The Data

What data are you actually seeing here? For 243 different areas that collectively make up the city of Vienna, Austria, The Zuhause Project offers deep insights into diversity and representation of each sub-community.

The pie chart is an intuitive and digestible format to display the cultural makeup of each sub-district — with each slice representing the people of a different nation residing within Vienna. Among these nations are Austria, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic & Slovakia, Hungary, Romania & Bulgaria, Former Yugoslavia, Turkey, and Rest of Europe. The pie chart can also be manipulated over time, with data at 5 ten year intervals: 1971, 1981, 1991, 2001, and 2011. To the right, a line chart displays the Austrian population percentage of each sub-region in Vienna, with the general trend that since 1971, the communities have become more diverse and less Austrian-concentrated.

How does this connect to housing?

Housing policies have signifcant consequences for the patterns we track and recognize in our analytics. An important economic and social trade off rests in the income-limit for subsidized housing. Vienna's relatively high income-limits for subsidized housing aim to promote social diversity, but lower thresholds would allow for more targeted resource allocation and ease the housing budget, while the higher limits reduce market fluidity, as residents remain in subsidized housing rather than transitioning to the private market. Tenant protections under the Tenant Act exacerbate this issue, as income increases are not monitored, allowing higher-earning tenants to continue benefiting from subsidies.

This leaves some low-income families struggling to access housing.The policy limits long-term market flexibility, complicating the system’s effectiveness and suggesting the feasibility of housing policy to promote investment and growth while improving Vienna's living standards and socioeconomic mobility for a more equitable society.

Our Goals at Zuhause

Social segregation persists in areas like Favoriten, where integration between subsidized and private housing has been less effective. High income thresholds for subsidized housing and rent controls limit market fluidity, causing housing mismatches and reducing upward mobility for low-income families. Furthermore, declining investment in older subsidized properties raises concerns about the long-term sustainability of housing quality.There are also unanswered questions regarding how much of the reduction in inequality can be attributed solely to housing regulations, given the roles of education, employment, and social services. As Vienna’s population is projected to reach 2.2 million by 2035, it remains uncertain whether these policies can adapt to growing demand. Nevertheless, Vienna’s housing model offers valuable lessons for other cities aiming to reduce inequality through comprehensive regulations.

Our analytics at The Zuhause Project also include a heatmap on a scale from 1 (host population dominant, ie Austrians) to 8 (concentrated, ie non-host population dominant). We track this data across three relevant characteristics: country of birth, nationality, and religion. As such, census data, which offers little insight without deeper analysis and intepretation, is processed and converted to a digestible format, and the connections between the city's housing policies and socioeconomic equality and diversity statistics over time become evident. This is the mission of The Zuhause Project, to to unite the people of Vienna in the fight for a housing & city development approach that encourages integration, reduces the wealth gap, and promotes socioeconomic equality.

Host

Host-population over-represented

The divisions of Vienna across 243 sub-regions tracked by Zuhause

Austrian share of population per region, over time (1971-2011).

Heatmap for country of birth

Diversity rating (scored out of 8)