[HN Gopher] Review of Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the ...
___________________________________________________________________
Review of Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World
Author : mitchbob
Score : 134 points
Date : 2024-11-06 11:54 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nybooks.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nybooks.com)
| mitchbob wrote:
| https://archive.ph/tvAUO
| croisillon wrote:
| if you are in Vienna on Nov 21st, there is a (free) presentation
| of the book at the city hall:
| https://vorlesungen.wien.gv.at/richard-cockett-2111/
| itronitron wrote:
| it will be streamed online, if you want to attend in person
| then registration is required here:
|
| https://ticket.wien.gv.at/M09/richardcockett/
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| Vienna to me is a fascinating case of a city that found itself
| again after having lost its place in history more than once.
|
| If you look at the geography, if you look at the political
| climate, just at the fundamentals it's not clear why Vienna is a
| large city. There really is not a lot of reason for this city to
| matter today yet somehow it is a wonderful place to live in,
| despite all that.
|
| The city somehow managed to find an identity on its own that
| somehow makes it work.
| whilenot-dev wrote:
| > If you look at the geography, if you look at the political
| climate, just at the fundamentals it's not clear why Vienna is
| a large city.
|
| Could you elaborate on this a bit please? Vienna has culturally
| always been considered the front door to eastern Europe (from a
| central European POV).
|
| Vienna is one of the best cities in central Europe to go for an
| academic degree: Renting is capped and still affordable (and
| wants to be kept that way btw, see the ban of AirBnB). There
| are almost no education fees, even non-austrians can apply for
| benefits from the government. With 200k students it's the
| largest german-speaking university city on par with Berlin[0].
| The employment law is exemplary good. For me personally it
| isn't surprsing that almost 1/4th of whole Austria lives in
| Vienna.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.wien.gv.at/statistik/pdf/viennainfigures-2023.pd...
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| _> The employment law is exemplary good._
|
| Taht's not true at all. Employers can lay off workers for no
| reason at all at any time without paying any severance
| (unless you have a unio that can negotiate a better deal).
| Just hand them the notice and you're done.
| whilenot-dev wrote:
| The notice period is 6 weeks at minimum by law and often
| negotiated to be 3 months on unlimited contracts - limited
| contacts can't be terminated unilateral. And, depending on
| social situation, you can still sue immediately through the
| Arbeiterkammer[0] without any costs.
|
| [0]: https://www.arbeiterkammer.at/beratung/arbeitundrecht/
| beendi...
| jahnu wrote:
| Right there are some restrictions but people seem to have
| the weird idea that you can't get fired without cause or
| redundancy. If the employer does it correctly they can
| essentially get rid of anyone, those restrictions
| notwithstanding.
| whilenot-dev wrote:
| You can get fired immediately without cause, but that's
| against the law, and the law is pretty clear on lawful
| causes: SS 27. Als ein
| wichtiger Grund, der den Dienstgeber zur vorzeitigen
| Entlassung berechtigt, ist insbesondere anzusehen:
| 1. Wenn der Angestellte im Dienste untreu ist, sich in
| seiner Tatigkeit ohne Wissen oder Willen des Dienstgebers
| von dritten Personen unberechtigte Vorteile zuwenden
| lasst, insbesondere entgegen der Bestimmung des SS 13
| eine Provision oder eine sonstige Belohnung annimmt, oder
| wenn er sich einer Handlung schuldig macht, die ihn des
| Vertrauens des Dienstgebers unwurdig erscheinen lasst;
| 2. wenn der Angestellte unfahig ist, die versprochenen
| oder die den Umstanden nach angemessenen Dienste (SS 6)
| zu leisten; 3. wenn einer der im SS 1
| bezeichneten Angestellten ohne Einwilligung des
| Dienstgebers ein selbstandiges kaufmannisches Unternehmen
| betreibt oder im Geschaftszweige des Dienstgebers fur
