if you are in Vienna on Nov 21st, there is a (free) presentation of the book at the city hall: https://vorlesungen.wien.gv.at/richard-cockett-2111/
Also, Molchat Doma is playing that evening.
it will be streamed online, if you want to attend in person then registration is required here:
I read The World of Yesterday: Memoirs of a European by Stefan Zweig after a recommendation on HN. Gave an interesting if sad view into the Vienna of the past.
It’s excellent. For those the speak German, there is also a fanatastic audio book read by an Austrian actor. It very much sounds like Zweig speaking because of the accent.
Yeah, the audiobook version really is quite special. It’s read by Peter Vilnai, if I remember correctly. One of the few audiobooks I was able to completely be absorbed by while listening.
Also try The Man Without Qualities. Same time period and location.
Excellent recommendation. Musil had a lot of mic drop lines about “Kakania”
Can also recommend it highly, fascinating view into the stagnation, bureaucracy and "general feel" of the time
Vienna is fascinating! I wrote a bit about my love hate relationship with Vienna over the years here : https://indiantinker.bearblog.dev/love-letter-to-vienna/
Really nice read
There is an episode of Freakonomics podcast about the same(?) topic: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-does-the-lost-world-of-...
I'll order it. I became interested in 20th century Vienna recently after reading that Hitler, Trotsky, Freud, Tito, Stalin and Franz Ferdinand all lived in the same area of the city at the same time (in 1913).
Well, calling it the same area is a bit of a stretch by the BBC, 2-4 km distance here in Vienna is quite a lot and more like the other side of the city, definitly different districts. "Lived in the same city" is probably more accurate.
Though Hitler, Stalin, Trotzki and Tito did have something in common: they all visited the same coffee house, Cafe Central.
Which is still open today, unchanged, now more famous for its delicious cakes and long lines of tourists though.
Vienna to me is a fascinating case of a city that found itself again after having lost its place in history more than once.
If you look at the geography, if you look at the political climate, just at the fundamentals it's not clear why Vienna is a large city. There really is not a lot of reason for this city to matter today yet somehow it is a wonderful place to live in, despite all that.
The city somehow managed to find an identity on its own that somehow makes it work.
> If you look at the geography, if you look at the political climate, just at the fundamentals it's not clear why Vienna is a large city
Sits on the Danube and was the capital of the Austrian Empire, so very important all throughout the 1800s. I'd say strategically located in Central Europe.
Then in the second half of the 20th C it was the gateway to the "East Bloc", the place where east meets west in terms of diplomacy, economic and cultural exchange, and of course espionage.
It has played a neutral role similar to Switzerland, which is why OPEC is headquartered there. It's also one of the UN's four major sites worldwide (along with NY, Geneva, Nairobi).
I spent a couple of years there; nice place to live; would happily return.
Austria avoiding being split like Germany after WWII is a masterclass in geopolitics.
Casting itself as the victim of Germany was a smart move.
they are the control group "that doesn't 'have to' feel guilty" ...
I mean they were the victim of Nazi infiltration. Dolfuss was assassinated, the Anschluss vote was practically a rigged vote and I'm sure Kurt Schussnigg was not pleased with the outcome.
And they also stole tons of land and businesses from the Jews who they helped expel into concentration camps they helped staff.
Many of the famous cafes in Vienna itself, which show up in almost every writing about the city, were stolen from expelled Jews
> If you look at the geography, if you look at the political climate, just at the fundamentals it's not clear why Vienna is a large city.
Could you elaborate on this a bit please? Vienna has culturally always been considered the front door to eastern Europe (from a central European POV).
Vienna is one of the best cities in central Europe to go for an academic degree: Renting is capped and still affordable (and wants to be kept that way btw, see the ban of AirBnB). There are almost no education fees, even non-austrians can apply for benefits from the government. With 200k students it's the largest german-speaking university city on par with Berlin[0]. The employment law is exemplary good. For me personally it isn't surprsing that almost 1/4th of whole Austria lives in Vienna.
[0]: https://www.wien.gv.at/statistik/pdf/viennainfigures-2023.pd...
Renting is not capped, unless I'm reading your comment wrong and you mean that the city's government influences it. Vienna does not have an explicit cap. Newer flats and houses are index-bound and rents are raised depending on a certain inflation threshold. Older buildings are usually cheaper and there are strict rules on how much rent can be raised. What Vienna does to make renting an apartment affordable is build social housing. Lots of it. 500.000 people in Vienna live in social housing and the Gemeindebauten are actually nice to live in, priority is given to young Viennese still living with their parents, and you can stay in your apartment even if your income increases. The city can therefore bring down rents in the market as not only the poorest can live in these apartments, but they are a valid choice for many.
There also isn't a ban on Airbnb. As someone else already commented, you can still stay at Airbnbs in Vienna. You cannot rent out apartments in social housing as Airbnbs anymore and there are areas in the city where you would have to get a special permit and other inhabitants of the building would have to agree.
Rents of Type III[0] are capped[1].
