16:24but i don't by the way did you try it yet or or or not yet in asia i imagine
01:16:31in china you you were in
01:16:33not a self-driving tax you know okay okay so i think it will be a mixture but uh more
01:16:40and more public
01:16:41transfer board and and less car take a look to to paris yeah um new zones car free and 10
01:16:51years ago
01:16:52uh wouldn't be possible uh wouldn't be possible as a politician you would be thrown out when you tell
01:16:59this area will be car free so also the mind change of the people because of climate change urban heat
01:17:07yeah uh the people feel the problems yeah of of um of um now you can add greenery instead of
01:17:17roads
01:17:18so obviously it's helping when when you have trees instead of asphalt no also vienna did it vienna
01:17:25rebuilt a lot of um areas and now there are parks or green zones step by step austria is very
01:17:34conservative i think it's easier in scandinavia or some other countries but now this trend is also in
01:17:40austria yeah um um green cities and um yeah smart cities so this is the trend yeah we have to
01:17:50do it
01:17:51last thing i will ask uh have you been to singapore no unfortunately okay because friend of mine was living
01:17:58there for a couple of years so we exchanged his kind of impressions or no every couple of weeks and
01:18:06singapore i guess you know now that they are very restrictive about the cars because it's only a
01:18:12island basically so if if if there will be freedom and everyone can own a car then they will just
01:18:18you
01:18:19know kill themselves basically literally because it's it's it wasn't or isn't sustainable so they have
01:18:26very good public transport the car the cheapest car is hundred thousand bucks so you really have to be a
01:18:33very
01:18:34rich and it's a status symbol or b it uh it's something that kind of you know creates the the
01:18:41money for
01:18:41you and it's a job thing uh you think that singapore is where we will be kind of developing into
01:18:49in europe
01:18:50or this is too extreme what do you think i think it's difficult to transport the model of asian cities
01:18:59um to europe but um of course some some parts now it's it sounded a little bit with what you
01:19:06said
01:19:06about paris like singapore you know no cars in the city center when you want to get there it's expensive
01:19:12and so on and so on so maybe singapore is the you know barrier holder for for the future i
01:19:20don't know
01:19:20i'm asking and and and i i heard uh vienna got um an international prize from singapore yeah uh for
01:19:30um
01:19:30urban development um and of course uh areas cities or states uh can be role models for others i i
01:19:40think
01:19:41and and when not in total of course some parts can be really models and ideas and yeah
01:19:52it's a saying in austria the bike must not be founded once again yeah we have the bike so
01:20:00so let's wrap it up uh thank you very much uh it was my pleasure interesting i did learn things
01:20:08or two
01:20:08about uh well future as well as the past and let's be optimistic that the uh right wingers will not
01:20:16be
01:20:16able to stop this development we were talking about and uh that the future will be bright i mean
01:20:22this is what i'm saying to people it's up to us all the problems or most of the problems we
01:20:28are facing
01:20:29they didn't fall from the skies it's just bad decisions of humans so if we start to do good good
01:20:37decisions then you know many of the challenges we were describing as a kindergartens and whatnot will
01:20:43disappear so you know it can be done in a couple of years if we really want to so hopefully
01:20:49even
01:20:50this discussion will help in the development we all have to do our part yes thank you very much thank
01:20:55thank you it was my pleasure bye bye
01:20:58you
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