| eigene oder fremde Rechnung Handelsgeschafte macht oder
| wenn ein Angestellter den in SS 7, Absatz 4, bezeichneten
| Verboten zuwiderhandelt; 4. wenn der Angestellte
| ohne einen rechtmassigen Hinderungsgrund wahrend einer
| den Umstanden nach erheblichen Zeit die Dienstleistung
| unterlasst oder sich beharrlich weigert, seine Dienste zu
| leisten oder sich den durch den Gegenstand der
| Dienstleistung gerechtfertigten Anordnungen des
| Dienstgebers zu fugen, oder wenn er andere Bedienstete
| zum Ungehorsam gegen den Dienstgeber zu verleiten sucht;
| 5. wenn der Angestellte durch eine langere
| Freiheitsstrafe oder durch Abwesenheit wahrend einer den
| Umstanden nach erheblichen Zeit, ausgenommen wegen
| Krankheit oder Unglucksfalls, an der Verrichtung seiner
| Dienste gehindert ist; 6. wenn der Angestellte
| sich Tatlichkeiten, Verletzungen der Sittlichkeit oder
| erhebliche Ehrverletzungen gegen den Dienstgeber, dessen
| Stellvertreter, deren Angehorige oder gegen
| Mitbedienstete zuschulden kommen lasst.
|
| The employee can also "fire their employer", see _SS 26_
| [0] for lawful causes.
|
| The proof of guilt is up to the one who fires in the end.
|
| I know of one person who got fired unlawful, and their
| ex-employer is now EUR 80k+ poorer.
|
| [0]: https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/GeltendeFassung.wxe?Abfrag
| e=Bundes...
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| I think you're mixing up firing and dismissing. You need
| a reason to fire someone but firing means no notice
| period and no unemployment benefits, but you don't need a
| reason to dismiss someone with notice, which is
| relatively unique nerf in terms of EU workers rights by
| comparison.
| whilenot-dev wrote:
| GP was talking about firing and you were talking about
| the usual termination of an employment contract with a
| notice period.
|
| You don't need a reason to terminate an employment
| contract with a notice period, correct, but that doesn't
| mean it wasn't socially discriminating in origin - that
| depends on the social situation (eg. older employees can
| sue for discrimination on age) and the Arbeiterkammer
| will fight for it.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| If they don't need to provide a reason for terminating
| you then you also can't have a case for discrimination
| even if that were to happen since no employer is gonna
| tell you "yeah, we're firing you behause you're too
| black/woman", they'll just say "you're fired". AK was
| never of any use with despicable employers since the
| employee protection laws are very lax and employers very
| good at skirting the law so they can abuse you without
| being legally liable. Just read Kununu reviews of several
| Austrian companies.
| whilenot-dev wrote:
| > Just read Kununu reviews of several Austrian companies.
|
| I'd rather suggest to go to the _Arbeits- und
| Sozialgericht_ [0] and listen to some real cases, they
| are public anyway.
|
| [0]: https://www.justiz.gv.at/asg-wien/arbeits-und-
| sozialgericht-...
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| How does looking at "real cases" help me? They don't make
| my own cases any less real?
|
| Just because cases don't go through the court system,
| doesn't mean employer abuse doesn't happen.
| em-bee wrote:
| you can still suspect discrimination, and if you sue they
| have to prove that it wasn't.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| This isn't America. AK won't help you sue based on
| suspicions of discriminations if you don't bring written
| evidence that makes it a slam dunk case. And the court
| isn't biased towards the employee like the US jury.
| whilenot-dev wrote:
| Austrian law isn't US law, correct. I still don't
| understand your persistent pessimism though...
|
| What I once saw when I went to the _Arbeits- und
| Sozialgericht_ was a man, in the beginning of his 40s,
| suing for unlawful termination of his employment
| contract, after notice period and 7 months of employment.
| He sued with the help of the _Arbeiterkammer_. The judge
| asked the employer for their reasons, and tried to figure
| out if the termination has been made through thoughtful
| reasoning and after consideration of any other options.
