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Dr
Wendelin Wanka, Chief Executive Office of Vienna City
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INTEGRATIVE
CITY DEVELOPMENT - VIENNA EXAMPLES (Page 3)
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a city of sustainable development. The pillars of this strategy
are social equity, shared responsibility, future-oriented economic
systems and a prudent attitude towards our natural environment.
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a competitive city not only to remain a centre for the CEEC,
but also to foster innovation in business such as small- and
medium enterprises. |
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a centre of culture and knowledge, including science, technology,
humanities and visual arts. |
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a city of equal chances and social fairness to preserve the
high social standards, to eliminate disadvantages, to promote
specific skills and also to allow individual lifestyles. |
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an ecological city with high quality of life and modern recreational
infrastructure to be maintained for future generations. |
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a part of the European network of cities and regions in order
to upgrade cities as dynamic poles of development within the
European Union with the main focus on our Eastern neighbouring
cities and regions. |
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let me outline the structure of the Strategy Plan which consists
of five strategic foci: |
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Playing an active role in Europe and enhancing regional co-operation:
please be reminded that the first EU Urban Forum took place
in Vienna 1998 due not only to Austria´s presidency but also
to Vienna´s active role in urban working groups, such as the
Eurocities network. Vienna´s partnership with our neighbouring
cities and regions in the East - Brno, Györ and foremost Bratislava
- aims at creating a Euroregion. With two neighbouring federal
Austrian Länder we find ourselves already in the Vienna region.
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co-operations not only lead to a strong region which better
faces globalisation and competition, yet also helps to tackle
common problems - traffic, sub-urbanisation and environment
- just to name a few. Let us not forget the overall important
human factor, people are brought together again. People who
were separated for forty years. |
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this context let me make a few words about traffic: |
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has an excellent 1.000 km long public transport system with
buses, trams and five subway lines, some of them are being extended
to the outskirts of the city. Vienna and the whole region around
the city are covered by the Eastern Region Transportation Association
[Verkehrsverbund Ost-Region]. The Danube harbour is an important
inland water port, Vienna International Airport the European
hub for Eastern bound flights. |
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a heritage of the empire, Vienna still has five train stations
and no direct connection from West to East, hence passengers
have to change train stations to continue their trips. It is
planned to combine the important West- and South station in
order to have one major Vienna train station. This goal represents
an enormous challenge for the coming years. This project is
of utmost importance, otherwise the city might be left out of
the Trans-European Networks [TEN]. |
| Train
routes are being modernised between Prague, Bratislava and Budapest.
Vienna cannot risk being left out. TEN Node Vienna is the project
securing that this will not happen - it foresees making Vienna
a traffic hub within the TEN system. Furthermore, Vienna shall
be developed into an intermodal traffic hub for freight transport
and logistics. That means expanding several freight transport
centres around Vienna. |
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