[0]: https://wien.arbeiterkammer.at/beratung/Wohnen/miete/Anwendu...
As I commented further down, that's true. Although category III is about buildings built before 1953/1945. I just didn't want to give people the impression that Vienna has relatively affordable rents because it has a hard cap on all rents. Newer buildings (not as old as 1953 seems to count as new) with index-bound rents have raised rents quite a bit in the past 5 years and have made Altbau very sought-after.
Fair point.
It's not only buildings built before 1953/1945 though, social housings (Wohnungen in gefördert errichteten Mietwohnungshäusern mit mehr als 2 Mietgegenständen) are capped as well.
add to that that in any new building 2/3rd of the apartments must be social housing.
This I didn't know. TIL. Also, thanks for the sources.
Rent in old buildings (Altbau) is capped. The problem is that many landlords don't care and there are no penalties. You can charge back the extra rent but then your landlord will probably not extend your contract...
That is true, but it only affects buildings built before 1953/1945. I just didn't want to give people a wrong impression of why rents in Vienna are relatively low compared to other European cities of a similar size. It's not a "Mietpreisbremse" of hard cap on all rents.
That's why:
1. make an unlimited contract
2. sue when you'll leave anyway
> 1. make an unlimited contract
That's a good one :-D
> The statute of limitations is 30 years.
It's actually 10 years. I thought it was less...
> 2. sue when you'll leave anyway
So that's actually a good strategy! Just note that there are certain deadlines, see https://wien.arbeiterkammer.at/beratung/Wohnen/altbaumietenc....
> Could you elaborate on this a bit please?
Austria has no sea access, no navy, few natural resources. Vienna is strategically not in a particularly amazing position compared to most other cities around. It's not clear to me what the fundamental reasons are why Vienna should be a large city other than that it historically was one, declined a bit and somehow regrew.
I think it's great here, but I also cannot really understand why.
Coffee.
While Vienna is located at the crossroads between the planes and the Alps along the Danube making it modestly fortifiable from previous Ottoman incursions in 1529 and essential hub for quarterly markets. As the easternmost capital not to fall to the Ottomans, merchants that went to the Viennese markets would have valuable first arbitrage opportunities on eastern spices, textiles, medicines, gems, and ceramics coming from the east (the taxes on which solidified the Hapsburg position). However, it wasn’t until the siege of 1683 [1] that resulted in the Ottomans crushing defeat and withdrawal much like a port city by a sea only to see the sea recede.
In that withdrawal the Ottomans left behind enough coffee in their abandoned provisions that the Viennese were able to open Europe’s first coffee house and cement Vienna as Europes premier nexus for academia :-)
Austria has no sea access
austria had sea access right up to WW1. and vienna only started to decline after that. vienna is also on the danube, a river that is connected to the main and rhine and allows ships to travel all the way from the north sea to the black sea. that makes it better positioned than paris, berlin or munich in this aspect. although i doubt that the river had much to do with its regrowth in the last few decades. it is more likely that its closeness to eastern europe made it an attractive destination once the eastern bloc fell apart, which was just before the time vienna started growing again.
Sure, but Austria lost a lot of this many, many years ago. Yet Vienna continues to be an important city :)
Nearly all large cities today are large cities because they historically were one, leading to economies of scale in infrastructure and agglomeration economies in the production and exchange of goods and services. Ease of sea access is not a major determinant of a city's growth & prosperity today.
Many cities historically grew around ports due to the labor intensity of break-bulk shipping and the difficulty and expense of overland goods transport but modern container ports require relatively few employees and can easily move freight intermodally. The old piers in London and Hamburg and New York and San Francisco and their adjacent factories have all been redeveloped, and the working container ports have all relocated away from the city center to places where rail & highway access is easier, to places like Newark, Oakland, and Felixstowe.
> I also cannot really understand why.
That's exactly why. Some wonderfully peculiar people were born from that gene pool. But that's history. They don't build em like that anymore.
Austria was mostly about mathematics, engineering and human sciences. There was an Austro-Hungarian Navy, and Josef Ressel gave the Royal Navy the world's most powerful navy with his invention of the propeller. :D
Maths was stronger in Germany, especially in Heidelberg. Riemann, Hilbert et al. were all Germans.
There was also a fairly strong Polish school of maths and formal logic, but it can only be called Austrian with some stretching of the word; while Galicia was part of the empire, it was about as far (ethnically, culturally and physically) from Vienna as possible.
> Austria has no sea access, no navy, few natural resources.
Austria used to have all of those things. Vienna itself is not particularly different from any other imperial capital in terms of its location.
Even a cursory look at its history would resolve these questions
>see the ban of AirBnB
Huh? I was there this summer with my daughter and there were plenty of Airbnbs. They were dramatically more affordable (especially given my need for two separate rooms).
I get the AirBnB hate from local renters, but as a frequent traveler, hotels suck so bad that they deserve disruption.