| It is the responsibility of the employer too(!), and
| frankly in their best interest, to bring their employees
| up to speed and make them succeed in their work.
|
| "We don't need to state any reason" won't fly in front of
| the judge in Austria, as the judge wants to make an
| informed decision.
| em-bee wrote:
| exactly, this isn't america. despite not needing to have
| a specific reason for letting someone go you are not
| allowed to use morally questionable reasons (which goes
| beyond outright discrimination), and you must evaluate
| how the loss of employment affects the employee. that
| means, for example, the likelihood of that employee
| finding a new job with similar pay, (so you can't easily
| let go of older people), their family situation, or if
| they have another income. so you basically have to choose
| the employee who would be least affected. as far as i
| understand these kinds questions are not considered at
| all in the US. only discrimination againt protected
| classes, as defined by the law.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| _> The notice period is 6 weeks at minimum by law and
| often negotiated to be 3 months _
|
| The issue is being able to let go of workers for no
| reason, not the notice period itself, which BTW, every EU
| country has, Austria is nothing special here, quite the
| opposite. Do you feel this imbalance of power that you
| can be let go at any time for any reason is a fair to the
| workers in a so called socialist country?
|
| Wouldn't be such a big issue if unemployment wouldn't be
| a pitiful 60% of your salary for ~3 months (yes it can be
| longer but you're then at the mercy of the system handler
| if they agree with the job search you're doing, otherwise
| they can also cut you off if you don't want to take hard
| jobs like warehouse work) .
|
| _> you can still sue immediately through the
| Arbeiterkammer_
|
| AK will only help you sue only in case of unfair
| dismissal which rarely happens because employers don't
| need to provide a reason for terminating you as long as
| they give you the 6-week-3-month notice. So long hours,
| burnout and hire-and-fire mentality is rampant among
| Austrian companies, but rarely talked about because it
| contradicts the "most livable country" narrative paid for
| by Austria to the Economist who runs that yearly
| campaign-ad.
| whilenot-dev wrote:
| > The issue is being able to let go of workers for no
| reason, not the notice period itself, which BTW, every EU
| country has, Austria is nothing special here, quite the
| opposite. Do you feel this imbalance of power that you
| can be let go at any time for any reason is a fair to the
| workers in a so called socialist country?
|
| I don't think of Austria as a socialist country and I
| think it's fair to be able to let people go without
| reason, but with a notice period (and unemployment
| benefits and social healthcare).
|
| In practice, it won't be much different than with the
| requirement of a reason anyway: If you'll want to fight
| it, then you'll need to go through legal ways and contest
| the employers decision anyway. In Austria there's a
| 2-week time limit to bring in a lawsuit on unlawful
| termination of an employment contract if you still want
| to work there.
| rettetdemdativ wrote:
| Where did you get the idea that Austria is a socialist
| country? It used to be to a certain degree, but those
| times are long gone, except for strong unionization, the
| social safety net and worker protections. Austria is a
| deeply conservative country and has been for much of its
| history. Vienna is a bit of an exception, as it has
| actually been ruled by social democrats for ~100 years
| (with a violent break during the 30s and 40s).
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| I would argue that's what makes it good employment law.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| How so? Wages are still lower than in Germany, Belgium,
| Sweden or Netherlands where it's difficult to dismiss
| someone without proper cause and a long process.
|
| Where are the benefits for Austrian workers for this lack
| of protection against firing versus countries that have
| protections?
|
| And where is this HN simping for ruthless capitalist that
| lay you off you the moment you get sick coming from? What
| am I not seeing here?
| whilenot-dev wrote:
| > And where is this HN simping for ruthless capitalist
| that lay you off you the moment you get sick coming from?
|
| Sounds like you made some experiences with the wrong
| people.
|
| The process is faster than in other european countries,
| true, but we're still far away from a short process...
