Could This City Be the Model for How to Tackle the Both the Climate and Housing Crisis? (npr.org)
- Reference: 0178057781
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/06/15/207237/could-this-city-be-the-model-for-how-to-tackle-the-both-the-climate-and-housing-crisis
- Source link: https://www.npr.org/2025/06/15/nx-s1-5400642/affordable-housing-environment-vienna-climate-change
About half the city's 2 million people live in the widespread (and government-supported) apartments, with solar panels on top and very thick, insulated walls that reduce the need for heating and cooling. (One resident tells NPR they don't even need an air conditioner because "It's not cold in winter times. It's not hot in summer times.")
> Vienna council member Nina Abrahamczik, who heads the climate and environment committee, says as the city transitions all of its buildings off planet-heating fossil fuels, they're starting with the roughly 420,000 housing units they already own or subsidize.... As Vienna makes an aggressive push to completely move away from climate-polluting natural gas by 2040, it's starting with much of this social housing, says Jürgen Czernohorszky, executive city councilor responsible for climate and environment. City-owned buildings are now switching from gas to massive electric heat pumps, and to geothermal, which involves probing into the ground to heat homes. Another [2]massive geothermal project that drills even deeper into the earth to heat homes is also underway.
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> The city is also powering housing with solar energy. As of a year and a half ago, Vienna mandates [3]all new buildings and building extensions to have rooftop solar. And Vienna's older apartment buildings are getting climate retrofits, says Veronika Iwanowski, spokesperson for Vienna's municipal housing company, Wiener Wohnen. That includes new insulation, doors and windows to prevent the city's wind from getting in the cracks. The increase in energy efficiency and switching from gas to renewables doesn't just have climate benefits from cutting fossil fuel use. It also means housing residents are paying less on electric bills...
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> With city-subsidized housing, housing developers can compete to get land and low-interest loans from the city. Officials say those competitions are a critical lever for climate action. "As we can control the contents of the competitions, we try to make them fit to the main goals of the city," says Kurt Hofstetter, city planner for Vienna, "which is of course also ecological...." Now the housing judges give out points for things like increased energy efficiency, green roofs and sustainable building materials... Now the climate innovations in subsidized housing are inspiring the private market as well, Hofstetter says...
The article notes that most of the city's funding is provided [4]in the form of low-interest loans , according to a researcher at the Austrian Federation of Limited-Profit Housing Associations. (And the average social housing rents are about $700 for a large one-bedroom apartment, says Gerald Kössl, researcher at the Austrian Federation of Limited-Profit Housing Associations.)
[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/06/15/nx-s1-5400642/affordable-housing-environment-vienna-climate-change
[2] https://www.omv.com/en/media/press-releases/2024/preparations-are-being-made-to-start-drilling-for-the-first-deep-geothermal-plant-in-vienna
[3] https://www.fwp.at/en/news/blog/amendment-of-the-vienna-building-code-2023
[4] https://climateandcommunity.org/research/vienna-green-social-housing/
Ian Betteridge laughs... (Score:2)
... and points out that Vienna has almost laughably mild weather: barely below freezing (-2 C) at its winter lows, and barely above warm (+27 C) for its summer highs. Unless the intention is to relocate all cities to places with such nice climates, it's not a useful "Model for How to Tackle the Both the Climate and Housing Crisis". And rooftop solar is theoretically fine, although usually so expensive as to never recoup its capital costs, in a single-family house with a good battery storage system, but it
Climate (Score:2)
My grandma's cousin lived in Eureka California near the coast in a nice open plan ranch house. Air conditioning was handled by a couple of oscillating fans and windows that opened. Heat was supplied by two extra incandescent lamps she'd leave on at night, and a Franklin stove for the one month out of the year it gets down into the 50s.
An amazingly efficient system for her. It wouldn't quite cut it where we live, when it's well below freezing for a third of the year with almost no sun, then into the 90s and
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Not to mention "government supported" equal "the projects," and we know without a doubt who "the projects" end up in the US.
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Where I live in the U.S. midwest, adequate solar costs about $65K for the panels and installation. And then another $54K (at least) for the batteries. So yes, so expensive that it make more economical sense to keep paying the utility company.
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How many years of electricity bills does it take to reach $120k? For me, it would be about 50 years -- considerably longer than I could reasonably expect the solar power system, and maybe my already-50-year-old house, to last.
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So much? Here around, the total price (panels + batteries + installation) costs less than $25.000. My sister-in-law just installed 20 square meters of solar and 12.5 kWh of batteries at her home.
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How on *earth* does solar end up being so absurdly priced? A UK house can get solar installed, soup to nuts, for well under $10k, including scaffolding (typically a significant part of the cost here in the UK). 65k USD would buy you enough for more than four houses! And 54k usd of batteries would be like a 90kWh battery here -- which is gigantic and totally unnecessary for a home setup.
UK solar and battery domestic installs typically come in at under 15k usd equivalent all-in.
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I was thinking much the same. Rooftop solar is quite expensive and would be insufficient for providing heat in anything but the most mild of climate. Years ago I did the math on how much energy I could get from solar power with the roof of my Midwestern house and a battery pack. For the winter I could do fine enough assuming I had fossil fuel heat. In the summer I'd have enough electrical power left over for charging up an EV. The problem was that was a solar+battery system that would cost more than th
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It's also not a model because unless you plan to demolish existing housing and rebuild it with better insulated walls there is not a lot you can do to improve wall insulation. In addition, as someone living in a very well insulated house I can tell you that you absolutely do need airconditioning - the great insulation we need to get through Canadian winters is a liability in the summer because it traps the heat generated inside the house. After about the couple of days of hot weather without air conditionin
Short answer : (Score:1)
No
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Hi Betteridge!
