The end of red Vienna - Recent ruptures and continuities in urban governance

After decades of corporatist urban governance dominated by social democracy ,Vienna is undergoing a process of economic and political restructuring. Th is process is expressed physically in large urban development projects, Don au City being the most important. Donau City is a large real estate project on the left bank of the Danube, based on public-private partnership. Due t o the liberalization of the housing market, new private actors are increasi ngly important, influencing decision-making in the Donau City project. In u rban planning in general, growing interest in real estate investment has re sulted in new planning procedures incorrectly labelled as bottom-up. In fac t, this is a fragmented, privatized, opaque and ad hoc form of urban govern ance accompanied by a new elitist hierarchy formed by leaders of the city's administration, business and academic worlds. This new, unaccountable elit e has elaborated a strategic plan for Vienna with little reference to the c itizenry. Therefore, the new liberal form of governance goes hand in hand w ith important continuities concerning co-optation, exclusion and conflict a voidance. The article ends by stressing the importance of alternative polit ical projects that aim at participatory democracy overcoming deep-rooted au thoritarian structures.