| unemployment benefits, social healthcare, sick leave,
| holidays etc. A shorter process can open up good
| opportunities, but demands some security to enjoy the
| risks. I think we're mostly balancing this act and it's a
| good thing when it makes Austria more attractive to
| employers. Competition against Germany, Belgium, Sweden,
| or the Netherlands is in my own interest.
|
| Especially in the case of software engineering it can be
| beneficial to join unstable employments and be ready to
| change frequently. I'm mostly seeing it as grateful
| (depending on market), as you can only see so many system
| designs fail in your lifetime. :D
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| _> Sounds like you made some experiences with the wrong
| people._
|
| This might shock you, but lot of Austrian employers
| behave like this: Hire and fire. Got sick? So long. This
| shouldn't be acceptable in an EU country. AK is also
| useless here because the laws are toothless.
|
| _> unemployment benefits, social healthcare, sick leave,
| holidays etc_
|
| Those exist in every other EU company where you can't lay
| off people just because you don't like their face
| anymore.
|
| _> Competition against Germany, Belgium, Sweden, or the
| Netherlands is in my own interest._
|
| Yet those countries score better at innovation,
| entrepreneurship while having better worker rights and
| higher wages. How do you explain that? I'm not sure
| working yourself to death in a race to the bottom on
| lowering workers rights is a good strategy.
| FredPret wrote:
| The easier it is to fire or retrench someone, the easier it
| is to hire them.
|
| And if it's easy for _me_ to hire... then it 's easier for
| the next entrepreneur to hire... paradoxically driving
| wages up and forcing businesses to keep hiring high so as
| to keep their competitive edge.
|
| The only people suffering under such a system are
| freeloaders - who get hired and then proceed to lean on
| labour laws to stick around for a long time after their
| welcome has worn out.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| > Could you elaborate on this a bit please?
|
| Austria has no sea access, no navy, few natural resources.
| Vienna is strategically not in a particularly amazing
| position compared to most other cities around. It's not clear
| to me what the fundamental reasons are why Vienna should be a
| large city other than that it historically was one, declined
| a bit and somehow regrew.
|
| I think it's great here, but I also cannot really understand
| why.
| empath75 wrote:
| > Austria has no sea access, no navy, few natural
| resources.
|
| Austria used to have all of those things. Vienna itself is
| not particularly different from any other imperial capital
| in terms of its location.
| whilenot-dev wrote:
| Austria was mostly about mathematics, engineering and human
| sciences. There was an Austro-Hungarian Navy, and Josef
| Ressel gave the Royal Navy the world's most powerful navy
| with his invention of the propeller. :D
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Maths was stronger in Germany, especially in Heidelberg.
| Riemann, Hilbert et al. were all Germans.
|
| There was also a fairly strong Polish school of maths and
| formal logic, but it can only be called Austrian with
| some stretching of the word; while Galicia was part of
| the empire, it was about as far (ethnically, culturally
| and physically) from Vienna as possible.
| kingkawn wrote:
| Even a cursory look at its history would resolve these
| questions
| paulgerhardt wrote:
| Coffee.
|
| While Vienna is located at the crossroads between the
| planes and the Alps along the Danube making it modestly
| fortifiable from previous Ottoman incursions in 1529 and
| essential hub for quarterly markets. As the easternmost
| capital not to fall to the Ottomans, merchants that went to
| the Viennese markets would have valuable first arbitrage
| opportunities on eastern spices, textiles, medicines, gems,
| and ceramics coming from the east (the taxes on which
| solidified the Hapsburg position). However, it wasn't until
| the siege of 1683 [1] that resulted in the Ottomans
| crushing defeat and withdrawal much like a port city by a
| sea only to see the sea recede.
