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Paper short abstract:

This paper deals with the public good of participating in urban renewal. In Vienna, so called soft urban renewal has been established as a bundle of policies creating opportunities of participatory urban renewal. This paper explores how these policies predefine publics participating in them.

Paper long abstract:

Soft urban renewal is a source of pride in the official discourse of the municipality of Vienna, and brings international recognition such as through the UN Habitat Award. It is also a public service provided by a private company created to the sole end of working in the name of the city. But whom does it serve? The key to soft urban renewal is citizen participation, that is increasingly becoming seen as an integral part of sustainable development. This paper focuses on the municipal side of soft urban renewal: How are citizens reached for inclusion into the participatory policies? On which values do the multiple municipal authorities involved manage to agree? On which basis can the ideas of some citizens be considered in urban renewal and others not? Theoretically this paper engages with acts of citizenship as understood by Engin Isin in order to trace how the inclusion of some citizens and the exclusion of others comes to be. Empirically it is based on participant observation in the public service facilities "Gebietsbetreuung Stadterneuerung" as well as on interviews with various sets of actors holding official positions in the municipality who professionally engage with citizen participation as part of soft urban renewal.