From June 10th to 12th 2015 the conference entitled ‘Smart Cities: People make the city’ took place in Vienna. The second day of the event with about 1,300 participants – mayors, communal councillors and municipal employees – from all Austrian regions was dedicated to four different actual topics. Christof Schremmer moderated the discussion on topic 1 ‘Affordable living in metropolitan areas’ debating five major challenges: models for ground provision, the role of technical standards and costs in the housing sector, financing and subsidized housing, social aspects of housing development, cooperation with private real estate industry. Dealing with ‘Social innovation as an instrument of urban development’ in topic 4, Ursula Mollay and colleagues from the project SPRINKLE discussed different approaches of public participation reflecting on options for “the next steps beyond participation”.