|
| In that withdrawal the Ottomans left behind enough coffee
| in their abandoned provisions that the Viennese were able
| to open Europe's first coffee house and cement Vienna as
| Europes premier nexus for academia :-)
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/ukyquQkQAYo
| em-bee wrote:
| _Austria has no sea access_
|
| austria had sea access right up to WW1. and vienna only
| started to decline after that. vienna is also on the
| danube, a river that is connected to the main and rhine and
| allows ships to travel all the way from the north sea to
| the black sea. that makes it better positioned than paris,
| berlin or munich in this aspect. although i doubt that the
| river had much to do with its regrowth in the last few
| decades. it is more likely that its closeness to eastern
| europe made it an attractive destination once the eastern
| bloc fell apart, which was just before the time vienna
| started growing again.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| Sure, but Austria lost a lot of this many, many years
| ago. Yet Vienna continues to be an important city :)
| numewhodis wrote:
| > I also cannot really understand why.
|
| That's exactly why. Some wonderfully peculiar people were
| born from that gene pool. But that's history. They don't
| build em like that anymore.
| akgerber wrote:
| Nearly all large cities today are large cities because they
| historically were one, leading to economies of scale in
| infrastructure and agglomeration economies in the
| production and exchange of goods and services. Ease of sea
| access is not a major determinant of a city's growth &
| prosperity today.
|
| Many cities historically grew around ports due to the labor
| intensity of break-bulk shipping and the difficulty and
| expense of overland goods transport but modern container
| ports require relatively few employees and can easily move
| freight intermodally. The old piers in London and Hamburg
| and New York and San Francisco and their adjacent factories
| have all been redeveloped, and the working container ports
| have all relocated away from the city center to places
| where rail & highway access is easier, to places like
| Newark, Oakland, and Felixstowe.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| >see the ban of AirBnB
|
| Huh? I was there this summer with my daughter and there were
| plenty of Airbnbs. They were dramatically more affordable
| (especially given my need for two separate rooms).
|
| I get the AirBnB hate from local renters, but as a frequent
| traveler, hotels suck so bad that they deserve disruption.
| cg5280 wrote:
| I actually feel the opposite, I quite like the convenience
| that hotels offer (such as housekeeping, clean sheets) and
| I've found that unless you are doing longterm stays (1
| month+) the prices between hotels and Airbnbs are usually
| comparable.
| ghaff wrote:
| I've done very little renting from AirBnBs and they _can_
| be cheaper and there are certainly certain types of
| properties (like whole house rentals) that aren 't really
| available from traditional hotels vs. AirBnB/VRBO/etc.
|
| That said, especially for visiting a city, I'll pretty
| much go with traditional hotels, often chains, for the
| predictability. I've very rarely had a truly bad
| experience and it's usually been something like a badly
| situated luck-of-the-draw room and even that isn't
| usually a big deal in a city where I'm not spending a lot
| of time in a room.
|
| I can reliably checkin whenever, there's staff on-call, I
| don't usually care if I have a kitchen other than a small
| fridge (which many hotels have these days), and so forth.
| I've stayed in many B&Bs--some of which are also listed
| these days on AirBnB. Most have been good, some less so.
| Usually less of a good option in urban centers.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| Airbnb is just a scapegoat for the people who want quick
| solutions for the damage governments have done for ages.
|
| Competition is good and empowering people to make money off
| their assets (just like Uber) even better. Regulate it and
| hotels to protect consumers but don't pretend Airbnb's are
| the cause for housing being unaffordable to rent or buy.
| Specially not when you're taxing renters like mad and
| offering little in return.
|
| It's always funny reading takes in HN about places where
| you have first hand knowledge of, whether it be a
| geographic location or a company.
| rettetdemdativ wrote:
| Renting is not capped, unless I'm reading your comment wrong
| and you mean that the city's government influences it. Vienna
| does not have an explicit cap. Newer flats and houses are
| index-bound and rents are raised depending on a certain
| inflation threshold. Older buildings are usually cheaper and
| there are strict rules on how much rent can be raised. What
| Vienna does to make renting an apartment affordable is build
| social housing. Lots of it. 500.000 people in Vienna live in
| social housing and the Gemeindebauten are actually nice to
| live in, priority is given to young Viennese still living
| with their parents, and you can stay in your apartment even
| if your income increases. The city can therefore bring down
| rents in the market as not only the poorest can live in these
| apartments, but they are a valid choice for many.