I actually feel the opposite, I quite like the convenience that hotels offer (such as housekeeping, clean sheets) and I've found that unless you are doing longterm stays (1 month+) the prices between hotels and Airbnbs are usually comparable.
I've done very little renting from AirBnBs and they can be cheaper and there are certainly certain types of properties (like whole house rentals) that aren't really available from traditional hotels vs. AirBnB/VRBO/etc.
That said, especially for visiting a city, I'll pretty much go with traditional hotels, often chains, for the predictability. I've very rarely had a truly bad experience and it's usually been something like a badly situated luck-of-the-draw room and even that isn't usually a big deal in a city where I'm not spending a lot of time in a room.
I can reliably checkin whenever, there's staff on-call, I don't usually care if I have a kitchen other than a small fridge (which many hotels have these days), and so forth. I've stayed in many B&Bs--some of which are also listed these days on AirBnB. Most have been good, some less so. Usually less of a good option in urban centers.
Airbnb is just a scapegoat for the people who want quick solutions for the damage governments have done for ages.
Competition is good and empowering people to make money off their assets (just like Uber) even better. Regulate it and hotels to protect consumers but don't pretend Airbnb's are the cause for housing being unaffordable to rent or buy. Specially not when you're taxing renters like mad and offering little in return.
It's always funny reading takes in HN about places where you have first hand knowledge of, whether it be a geographic location or a company.
>The employment law is exemplary good.
Taht's not true at all. Employers can lay off workers for no reason at all at any time without paying any severance (unless you have a unio that can negotiate a better deal). Just hand them the notice and you're done.
The notice period is 6 weeks at minimum by law and often negotiated to be 3 months on unlimited contracts - limited contacts can't be terminated unilateral. And, depending on social situation, you can still sue immediately through the Arbeiterkammer[0] without any costs.
[0]: https://www.arbeiterkammer.at/beratung/arbeitundrecht/beendi...
Right there are some restrictions but people seem to have the weird idea that you can't get fired without cause or redundancy. If the employer does it correctly they can essentially get rid of anyone, those restrictions notwithstanding.
You can get fired immediately without cause, but that's against the law, and the law is pretty clear on lawful causes:
§ 27.
Als ein wichtiger Grund, der den Dienstgeber zur vorzeitigen Entlassung berechtigt, ist insbesondere anzusehen:
1. Wenn der Angestellte im Dienste untreu ist, sich in seiner Tätigkeit ohne Wissen oder Willen des Dienstgebers von dritten Personen unberechtigte Vorteile zuwenden läßt, insbesondere entgegen der Bestimmung des § 13 eine Provision oder eine sonstige Belohnung annimmt, oder wenn er sich einer Handlung schuldig macht, die ihn des Vertrauens des Dienstgebers unwürdig erscheinen läßt;
2. wenn der Angestellte unfähig ist, die versprochenen oder die den Umständen nach angemessenen Dienste (§ 6) zu leisten;
3. wenn einer der im § 1 bezeichneten Angestellten ohne Einwilligung des Dienstgebers ein selbständiges kaufmännisches Unternehmen betreibt oder im Geschäftszweige des Dienstgebers für eigene oder fremde Rechnung Handelsgeschäfte macht oder wenn ein Angestellter den in § 7, Absatz 4, bezeichneten Verboten zuwiderhandelt;
4. wenn der Angestellte ohne einen rechtmäßigen Hinderungsgrund während einer den Umständen nach erheblichen Zeit die Dienstleistung unterläßt oder sich beharrlich weigert, seine Dienste zu leisten oder sich den durch den Gegenstand der Dienstleistung gerechtfertigten Anordnungen des Dienstgebers zu fügen, oder wenn er andere Bedienstete zum Ungehorsam gegen den Dienstgeber zu verleiten sucht;
5. wenn der Angestellte durch eine längere Freiheitsstrafe oder durch Abwesenheit während einer den Umständen nach erheblichen Zeit, ausgenommen wegen Krankheit oder Unglücksfalls, an der Verrichtung seiner Dienste gehindert ist;
6. wenn der Angestellte sich Tätlichkeiten, Verletzungen der Sittlichkeit oder erhebliche Ehrverletzungen gegen den Dienstgeber, dessen Stellvertreter, deren Angehörige oder gegen Mitbedienstete zuschulden kommen läßt.
The proof of guilt is up to the one who fires in the end.
I know of one person who got fired unlawful, and their ex-employer is now EUR 80k+ poorer.
[0]: https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/GeltendeFassung.wxe?Abfrage=Bundes...
I think you're mixing up firing and dismissing. You need a reason to fire someone but firing means no notice period and no unemployment benefits, but you don't need a reason to dismiss someone with notice, which is relatively unique nerf in terms of EU workers rights by comparison.
GP was talking about firing and you were talking about the usual termination of an employment contract with a notice period.
You don't need a reason to terminate an employment contract with a notice period, correct, but that doesn't mean it wasn't socially discriminating in origin - that depends on the social situation (eg. older employees can sue for discrimination on age) and the Arbeiterkammer will fight for it.