Simpler steps (Score:1)
Tax flying fairly, i.e. heavily, tax ICE cars fairly, i.e. heavily.
Why is no government doing this ?
Because the populist shits ( of left and right ) are doing what people want them to do, not what people need them to do TO SAVE THE FUCKING PLANET.
It's time a politician stood up for WHAT IS RIGHT. They might even get some votes.
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Right now people where I live (Los Angeles area) are screaming bloody murder to stop subsidizing teslas, but they don't say much of anything about oil subsidies.
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The propaganda of big oil was effective over the last 60 years.
That's because you're not listening (Score:2)
You can bet your ass anyone demanding the end of Tesla subsidies is also demanding the end of oil subsidies.
The goal is walkable cities. Public transportation for almost everything except a handful of commercial uses and people who live out in The boondocks.
If you ever thought about how much you give up to have that big honkin SUV maybe the average American would be more receptive. Nobody thinks about all the indirect costs like the fact that we maintain hundreds of billions of dollars of military t
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> tax ICE cars fairly, i.e. heavily.
Yeah those big black Broncos do burn through the gas - especially with all the stop-and-go driving and heavy acceleration necessary for catching those dangerous lettuce pickers.
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Honestly I wonder how much a car would cost if we took all of the externalized costs and made people directly pay them in a way they could see.
Not just the taxes on the roads but the billions and billions and military spending to maintain a reliable supply of oil globally, keeping in mind that the supply of oil has to be globally maintained or American oil sellers will just sell it for the higher price overseas instead of giving it to you...
Not to mention also the enormous negative health effects an
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> Honestly I wonder how much a car would cost if we took all of the externalized costs and made people directly pay them in a way they could see.
The thing about externalized costs is they are impossible to calculate with anything close to being accurate. I expect someone can some up with a number, but there's no knowing if it has any relation to reality since there's too many variables to consider.
Then consider the possibility that if this tax to cover externalized costs were applied people might find the taxed fossil fuels still cheaper than the renewable option with all its externalized costs added up and applied as a tax. There's externalized c
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When the solution is more damaging to people than the problem - and it is, when people like Al Gore, from his private jet and multiple mansions paid for with family tobacco money, are telling us we have to shiver in the dark with cold showers - yeah, people are doing to elect different officials.
And getting between Californians and their cars is pretty much guaranteed to be the end of a political career. Just ask Gray Davis about when he tried to triple DMV fees.
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> When the solution is more damaging to people than the problem - and it is, when people like Al Gore, from his private jet and multiple mansions paid for with family tobacco money, are telling us we have to shiver in the dark with cold showers - yeah, people are doing to elect different officials.
> And getting between Californians and their cars is pretty much guaranteed to be the end of a political career. Just ask Gray Davis about when he tried to triple DMV fees.
I fear you may be right. We may be in an era when people unashamedly only vote for their own immediate interests.
It's how people are when they constantly feel at the end of their tether.
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> Tax flying fairly, i.e. heavily, tax ICE cars fairly, i.e. heavily. Why is no government doing this ?
I'm with you on increasing tax on polluting transportation, but some governments are doing something. TFA is in Europe, so here is the situation here: car fuel is 2-3 times more expensive than in USA, entirely due to taxes. It's not an easy decision to increase further beyond, it is already understood as a tax on the poor (who can't get better cars).
Taxes on air travel are more consensual. This year the French government *multiplied by 4* the tax on air flights (TSBA/TTAP), now up to 120 € per passenge
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> Why is no government doing this ?
Pricing out the demand side of mobility is a great way of turning your city / country into a crime ridden hellhole. Nothing good has come from regressively punishing the poor for the whims of the rich. If you want to stop people driving ICE cars then the solution is not to tax ICE cars, but rather to build systems of transport that offer an alternative to owning the thing. Vienna didn't get to be on the top of most liveable cities list (continuously for the past two decades) by trying to tax away problems,
Boxed in (Score:2)
I don't want an apartment/flat. I want a house, with a garden and driveway. You live in a box if you want. Most people need outdoor space.
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Where do you get this "need" from? About half of the population of Europe are living in a flat and are perfectly happy doing so. Add to that terraced housing (which I'm sure you would consider equally boxed in since they don't come with driveways, and many without gardens) and you can objectively say the majority of the population is doing just fine without it.
You may not want it, more power to you. But don't pretend you speak for a "need" of others.
As for outdoor space, even when I lived in an apartment I
How to end housing crisis. (Score:1)
1) Make all Air BNB landlords register as an actual business, and pay all relevant fees and maintain code.
Re:How to end housing crisis. (Score:4, Insightful)
I would agree that's not the case, but they certainly made it worse.
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No idea why this gets downvoted. In many parts of Europe, cities are becoming or have become uninhabitable for normal people because rents and real estate prices are absurdly high. In some places, rental housing is either so scarce or so expensive or both that someone who wants to move there would be better off buying a flat or a house, which again is impossible for normal earners. That's why more and more people are demanding to illegalize vacant rental apartments and banning Air BNB and similar businesses
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Presumably it is being downvoted for single blame of a highly complex socio economic problem. Yes AirBnB feeds the problem, but they aren't the sole source of it. In plenty of places in Europe have heavily regulated or outright banned the likes of AirBnB, and ... nothing happened. The places are still overrun by tourists, the places are still ludicrously expensive.
The reality is much of the housing crisis is driven by a multitude of things. In some places it's short stay rentals. In some places its the owne
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On a related subject, It seems to me that business buying homes and then renting them at... maybe 2x of what a mortgage would cost contributes to the problem. It seems like housing should be for single families to own, and not big business.