|
| There also isn't a ban on Airbnb. As someone else already
| commented, you can still stay at Airbnbs in Vienna. You
| cannot rent out apartments in social housing as Airbnbs
| anymore and there are areas in the city where you would have
| to get a special permit and other inhabitants of the building
| would have to agree.
| spacechild1 wrote:
| Rent in old buildings (Altbau) is capped. The problem is
| that many landlords don't care and there are no penalties.
| You can charge back the extra rent but then your landlord
| will probably not extend your contract...
| whilenot-dev wrote:
| That's why: 1. make an unlimited contract
| 2. sue when you'll leave anyway
|
| The statute of limitations is 30 years.
| spacechild1 wrote:
| > 1. make an unlimited contract
|
| That's a good one :-D
|
| > The statute of limitations is 30 years.
|
| It's actually 10 years. I thought it was less...
|
| > 2. sue when you'll leave anyway
|
| So that's actually a good strategy! Just note that there
| are certain deadlines, see https://wien.arbeiterkammer.at
| /beratung/Wohnen/altbaumietenc....
| rettetdemdativ wrote:
| That is true, but it only affects buildings built before
| 1953/1945. I just didn't want to give people a wrong
| impression of why rents in Vienna are relatively low
| compared to other European cities of a similar size. It's
| not a "Mietpreisbremse" of hard cap on all rents.
| whilenot-dev wrote:
| Rents of _Type III_ [0] are capped[1].
|
| [0]: https://wien.arbeiterkammer.at/beratung/Wohnen/miete/A
| nwendu...
|
| [1]: https://wien.arbeiterkammer.at/mietzinsobergrenzen
| rettetdemdativ wrote:
| As I commented further down, that's true. Although
| category III is about buildings built before 1953/1945. I
| just didn't want to give people the impression that
| Vienna has relatively affordable rents because it has a
| hard cap on all rents. Newer buildings (not as old as
| 1953 seems to count as new) with index-bound rents have
| raised rents quite a bit in the past 5 years and have
| made Altbau very sought-after.
| whilenot-dev wrote:
| Fair point.
|
| It's not only buildings built before 1953/1945 though,
| social housings ( _Wohnungen in gefordert errichteten
| Mietwohnungshausern mit mehr als 2 Mietgegenstanden_ )
| are capped as well.
| rettetdemdativ wrote:
| This I didn't know. TIL. Also, thanks for the sources.
| em-bee wrote:
| add to that that in any new building 2/3rd of the
| apartments must be social housing.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| _> The city somehow managed to find an identity on its own that
| somehow makes it work._
|
| It's not "somehow" by magic. The explanation is that as a
| neutral country between NATO and the former Iron Curtain, it
| was a middle-man for business, politics and trade between the
| two blocks in the cold war era, profiting from both parties
| without having to pay obligations to any of them. Basically it
| won the geopolitical lottery, similar to a Switzerland Light.
| Today with the Iron Curtain gone and the EU-Schengen borders
| extended east beyond Austria, it's a lot less relevant than it
| used to be and therefore a lot less profitable.
| jahnu wrote:
| > it's a lot less relevant than it used to be and therefore a
| lot less profitable
|
| which metrics are you using for this assertion?
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| My 2 cents.
| holri wrote:
| Since the end of the Iron Curtain Vienna population grew
| dramatically by the size of the second largest city in
| Austria (Graz). During the time of the Iron Curtain Vienna
| was the only big city in Europe that lost population. It was
| a grey, old, slowly dying city. The city and the quality of
| live evolved dramatically since then. I would call it a
| completely different and in my opinion in almost any regard
| much better, lively, young, modern city. But it managed to
| keep its very distinguished identity.
| namaria wrote:
| Austrian legislation largely encourages clandestine ops and
| this brings a lot of offices, officials, fancy equipment and
| money to Vienna to this day.
| jahnu wrote:
| One big reason why it's large is because it was once the
| capital of an empire.