If they don't need to provide a reason for terminating you then you also can't have a case for discrimination even if that were to happen since no employer is gonna tell you "yeah, we're firing you behause you're too black/woman", they'll just say "you're fired". AK was never of any use with despicable employers since the employee protection laws are very lax and employers very good at skirting the law so they can abuse you without being legally liable. Just read Kununu reviews of several Austrian companies.
> Just read Kununu reviews of several Austrian companies.
I'd rather suggest to go to the Arbeits- und Sozialgericht[0] and listen to some real cases, they are public anyway.
[0]: https://www.justiz.gv.at/asg-wien/arbeits-und-sozialgericht-...
How does looking at "real cases" help me? They don't make my own cases any less real?
Just because cases don't go through the court system, doesn't mean employer abuse doesn't happen.
you can still suspect discrimination, and if you sue they have to prove that it wasn't.
This isn't America. AK won't help you sue based on suspicions of discriminations if you don't bring written evidence that makes it a slam dunk case. And the court isn't biased towards the employee like the US jury.
exactly, this isn't america. despite not needing to have a specific reason for letting someone go you are not allowed to use morally questionable reasons (which goes beyond outright discrimination), and you must evaluate how the loss of employment affects the employee. that means, for example, the likelihood of that employee finding a new job with similar pay, (so you can't easily let go of older people), their family situation, or if they have another income. so you basically have to choose the employee who would be least affected. as far as i understand these kinds questions are not considered at all in the US. only discrimination againt protected classes, as defined by the law.
Austrian law isn't US law, correct. I still don't understand your persistent pessimism though...
What I once saw when I went to the Arbeits- und Sozialgericht was a man, in the beginning of his 40s, suing for unlawful termination of his employment contract, after notice period and 7 months of employment. He sued with the help of the Arbeiterkammer. The judge asked the employer for their reasons, and tried to figure out if the termination has been made through thoughtful reasoning and after consideration of any other options. It is the responsibility of the employer too(!), and frankly in their best interest, to bring their employees up to speed and make them succeed in their work.
"We don't need to state any reason" won't fly in front of the judge in Austria, as the judge wants to make an informed decision.
>The notice period is 6 weeks at minimum by law and often negotiated to be 3 months
The issue is being able to let go of workers for no reason, not the notice period itself, which BTW, every EU country has, Austria is nothing special here, quite the opposite. Do you feel this imbalance of power that you can be let go at any time for any reason is a fair to the workers in a so called socialist country?
Wouldn't be such a big issue if unemployment wouldn't be a pitiful 60% of your salary for ~3 months (yes it can be longer but you're then at the mercy of the system handler if they agree with the job search you're doing, otherwise they can also cut you off if you don't want to take hard jobs like warehouse work) .
>you can still sue immediately through the Arbeiterkammer
AK will only help you sue only in case of unfair dismissal which rarely happens because employers don't need to provide a reason for terminating you as long as they give you the 6-week-3-month notice. So long hours, burnout and hire-and-fire mentality is rampant among Austrian companies, but rarely talked about because it contradicts the "most livable country" narrative paid for by Austria to the Economist who runs that yearly campaign-ad.
> The issue is being able to let go of workers for no reason, not the notice period itself, which BTW, every EU country has, Austria is nothing special here, quite the opposite. Do you feel this imbalance of power that you can be let go at any time for any reason is a fair to the workers in a so called socialist country?
I don't think of Austria as a socialist country and I think it's fair to be able to let people go without reason, but with a notice period (and unemployment benefits and social healthcare).
In practice, it won't be much different than with the requirement of a reason anyway: If you'll want to fight it, then you'll need to go through legal ways and contest the employers decision anyway. In Austria there's a 2-week time limit to bring in a lawsuit on unlawful termination of an employment contract if you still want to work there.
Where did you get the idea that Austria is a socialist country? It used to be to a certain degree, but those times are long gone, except for strong unionization, the social safety net and worker protections. Austria is a deeply conservative country and has been for much of its history. Vienna is a bit of an exception, as it has actually been ruled by social democrats for ~100 years (with a violent break during the 30s and 40s).
The easier it is to fire or retrench someone, the easier it is to hire them.
And if it's easy for me to hire... then it's easier for the next entrepreneur to hire... paradoxically driving wages up and forcing businesses to keep hiring high so as to keep their competitive edge.
The only people suffering under such a system are freeloaders - who get hired and then proceed to lean on labour laws to stick around for a long time after their welcome has worn out.
I would argue that's what makes it good employment law.
How so? Wages are still lower than in Germany, Belgium, Sweden or Netherlands where it's difficult to dismiss someone without proper cause and a long process.
Where are the benefits for Austrian workers for this lack of protection against firing versus countries that have protections?
And where is this HN simping for ruthless capitalist that lay you off you the moment you get sick coming from? What am I not seeing here?
