If archaeologists wanted to unearth the magnificent buildings of European social democracies in a few centuries, it is possible that they would come out in Marika Prajka's living room.
The 80-year-old has lived for 15 years in the Reumannhof, a listed apartment building on the Margareten belt in Vienna's 5th district.
It is a kind of socio-political world cultural heritage.
As ordinary as it looks on the inside, it is just as magnificent on the outside.
Even the name reminds of the origin.
Under the first social-democratic mayor, Jakob Reumann, affordable housing became one of the city’s core tasks from 1920 – and it has remained so to this day.
His successor coined the saying
that
still hangs like a promise over this city's housing policy: "When we are no more, these stones will speak for us."
For Marika Prajka, the Reumannhof is her home, not a monument.
For two and a half rooms on 55.5 square meters, she pays 442 euros a month rent here.
'It's a small apartment.
But I feel good here,” she says.
She has toiled all her life.
To earn extra money, the 80-year-old still irons a diplomat's laundry.
She sends the money to her granddaughters.
She often spends her free time with her neighbors in the yard.
Most of them are already retired.
The people in Prajka's house come from Austria, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Slovakia.
The housing shortage was unimaginable after the First World War.
Tens of thousands of people had to sleep in shifts, and most people were unfamiliar with accommodation with a bathroom.
Housing was a political question that could decide about work, health, even a whole life.
With the help of its own taxes on carriages, servants and expensive apartments, the city financed the construction of hundreds of so-called community buildings within a few years.
At the same time, during the crises of the 1920s, the city began to buy a lot of land cheaply - which is still in use.
The area around the Reumannhof was long considered the »ring road of the proletariat«; nowhere else in the city center do so many people still live in communal housing.
This policy was continued after the Second World War, today the municipal buildings extend over the entire city.
Large plaques still remind of where the city built for its residents.
The signs are perhaps the most clever advertisement for social democratic politics ever.
With them, the city has been showing what it has achieved for a hundred years - and who was in power during this time.
Since 1920, 220,000 municipal apartments have been built in Vienna.
Record in Europe, maybe also in the democratic world as a whole.
The real achievement, say many Viennese, is that not a single house has been sold to date.
With this wealth of apartments, Vienna is now clearly different from most other large cities, where rents are becoming increasingly unaffordable for many people.
At the same time, there is hardly any other European city where there is so little home ownership.
In addition to council housing, the Austrian capital has a similar number of apartment buildings built by cooperatives and non-profit corporations.
Overall, more than 40 percent of people live in non-profit housing.
The aim of the rent here is only to recoup the construction costs and to enable maintenance.
This is what the Housing Non-Profit Act wants.
A model that was abolished in Germany, among other places, and is envied by many.
What can other countries learn from this?
The middle class should also live in Vienna's municipal housing, the income limit for individuals is 49,080 euros a year - net.
With this generous income scheme, the city wants to promote social cohesion.
Social housing should be a basic right for most, not a last resort for the poor and marginalized.
One result of this model is that there is poverty and wealth, locals and newcomers throughout the city, but practically no continuous problem areas, no banlieues and no ghetto.
The first and perhaps most obvious lesson from Vienna is that it can still help today if housing is a public good and not a business.
Instead of subsidizing increasingly expensive rents, as has long been the norm in Germany, Vienna still primarily finances affordable living space – which is maintained in the long term and thus also helps future generations to find an affordable home.
A second thing to learn from Vienna.
On the other hand, it has long been difficult to find a new apartment in Vienna.
For years the city shrank, now it is growing faster than it can be built.
The private housing market is becoming more and more expensive - and has overtaken the public interest market in terms of the number of new buildings since 2016 for the first time since the Second World War.
In addition, rules apply here that are sometimes more lax than in Germany.
For example, privately rented apartments may be rented for a limited period without reason.
"The result is that people don't even report a broken faucet so as not to screw it up," says housing expert Thomas Ritt from the Chamber of Labor (AK), the legal representation for Austria's employees.
A still unpublished AK study, which is available to SPIEGEL in advance, shows that more and more people are building without renting out.
On average, rents in the private sector are twice as high as in the subsidized sector.
These are developments that Vienna was not aware of until recently.
There are also new problems in community building.
Cohesion is a very common thing.
The caretakers, known in Vienna as caretakers, used to live directly in the building.
