PARTICIPATION IN THE CITY

Hi, I’m Chiara, a sociology student from Italy and an intern at Whoosh. We are really happy to welcome you to my first walking tour around the city of Vienna!

Since my first weeks here, I’ve been fascinated by how many opportunities Vienna offers for people to take part in the life of the city. And, because I’m a very curious person, I started asking myself a question: what does it actually mean to participate in a city?

We often hear about participation, but what does it really mean? Is it simply having the possibility to express our opinion? Is it voting, attending a public meeting, joining an association? Or can participation also happen in much smaller and more everyday ways?

During this tour, I would like to share with you some of the things I have discovered while exploring this topic. But I don’t want to give you a single definition of participation. Instead, I would like us to explore it together by looking at real examples around Vienna.

We will discover projects that are just beginning, as well as others that have already been completed. We will see what they have created, but also look at how they were created: who was involved, whose ideas were heard, how people collaborated, and how citizens interacted with institutions and local authorities.

I come from a small town in Italy, where people are often used to having things done for them rather than creating them together with public institutions. 

We can also be very good at complaining about what doesn’t work, what is missing, or what doesn’t respond to our needs.

But I don’t think complaining is necessarily the problem. In fact, complaining can be the first step. It means that we have noticed something that could be different.

The real question is what happens next.

How can we transform a complaint into a question? A question into a proposal? And a proposal into collective action?

For me, participation starts exactly there: when we stop seeing the city as something that is simply given to us and start seeing it as something that we can contribute to shaping.

And this doesn’t necessarily require big political campaigns or major projects.

Sometimes participation can be very small and very concrete.

Imagine walking down the street and seeing a small stone blocking the pavement. You might simply walk around it and continue on your way. But what happens if you stop and move it?

For you, it might take just a few seconds. But for someone using a wheelchair, pushing a stroller, or simply having difficulty walking, that small action might make the difference between being able to use that street independently or not.

That is why I think participation is also about looking beyond ourselves. It means paying attention to the people who share the city with us and recognizing that the way we use and shape public space can affect their lives too.

The city belongs to all of us, but we do not all experience it in the same way.

So today, while we walk through Vienna, I invite you to look at the city with a slightly different perspective.

Look at the spaces around you and ask yourself:
Who created this space? Who gets to use it? Whose needs were considered? Who was involved in the decision-making process? And what could I do to change something that doesn’t work for me or for someone else?

Because participation is not only about having a voice.

It is also about having the opportunity to turn that voice into action.

So, let’s walk together, discover some of the ways people are already participating in Vienna, and think about how each of us can become part of the change in our city.

At the end of the tour we will also meet Jakob Rath from the TU Wien, who will explain us a really good example of collaboration with the city.

https://www.tuwien.at/

https://la21.wien/