Without any personal experience with the Austrian labour market, it seems like firing people is around as easy in Austria as it is here in Denmark. And wages are higher in Denmark than in Germany, Belgium, Sweden and Netherlands. So the low wages and bad conditions for employees in Austria probably have some other, common cause.
> And where is this HN simping for ruthless capitalist that lay you off you the moment you get sick coming from?
Sounds like you made some experiences with the wrong people.
The process is faster than in other european countries, true, but we're still far away from a short process... unemployment benefits, social healthcare, sick leave, holidays etc. A shorter process can open up good opportunities, but demands some security to enjoy the risks. I think we're mostly balancing this act and it's a good thing when it makes Austria more attractive to employers. Competition against Germany, Belgium, Sweden, or the Netherlands is in my own interest.
Especially in the case of software engineering it can be beneficial to join unstable employments and be ready to change frequently. I'm mostly seeing it as grateful (depending on market), as you can only see so many system designs fail in your lifetime. :D
>Sounds like you made some experiences with the wrong people.
This might shock you, but lot of Austrian employers behave like this: Hire and fire. Got sick? So long. This shouldn't be acceptable in an EU country. AK is also useless here because the laws are toothless.
>unemployment benefits, social healthcare, sick leave, holidays etc
Those exist in every other EU company where you can't lay off people just because you don't like their face anymore.
>Competition against Germany, Belgium, Sweden, or the Netherlands is in my own interest.
Yet those countries score better at innovation, entrepreneurship while having better worker rights and higher wages. How do you explain that? I'm not sure working yourself to death in a race to the bottom on lowering workers rights is a good strategy.
One big reason why it's large is because it was once the capital of an empire.
Why it grew back from being small due to WW2 up to the 90s is, my educated guess, the geography combined with the standard of living. Right up against the poorer east and rich west. Easy for young people to move from the poorer neighbours, for a short while or even stay. Abundant labour and low corruption [ignoring political ;)] then trades easily with its richer western neighbours.
Vienna was also the primary neutral ground meeting point during the Cold War between soviet and western interests
It still is considered the "city of spies" because of some special cases in Austrian law: https://apnews.com/article/austria-spying-government-legisla...
>The city somehow managed to find an identity on its own that somehow makes it work.
It's not "somehow" by magic. The explanation is that as a neutral country between NATO and the former Iron Curtain, it was a middle-man for business, politics and trade between the two blocks in the cold war era, profiting from both parties without having to pay obligations to any of them. Basically it won the geopolitical lottery, similar to a Switzerland Light. Today with the Iron Curtain gone and the EU-Schengen borders extended east beyond Austria, it's a lot less relevant than it used to be and therefore a lot less profitable.
Since the end of the Iron Curtain Vienna population grew dramatically by the size of the second largest city in Austria (Graz). During the time of the Iron Curtain Vienna was the only big city in Europe that lost population. It was a grey, old, slowly dying city. The city and the quality of live evolved dramatically since then. I would call it a completely different and in my opinion in almost any regard much better, lively, young, modern city. But it managed to keep its very distinguished identity.
Austrian legislation largely encourages clandestine ops and this brings a lot of offices, officials, fancy equipment and money to Vienna to this day.
> it's a lot less relevant than it used to be and therefore a lot less profitable
which metrics are you using for this assertion?
My 2 cents.
It sits on a major European waterway, the Danube, which after Vienna exists into the plain lands - Hungary, Romania.
Started as a Roman settlement, Vindobona, it has been strategically important for a very long time.
Paris without the Seine would equally be irrelevant. London too.
Vienna is beyond this world.
We should also give fair share of the credit to Budapest and its "Martians".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists)
Most of the great thinkers of the former Austro-Hungarian empire were Jewish, though. The Holocaust thoroughly devastated the Central European intellectual circles and turned a previously important region of the world into a somewhat mediocre place. Not a complete backwater, but a shadow of its former self.
Can we put the title of the book in quotes? The title currently reads like this link points to a review of Vienna, the city. It would be more clear if it read Review of "Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World".
This is one of the most misleading titles I’ve seen on HN because it has a clear meaning that in this context is totally wrong. Almost always with mistakes like this the unclear title is simply unclear.
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I also live in Vienna. Of course, it doesn't make sense to declare a city as "the most livable" as people value different things. Personally, I find the quality of living to be very high. The things I value most: great public transport, lots of parks, pools and playgrounds, very cheap child care, lots of music/theatres/museums, low crime, large (affordable) appartements. The big bonus: swimming in the Danube in the summer :)
That being said, you are certainly right that Vienna (and Austria in general) is not very attractive for entrepreneurs.
Being attractive to entrepreneurs has little to nothing to do with quality of living though. It's about stuff like public transport, cleanliness, access to art and culture, safety, housing etc etc.
> nothing to do
Income certainly has, though.
And it of course depends on the sector etc. but salaries are generally comparatively low and stagnant in much of Europe.
That's what I was trying to point out :)
Einspänner mit Schlag. That still a thing? :)
Einspänner is always with Schlag :) And yes, it still exists in traditional cafés.