They collected the rent at the door at the beginning of the month.
If there was a problem, they were easy to reach.
In the house there were also shops, dance halls and lounges.
Not infrequently, the ruling Social Democrats also had their offices right here.
The proximity ensured closeness, mutual control - but also a sense of community.
Today there is a service hotline.
People from 170 nations now live in a community building.
Until 2006, people without an Austrian passport were not allowed to move in.
Ever since the EU banned such discrimination, there have been long waiting lists and a »Vienna Bonus« for locals.
But the peaceful coexistence of different people has become more difficult than easier over the years.
In the meantime, there are reality programs from community building on private television.
The houses there are not presented as achievements, but as the homes of strangers and freaks.
An above-average number of FPÖ voters have long lived in municipal housing.
An even bigger problem, however, is the renovation backlog in the city.
Vienna has built and kept apartments for a hundred years.
In a way, the city is now suffering from its own success.
Unlike the Reumannhof, most of the buildings date from the post-war period.
Many were never fundamentally renovated.
Some residents have installed bathtubs or additional rooms on the balcony themselves.
No one knows how great the need for renewal really is.
However, estimates by the Austrian Court of Auditors assume at least five billion euros.
Even representatives of the SPÖ, which has won all democratic elections in Vienna since 1919, are wondering how much longer things will go on.
From 2030, stricter energy values for old buildings will apply throughout the EU.
By then, the city would have to renovate several tens of thousands of apartments in terms of energy efficiency.
A housing expert from the party warns quietly: “Many houses are now in a difficult condition.
The postponed renovations are a time bomb for Vienna.«
Michael Gehbauer should ensure that people in Vienna can continue to live well in the future.
The 59-year-old is the managing director of the housing association for private employees, a non-profit housing association with 10,000 apartments in Vienna.
He has just inaugurated two new buildings in the 14th district, modern buildings in bright colors that don't look like social housing and are still affordable.
Since the city completed its last council building in 2004, it is Gehbauer and his colleagues who have been providing Vienna with new social housing, currently building between 4,000 and 7,000 each year.
The city is now planning new apartments via a subsidiary, but so far there are hardly any houses in the »Gemeindebau Neu«.
Gehbauer is convinced: "We have continued the work of the city very well and can perhaps do better in some areas in the meantime."
The city supports the construction with loans and grants.
In the meantime, only building rights are usually awarded, the land remains with the city.
It was different for a while, the sale of land promised high profits.
But it is now clear that whoever owns the land is in control.
That is the fourth and perhaps most important lesson from Vienna.
In subsidized housing by cooperatives, almost the same rules apply as in municipal housing, but tenants have to contribute to the construction costs.
For a two-room apartment, 30,000 euros can be due.
Money that many people lack, also in Vienna.
As a solution, there have been so-called smart apartments for several years, which are smaller but modernly equipped and only require a small personal contribution.
The cold rent here is 7.50 euros per square meter.
The city now stipulates that 50 percent of the subsidized apartments must be built according to this concept.
Gehbauer does not hide the fact that this was a challenge - especially with rising prices for building materials, for example.
»Meanwhile«, he says, »it would no longer be possible to build this house under these conditions.«
Kathrin Gaál knows about such needs.
She is Vienna's Deputy Mayor and is responsible for construction.
Their predecessors inaugurated magnificent buildings and recalled old successes, later they became mayors or federal chancellors.
Gaál now has to fight to ensure that there is still enough living space.
"We won't leave anyone alone," she promises.
A few days ago, the city announced that it would compensate for rising costs with higher subsidies.
Is that enough?
“We will have to rethink how we live together,” says Gaál.
In the future there will be more offers for home exchanges and support for communal living.
Part of it can already be seen in the new building designed by Michael Gehbauer.
One floor is reserved for a group of committed young families who would otherwise probably have built a house outside the city.
In the new building, they can now try out closer cooperation close to the center.
In return, they take on common tasks for the other residents.
It is an experiment, a kind of restart of the community building idea in the 21st century.
Marita Prajka doesn't want to know anything about it.
If it is possible, she says in a calm voice in her armchair, she will spend the rest of her life in the Reumannhof.
"And at some point," she says, "I'll just be carried out to the council house and someone new will move in."
Cooperation: Patrick Stotz, Achim Tack
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