Erstellt am: 11. 10. 2013 - 16:45 Uhr

Boomtown Vienna

Population 1.75 million and growing.

This summer it was announced that Vienna had overtaken Hamburg to become the second biggest city in the German-speaking world in terms of population. Berlin is the largest, with a population of just over 3,29 million. At the beginning of this year, the population of Vienna as defined by the number of people listed in the Central Register of Residents was 1.741.246. The preliminary figure for July is around 1,75 million, says Alexander Wisbauer from Statistics Austria. If you look at the projections, the population of Vienna is going to hit the 2 million mark about 20 years from now.

APA/Georg Hochmuth

So where are all these people coming from? The short answer is migration, says Professor Heinz Fassmann from the Department of Geography and Spatial Research at the University of Vienna. And it’s international migration which is driving Vienna’s growth rather than domestic migration - in fact "Austrian citizens are moving out of the city and we have a very respectable suburbanisation process around the fringes of the city."

Increasing diversity

Professor Fassmann says there is an increasing diversity of people moving to Vienna: "We have a growing proportion of EU citizens because of the labour market situation, but also because of the universities - we have a growing number of foreign students especially from EU neighbouring countries … not only from Germany but also a growing proportion from Slovakia, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia." He compares the current scenario with migration patterns of the 19th century when "Vienna was the centre of the Balkan region and Eastern Europe." In 1910 the population of Vienna reached a peak of over 2 million.

gemeinfrei

We should also be wary of thinking in stereotypes when we hear the word migration - "we are often thinking these are guest workers or second generation or family reunification. This is not the case. The migration from Turkey is now on a very low level." The migration Vienna is seeing today is "student migration, labour migration, it’s Western Europe, it’s Eastern Europe and some parts of the rest of the world".

http://www.openstreetmap.org

There may be many challenges associated with an expanding population, but, says Professor Fassmann, on the whole growth should be seen as an opportunity for the city and not a problem. Not that long ago Vienna was still shrinking - in 1987 the population dropped to a low of 1,48 million - and there were concerns that the city would lose out financially and politically. But things look different today. A growing population means more money for the city, both in terms of wages and investment, but also distribution of government spending. "Now Vienna is the cross-pole of the whole Eastern region of Austria and that’s a wonderful chance for the city."

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