Never been to Vienna so I definitely wouldn't comment on its quality, but this comment is very very far from convincing to me, more like entitled.
"people are poor" - maybe, I've not looked at any stat so I'll believe you.
"entrepreneurs are considered third class at best" - how is that related to how liveable a city is? And yes, american-startup-style entrepreneurship isn't as encouraged everywhere in the world, personally I think that's a good thing.
"tech people with means are negatively viewed both by the young population and the old" - Again, what's that to do with how liveable Vienna is? Also I'm not surprised. I'm a tech person myself and I don't have a great view of tech people. There's good reasons for that.
"Of course, there is no AC" - a lot of Europe doesn't really use AC (eg France). Vienna isn't even a particularly hot city.
> "people are poor" - maybe, I've not looked at any stat so I'll believe you.
There are many people that depend on social welfare, but nobody is starving and there's lots of public housing and free healthcare. We certainly have no slums.
Exactly. In fact the municipal housing is excellent by world standards and not just something for those in the lowest income bracket.
There were some scandals recently about slum landlords, but the point is they were caught and already legislation is being proposed to prevent even these rare, but horrible, cases to slip by.
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> Because if your social class is demonized
That's the first time I'm hearing tech workers are demonized in Austria.
> We're on a forum of mostly tech workers after all, not minimum wage shelf stackers, it's normal the livability will be judged form that perspective.
If you don't qualify "livability" then it's normal to understand it as it is defined. If you want to talk about livability for high-income earners then just say it.
> Most of Central and Eastern EU have normalize ACs in private residences because summers are getting hotter and hotter.
Can you be more specific? ACs are not common in Czechia, Slovakia, Poland for sure. My guess is that your CEE will turn into South-Eastern Europe where the situation is of course different.
AC is probably more common than it used to be in relatively wealthy countries in a certain band than it used to be, especially for newer construction. I'm not sure it's so much changes in temperature as it is just overall expectations changing.
I live in an old house in central MA in the US and I'll sometimes turn on a window/portable AC unit for a handful of days a year but I'm certainly not paying to have central air installed. Undergrad in the urban Boston area the older dorms certainly didn't have AC.
> minimum wage shelf stackers
Why do you conflate these things? There's plenty of people doing a lot of fundamentally important jobs getting low pay and also lots of people doing the office equivalent of "stacking shelves" making a killing.
> Because if your social class is demonized and squeezed to pay for holes in the welfare state, that affects your livability.
Tech workers are usually on the top 25th percentile of income in almost any large European city, surely aren't being squeezed to patch holes in welfare since even after paying higher taxes the take home income is higher than most people earn in the same city.
This victimisation of upper middle class is quite whiny, we all earn a lot more money than most already, the demonisation of our class comes exactly from people in tech not acknowledging that we have it pretty good compared to other high-salaried white collar jobs: architects, accountants, legal counselors (not free practice barristers), engineers, etc. We earn more and aren't even required to jump through hoops of 5-6 years architecture school, 5 years full time engineering school, certifications like CPA, etc.
I started to despise some tech people because they whine so fucking much...
You can purchase an air conditioner. They even make covers that can accommodate units for those sorts of windows they have in Europe.
Most of the time you can't because the city/neighborhood/building council wouldn't approve it. Even if you put it on your balcony which you would've thought is your property.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Portable-Universal-Conditioner-Exch...
One of these things. Its just that they're so uncommon in Europe you've probably never even seen one.
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You are using them wrongly, almost certainly because you don't understand how they work and are installing them in the wrong locations. They work best in small rooms, usually you'd either have a number of them to cover the whole house/apartment or only keep them in "cool" rooms where you'd go specifically to cool down, like your bedroom.
Secondly, AC units do not create a vacuum. Even if they did, houses are not air tight spaces, there are gaps underneath your door and cracks in your window, almost certainly there are cracks in the cover for the window. AC units work by circulating air through a condenser that sucks the heat out and moves it outdoors, that's why the back is constantly dripping water: its accumulating moisture from the outside air, since the back of the unit is just a giant heat sink.
As for the noise, nothing you can do about that. Most Americans are used to it and find it comforting since summer nights in the US can get very hot and these units are often run through the night to help people keep cool while they sleep, often from the youngest age. If you didn't grow up with them then you're probably going to hate it either way.
"You're living life wrong" pretty much sums up all "advice" I get from Austrians when I point out any problem with Austria. Now it turns out I need to have "small rooms" and "deal with the noise". This dance can continue ad-infinitum.
> AC units do not create a vacuum
I have to insist of this, please watch the video I linked, single-hose portable AC units absolutely create a vacuum, and single-hose designs are the only ones you can get in Europe. The air for cooling the evaporator coils comes from the room and is expelled through the hose outside. This is of course different than any sort of real AC unit.
