So. Feb. 23 | 07:44
23.02. | 07:44
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-1°C 
Welcome to the 2025 edition of Gemma Zukunft - an exploration of city development from Magistrats Abteilung 18.
On Sunday 13 April, we will make the ultimate Vienna walk, visiting one street in every one of the 23 Districts of our city in a single tour. No public transport, just an engaged group of citizens, who want to share stories and really belong to Vienna, and understand the connections between different parts of the Danube Metropole.
The feeling of belonging and community is very important, and we want to build that with an unusual walk.
In case this tour looks familiar to veterans of our urban adventures, this event was originally called Lange Marsch, when it premiered at Wir sind Wien.Festival der Bezirke in 2015, and thenre-named 23 and Me, as featured in our #kommraus - Forum Öffentlicher Raum series of events celebrating public space, in collaboration with MA 18 in 2019.
Some cities have no internal administrative boundaries. New York City has just 5 boroughs, for a population of 8m people. London has 33 boroughs, for a population the same size as Austria – 9m people. Siena in Tuscany has famously 17 Contrade, in a space of just 3sq km (with great rivalry, and families refusing to get married across these frontiers!). Vienna has 23 districts, ranging in size from the Innere Stadt, with just 17,000 residents, right up to Donaustadt, with 208,000. The smallest is Josefstadt, just 1km square - which is also the tiniest district in all of Austria. We will visit all of these on our mammoth exploration.
Why the Viennese choosing to name their districts after postal codes (14., 21.) is a big mistake, and why the borders are where they are. We will have time to exchange many stories of our experience in different parts of town, and to understand why the borders are where they are. Many lie along the Gürtel - except for Landstrasse - which we will explain on our big day out. Margareten is the most densely-populated part of town, Hietzing the most female, and Rudolfsheim Fünfhaus the youngest, most diverse, and poorest. Sadly, the Guertel remains a great social and psychological divide, but we will continually cross it on our big tour.
Conchita has never made this kind of whole city exploration, nor Mozart, Michi Haeupl, Hans Moser, Falco, Kreisky, Freud or Hedy Lamarr. Come and do something very unusual. You will be able to tell your friends about it afterwards, and they will wonder exactly why anybody would spend a whole day trying this.
Of course we will stop along the way, for a rest and some food. And under a street sign in each Bezirk, we will clap ourselves.
The full 2025 programme for Gemma Zukunft - always free, and this year visiting every district of Vienna - will be posted here, soon after the Vienna elections in April.