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Future Cities: Shaping Europe from the bottom up

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  • Euobserver
The 2016 edition of EUobserver's Regions & Cities magazine looks at the cities of the future in Europe. While the EU is grappling with challenging problems - Brexit, migration, the economy, terrorism, to name a few - many European cities are reinventing themselves and tackling these problems in their own way.

Most London gardens are

Most London gardens are cannot be used to build on. Photo: Tracy Lee Carol HARD FASCINATION swapping country life for city life for cultural reasons. “The city is the single most marvellous invention of mankind”, he said. “People and companies become richer choice for consumers, and much more fun”. “If you live in a small town, you can watch the local football team play at the weekend. If you live in London, you can see the best football in the world or listen to the best music, but there has to be a large enough audience to support such things,” he said. His views are backed up by an EU study, out in September, which said that most “discussions concerning the quality of life often turn to cost of living” instead of green spaces. The report said that many EU cities had the “urban do people who live beside “a large number of disengaged people who remain outside the labour market". Beaumont went further, saying that some people loved even the stressful side of cities. of London, about people, including writers such as capital after dark, he said night-time London could be menacing, but felt like home to “the lost, the "The distribution of income and wealth in the EU has … become increasingly concentrated in the hands of global businesses and the very rich and these developments are particularly visible in urban areas," it said. the green belt model. Photo: Douglas Sprott Beaumont noted that 2016 marked the 500th anniversary of the publication of Utopia by Thomas the genre, loved gardens, but their crowning inequality. EU cities better places to live, Beaumont took aim like to see some of the things that we value today, socially, politically, radically devalued,” he said. 16 — FUTURE CITIES OCTOBER 2016

Thanks to government-funded according to locals. Vienna: A reluctant cosmopolis Photo: Gery Singer Vienna excels in quality of life surveys due to its local government, but Austria's capital may need to show more openness to foreign influences if its success is to endure. By Joseph Boyle Two-year-old Florence rides in her pushchair past kindergartens, schools and playgrounds, all paid for by Vienna's city government. with grand apartment blocks, many of which are government owned. Finally she arrives at her child minder, paid for by the city administration. Big government is Vienna's ethos, and a major reason that Austria's capital ranks so highly on so many “quality of life” surveys. “Vienna has a long tradition - 200 or 300 years - of having a strong public sector,” the city's EUobserver. “In the US, the people might think: 'I have a Vienna was more: 'I have a problem, I'll take it to the In Austria, local governments have genuine power - Vienna's city administration is one of the world's biggest landlords. It enforces a rent cap and, as private landlords have to compete, rents are kept gets top marks for affordable housing in life-quality and healthcare, and help ensure crime rates are low - all of which are measured by the surveys. think-tank Economist Intelligence Unit puts Vienna FUTURE CITIES OCTOBER 2016 — 17

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