> houses are not air tight spaces
Indeed, this is how single-hose portable AC units can work, and the more air tight your house is, the more dangerous it gets with gas heating. Installing a single-hose portable AC unit in an old building with gas heating is not only very dangerous, it is also illegal (but people do it anyway). The only way to do it properly is to install an intake valve in your apartment (nobody does this). Please educate yourself about this, it is a very serious problem.
As for AC noise in general, no, a split-unit AC system makes only a trivial amount of noise. Even a crappy window unit makes far less noise than a portable AC unit because the compressor and fan is outside for a window unit, as opposed to inside.
> "You're living life wrong" pretty much sums up all "advice" I get from Austrians when I point out any problem with Austria.
Have you considered that they might just have a point?
Or in a slightly more friendly way - Vienna has the highest standard of living, but your personal preferences do not mash with it and if the Viennese lived like you would like to, it would no longer be as livable?
This thread is about a book review and you started one tangential flamewar and are working on another. It's not how the site is supposed to work which you surely know having been here a while.
At least in the UK (one of the countries with the least AC) you don't need planning permission for a home unit. I use a portable one, since I'm still renting, but permanent units are slowly getting more popular.
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I lived in Vienna for 20 years - I've lived in many top tier cities around the world since. Every time I go back to Vienna I feel like "this is what a city should be".
I do not share your view at all.
If you are wealthy enough to leave Vienna, you're not seeing the real Vienna when you're here.
(Disclaimer: I've also lived in many top tier cities around the world. Vienna is still a lot better than most of them, but don't kid yourself that its because they worked anything out beyond taxing the living daylights out of anyone who tries to build things..)
What is the "real" Vienna, in your opinion? My entire family lives there and i have dozens of friends there. Are they not real people? They live cheaply in subsidized housing and generally live very comfortable lives.
Sure they're real, and sure they live comfortable lives. But this doesn't mean that Vienna isn't a welfare state which buys the happiness of its citizens through heavy, heavy taxation.
How is that a bad thing? The welfare states is the means through which the world's most livable city and those comfortable lives are achieved.
Welfare is only sustainable for as long as there is someone willing to pay for it. That's the entire point of the heroes in the original article.
You can't make bread out of thin air. Vienna has a serious welfare budget.
What cities do you prefer?
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Nobody likes taxes, but I guarantee you'd rather be unemployed in Vienna than San Francisco
I'd rather be employed with San Francisco wages, but living in Vienna. That'd actually make it a little more comfortable to be paying Austrian taxes ..
But no amount of wage hike would lure me to live in San Francisco. Its a shit-hole not just because of social policies ..
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> I'd rather be "unemployed" in San Francisco because of a far better culture
I like how you put "unemployed" in quotes. I think many unemployed people would love to also have the quotes. The person you replied to referred I think to actual no-quotes unemployed, not the "building my startup" type of unemployed.
No your concerns are valid, its just that you clearly don't know what life is like in America for the have-nots. You see rich people on social media, in movies and TV. You think it would just be a bit harder than how you have it now. You don't even think about what it would be like to be unemployed; an American is deathly afraid of losing their job. That means they won't be able to pay rent, they won't be able to see a doctor, they won't be able to afford to eat. There's a social safety net, sure, it's just not a very good one. Lot's of people die in America all the time of preventable causes, many who would be in your position, just because they didn't "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" or whatever.
No, look, Europe is almost caste-based in how rigid the social hierarchies have become due to the immensity of the social-welfare programs. They'll keep you alive and comfortable but you'll never have the autonomy of the ultra-wealthy who galavant around Vienna and drive fancy cars and fly all over the world. Let me tell you something: its better to have good public education, good public healthcare, and good public infrastructure than to drive a fancy car. Still, you feel like you're not truly free, because you aren't really. But Americans aren't more free than you either, even if they appear to you to be. You're just looking in the wrong place for your freedom.
My family lives in the US, I have lived my childhood there, as well as a good portion of my adulthood.
I know very well what kind of problems the US has, but I think a lot of US people have a very naïve view of Europe ("ah they just solved X, Y, Z there") when in reality nothing comes for free (and I don't mean money). Similarly, a lot of europeans have a very naïve view of Europe as well, pretty much by the same argument. They just do not realize the difference for the median person in the standard of living, they always concentrate on the same old tropes -- "but what about the poor, what about public transport, what about healthcare". Yeah, what about them? And what about the not-so-poor? Why is it that just mentioning these things, that allegedly Europe does better at, why is it that we can't consider anything else? A discussion about liveable cities should involve, well, standards of living.
Because honestly, on a societal level, why should we give a damn about the not-so-poor? Why optimize for the extreme that's already comfortable? Why not concentrate on the average case and on making the other extreme less awful? Who gives a shit if the rich can't buy a third sports car?
> Its class system is literally encoded in the streets and districts. Its streets were designed for horses and walkers, and this still shows in its varied cultures.
I have no idea what you are talking about. Can you give an example?
Compare the wealth of the 1st District with that of the 7th .. or 15th .. Vienna's districts are literally a class system, encoded in the streets. And then compare the easier-walking districts, the ones designed for horses (i.e. wealth) versus the ones on the peripheral, and see what the quality of street life is like ..
