ILAP Researcher Michael Friesenecker Contributes Multiple Activities to the International RC21 Conference

From 20–22 July 2026, Vienna hosted the RC21 Conference on Urban and Regional Development – one of the world's leading conferences in urban and regional studies. Under the theme "Inequalities and the City: Old Issues, New Challenges," around 1,200 researchers from across the globe discussed pressing challenges related to housing, climate change, and social inequalities.

Michael Friesenecker from the Institute of Landscape Planning (ILAP) contributed to the conference in several capacities. He was the lead author of the IJURR Virtual Issue Vienna at the Crossroads: A "Just City" Under Pressure, published alongside the conference. The special issue traces the historical development of Vienna's model of urban welfare and examines contemporary challenges at the intersection of housing, social inequality, and ecological transformation for an international readership.

Together with Judith Lehner (future.lab Research Center for New Social Housing), he also organised and led an excursion on the green transition and housing affordability in Vienna's Nordbahnhof and Alliiertenviertel neighbourhoods. The excursion attracted strong interest from international conference participants and provided first-hand insights into the challenges and trade-offs of sustainable urban development in Vienna.

In addition, together with colleagues from the Urban Research Section of the Austrian Sociological Association (ÖGS), he organised and chaired an international session on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary urban research. He also presented his latest comparative research on the distributional effects of climate policy retrofit instruments on European housing markets to an international audience of scholars in urban and housing studies.