SUPERVISOR: Melanie PICHLER

PROJECT ASSIGNED TO: Anna-Katharina BRENNER 

Sprawling urban areas demand substantial amounts of materials, energy, and associated greenhouse gas emissions are threatening Earth's safe operating space. This calls for transformative actions to reconfigure urban built environments, reducing resource demand while ensuring human well-being.

This dissertation introduces land use and novel urban planning interventions as potential transformative actions. Institutional arrangements and the spatial set-up of existing built-up
structures shape social and material path dependencies, creating inertia for transformative change. Through integrated and reflexive interdisciplinary mixed-method approaches, I examined the interaction among actors, institutions, and the material dimensions in the reconfiguration of urban built environments in Vienna.

I investigated the drivers of densification and sprawl in Vienna in the past, as well as the drivers of the novel Superblock intervention in the present. I found potential transformative actions in the form of long-term, consistent implementation of self-reinforcing regulatory interventions such as urban renewal schemes and Green Belt protection, which drove densification in Vienna from 1984 to 2018.

My findings show how reframing the Superblock intervention to benefit more deprived urban areas in Vienna holds promise for reconfiguring built-up structures, reducing car use, and enhancing neighborhood livability in compact urban areas while upholding principles of distributional justice. For actions to truly become transformative, Superblock experiments need long-term, large-scale implementation combined with complementary interventions.

In conclusion, densification, alongside principles of improved neighborhood livability and distributional justice, offers a promising pathway for transformative change.