4 ms·

It's not (only) the high-taxes on the local high-income people that have kept Vienna (and Austria as a whole) still in the game, it's also the fact that they di

It's not (only) the high-taxes on the local high-income people that have kept Vienna (and Austria as a whole) still in the game, it's also the fact that they did a sort of economic imperialism throughout Eastern Europe after the Wall fell/the Cold War ended and they (Vienna and Austria) have managed to live off that bounty for pretty much the whole time. I'm talking oil companies, banks, wood-processing groups, even construction companies, all getting a piece of the Eastern-European very big pie and repatriating lots and lots of profits. Trouble is, the war in Ukraine means that both the Ukrainian and Russian markets are now off-limits for them, and the rest of Eastern Europe to which they used to have privileged access to (meaning Romania, from where I'm from, and the Balkans) is starting to "fight" back, so to speak, I'm talking about local capitalists + other foreign (non-Austrian) groups that have become confident and knowledgeable enough in these local markets in order to drive the Austrians out. Other than that, yeah, Vienna is a wonderful city but a little bit cold for my taste (which is reason enough not to place it in the number one spot as for the "liveability" standings). Its tramway network is top-notch, though, one of the few "Western" European cities that can still say that about their trams, kudos to them for that (it probably helps that, half-jokingly speaking, Austrians are Slavs that happen to speak German so it makes sense that they havent't gotten rid of their trams, just look at the Czechs and the Slovaks next door who also have wonderful tram networks still running).

spacechild1 2y ago
Huh? Many European cities still have trams. For example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Germany
- paganel 2y ago
  They're joke of tram systems. Yeah, for (West) Germany Munich is an exception, I guess (and I should have added it), but look at cities like Hamburg, which got rid fo their tram network completely back in the day [1]. To say nothing of very big European cities like Paris, London, Madrid or Rome that are (almost) totally lacking in that respect, and I'm not counting the light-rail thingie, I'm talking about trams that actually go to downtown and to many, many other areas, like a spider web. This is the Paris tram map [2], it's a joke, to be honest with you. Yes, I know that the metro is supposed to be a substitute for that, but the metro is at least an order of magnitude (if not more) more expensive to operate and it's not the same thing as a tram, where you just pop-in and pop-out while seeing the actual daylight through the tram's windows. Later edit: For comparison, this is the Vienna tram map, i.e. the spider web network I was talking about [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Hamburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Hamburg [2] https://parismap360.com/website/var/tmp/image-thumbnails/0/601/thumb__map/paris-tram-map.pjpeg https://parismap360.com/website/var/tmp/image-thumbnails/0/6... [3] https://www.urbanrail.net/eu/at/vienna/tram/wien-tram-centre.png https://www.urbanrail.net/eu/at/vienna/tram/wien-tram-centre...
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    > but the metro is at least an order of magnitude (if not more) more expensive to operate Many metros, specially the automates ones are really cheap to operate. If you compare capacity and cost then metro lines are far more efficient. A lot of old tram lines are simply done by buses. Often even electric buses. I'm all for more trams, but they are just one part of a much larger transportation system. Using them as the primary center to outskirts mechanism isn't a good idea.

spacechild1 2y ago

Huh? Many European cities still have trams. For example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Germany

paganel 2y ago
They're joke of tram systems. Yeah, for (West) Germany Munich is an exception, I guess (and I should have added it), but look at cities like Hamburg, which got rid fo their tram network completely back in the day [1]. To say nothing of very big European cities like Paris, London, Madrid or Rome that are (almost) totally lacking in that respect, and I'm not counting the light-rail thingie, I'm talking about trams that actually go to downtown and to many, many other areas, like a spider web. This is the Paris tram map [2], it's a joke, to be honest with you. Yes, I know that the metro is supposed to be a substitute for that, but the metro is at least an order of magnitude (if not more) more expensive to operate and it's not the same thing as a tram, where you just pop-in and pop-out while seeing the actual daylight through the tram's windows. Later edit: For comparison, this is the Vienna tram map, i.e. the spider web network I was talking about [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Hamburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Hamburg [2] https://parismap360.com/website/var/tmp/image-thumbnails/0/601/thumb__map/paris-tram-map.pjpeg https://parismap360.com/website/var/tmp/image-thumbnails/0/6... [3] https://www.urbanrail.net/eu/at/vienna/tram/wien-tram-centre.png https://www.urbanrail.net/eu/at/vienna/tram/wien-tram-centre...
- panick21_ 2y ago
  > but the metro is at least an order of magnitude (if not more) more expensive to operate Many metros, specially the automates ones are really cheap to operate. If you compare capacity and cost then metro lines are far more efficient. A lot of old tram lines are simply done by buses. Often even electric buses. I'm all for more trams, but they are just one part of a much larger transportation system. Using them as the primary center to outskirts mechanism isn't a good idea.