WOLKE 7

Pilot Project for Local District Management and Sustainable Urban Development




Target area
The target area of the pilot project is close to the prominent Viennese "Gürtel", which as a historical main artery road visually and physically marks the border between the city's inner and outer districts. Thus, the old centre of the area concerned - "Kaiserstraße" - has been adversely affected by heavy traffic, pollution and bad living conditions for many years. Well-known places and formerly attractive buildings present themselves as dilapidated and bare of urban life.



Overall goal
As one of the two Viennese POSEIDON pilot projects, WOLKE 7 has focused on activities for the cultural, social and economic empowerment and benefit of a deteriorated and run-down area with its centre in a formerly renowned however nowadays neglected shopping street. Embedded in the POSEIDON working process with its permanent exchange and growth of know-how in the field of neighbourhood management, WOLKE 7 provided practical support and sustainable impulses for the area's development, the overall goal of the project being to bring it back to the public's attention and to urban life.

Target group
Residents, companies, businesspeople, artists and schools, social and cultural institutions.

Steps
In addition to this networking approach, joint activities were held in order to ensure socio-economic reactivation of an urban "periphery" within the inner city living and working area. In the context of the POSEIDON working phases, this was mainly done by

• initiation of new local networks in the context of several joint interdisciplinary projects;
• rediscovery of long forgotten aspects of the living environment;
• work on innovative methods of involvement, one specific activity being the set-up of an area website as a platform for criticism, ideas, local history and individual stories;
• presentations and exhibitions of related studies and publications that correspond with the aim of the project.