Wealth inequality in Europe is seldom discussed unfortunately. Everyone focuses on income inequality to demonize well earners and justify taxing them more to pay for the mistakes of politicians and the sinking welfare system, but ignores all that untaxed wealth stashed away in the hands of a few.
Average salary in Austria after taxes is something like 2k/month yet the country is full of flashy cars and houses costs from several hundreds of thousands to millions of Euros. How is that possible? You have mediocre EU salaries at San Diego house prices. Rents are reasonable but I don't see how people are gonna be able to also afford rent from retirement pensions.
> Average salary in Austria after taxes is something like 2k/month
No, average salary in Austria after taxes is about €3000, or about $3,700 after exchange rates and PPP. Which is less than the US, not hardly a poor place by world standards.
Combine that with the long-term wealth you get from being an early-to-industrialise European country that was on the capitalist side on the Cold War, and you've got your explanation.
How is this different than any other city in the world though?
You can plot class by district # in most cities?
Pretty much every city in the world is like that - tell someone where you live and they'll assess you as to wealth/class?
It's not (only) the high-taxes on the local high-income people that have kept Vienna (and Austria as a whole) still in the game, it's also the fact that they did a sort of economic imperialism throughout Eastern Europe after the Wall fell/the Cold War ended and they (Vienna and Austria) have managed to live off that bounty for pretty much the whole time. I'm talking oil companies, banks, wood-processing groups, even construction companies, all getting a piece of the Eastern-European very big pie and repatriating lots and lots of profits.
Trouble is, the war in Ukraine means that both the Ukrainian and Russian markets are now off-limits for them, and the rest of Eastern Europe to which they used to have privileged access to (meaning Romania, from where I'm from, and the Balkans) is starting to "fight" back, so to speak, I'm talking about local capitalists + other foreign (non-Austrian) groups that have become confident and knowledgeable enough in these local markets in order to drive the Austrians out.
Other than that, yeah, Vienna is a wonderful city but a little bit cold for my taste (which is reason enough not to place it in the number one spot as for the "liveability" standings). Its tramway network is top-notch, though, one of the few "Western" European cities that can still say that about their trams, kudos to them for that (it probably helps that, half-jokingly speaking, Austrians are Slavs that happen to speak German so it makes sense that they havent't gotten rid of their trams, just look at the Czechs and the Slovaks next door who also have wonderful tram networks still running).
Huh? Many European cities still have trams. For example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Germany
They're joke of tram systems. Yeah, for (West) Germany Munich is an exception, I guess (and I should have added it), but look at cities like Hamburg, which got rid fo their tram network completely back in the day [1]. To say nothing of very big European cities like Paris, London, Madrid or Rome that are (almost) totally lacking in that respect, and I'm not counting the light-rail thingie, I'm talking about trams that actually go to downtown and to many, many other areas, like a spider web.
This is the Paris tram map [2], it's a joke, to be honest with you. Yes, I know that the metro is supposed to be a substitute for that, but the metro is at least an order of magnitude (if not more) more expensive to operate and it's not the same thing as a tram, where you just pop-in and pop-out while seeing the actual daylight through the tram's windows.
Later edit: For comparison, this is the Vienna tram map, i.e. the spider web network I was talking about [3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Hamburg
[2] https://parismap360.com/website/var/tmp/image-thumbnails/0/6...
[3] https://www.urbanrail.net/eu/at/vienna/tram/wien-tram-centre...
> but the metro is at least an order of magnitude (if not more) more expensive to operate
Many metros, specially the automates ones are really cheap to operate. If you compare capacity and cost then metro lines are far more efficient.
A lot of old tram lines are simply done by buses. Often even electric buses.
I'm all for more trams, but they are just one part of a much larger transportation system. Using them as the primary center to outskirts mechanism isn't a good idea.
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"imperial, totalitarian-authoritarian desires in mind."
That is what I felt while walking through it. The buildings in the old town center are just a little too tall, in the statues on top of the buildings are just plain creepy.
Plus, it had one of the nastiest McDonald's I've ever been in, which is quite an achievement given that I have tried to go to McDonald's and every city I've traveled to just for comparison sake.
On my first visit, on my first day, I walked by a beautiful Park and saw one blackbird picking the brains out of another blackbird.
That is Vienna to me.
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I'm not sure how your last sentence about foreigners relates to the rest of your comment. 3/5 of the influential people you mentioned were not Austrian. (implying that the intellectual ferment was partially due to a mix of foreign and diverse ideas).
I wonder which city can claim the title nowadays. At some point many would say San-Francisco but IMO it was a different kind of center, and that seems to be gone too anyhow.
I think when it's about an intellectually and culturally rich capital/world city, SF would not make the cut even among such cities of the USA, let alone the world. Unless one completely equates diverse intellectual and cultural heritage and tradition to something like hippie movement or money-making alone.
It’s a bold claim to make that Vienna has been abandoned by the Austrians.