|
| Why it grew back from being small due to WW2 up to the 90s is,
| my educated guess, the geography combined with the standard of
| living. Right up against the poorer east and rich west. Easy
| for young people to move from the poorer neighbours, for a
| short while or even stay. Abundant labour and low corruption
| [ignoring political ;)] then trades easily with its richer
| western neighbours.
| kingkawn wrote:
| Vienna was also the primary neutral ground meeting point
| during the Cold War between soviet and western interests
| dewey wrote:
| It still is considered the "city of spies" because of some
| special cases in Austrian law:
| https://apnews.com/article/austria-spying-government-
| legisla...
| shadowtree wrote:
| It sits on a major European waterway, the Danube, which after
| Vienna exists into the plain lands - Hungary, Romania.
|
| Started as a Roman settlement, Vindobona, it has been
| strategically important for a _very_ long time.
|
| Paris without the Seine would equally be irrelevant. London
| too.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > If you look at the geography, if you look at the political
| climate, just at the fundamentals it's not clear why Vienna is
| a large city
|
| Sits on the Danube and was the capital of the Austrian Empire,
| so very important all throughout the 1800s. I'd say
| strategically located in Central Europe.
|
| Then in the second half of the 20th C it was the gateway to the
| "East Bloc", the place where east meets west in terms of
| diplomacy, economic and cultural exchange, and of course
| espionage.
|
| It has played a neutral role similar to Switzerland, which is
| why OPEC is headquartered there. It's also one of the UN's four
| major sites worldwide (along with NY, Geneva, Nairobi).
|
| I spent a couple of years there; nice place to live; would
| happily return.
| Loudergood wrote:
| Austria avoiding being split like Germany after WWII is a
| masterclass in geopolitics.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Casting itself as the victim of Germany was a smart move.
| numewhodis wrote:
| they are the control group "that doesn't 'have to' feel
| guilty" ...
| theanonymousone wrote:
| There is an episode of Freakonomics podcast about the same(?)
| topic: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-does-the-lost-world-
| of-...
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| I read The World of Yesterday: Memoirs of a European by Stefan
| Zweig after a recommendation on HN. Gave an interesting if sad
| view into the Vienna of the past.
| cenamus wrote:
| Can also recommend it highly, fascinating view into the
| stagnation, bureaucracy and "general feel" of the time
| leobg wrote:
| It's excellent. For those the speak German, there is also a
| fanatastic audio book read by an Austrian actor. It very much
| sounds like Zweig speaking because of the accent.
| hinnisdael wrote:
| Yeah, the audiobook version really is quite special. It's
| read by Peter Vilnai, if I remember correctly. One of the few
| audiobooks I was able to completely be absorbed by while
| listening.
| keiferski wrote:
| Also try The Man Without Qualities. Same time period and
| location.
| forbiddenvoid wrote:
| Can we put the title of the book in quotes? The title currently
| reads like this link points to a review of Vienna, the city. It
| would be more clear if it read Review of "Vienna: How the City of
| Ideas Created the Modern World".
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| This is one of the most misleading titles I've seen on HN
| because it has a clear meaning that in this context is totally
| wrong. Almost always with mistakes like this the unclear title
| is simply unclear.
| indiantinker wrote:
| Vienna is fascinating! I wrote a bit about my love hate
| relationship with Vienna over the years here :
| https://indiantinker.bearblog.dev/love-letter-to-vienna/
| bkfh wrote:
| Really nice read
| kylecazar wrote:
| I'll order it. I became interested in 20th century Vienna
| recently after reading that Hitler, Trotsky, Freud, Tito, Stalin
| and Franz Ferdinand all lived in the same area of the city at the
| same time (in 1913).
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21859771
| awiesenhofer wrote:
| Well, calling it the same _area_ is a bit of a stretch by the
| BBC, 2-4 km distance here in Vienna is quite a lot and more
| like the other side of the city, definitly different districts.
| "Lived in the same city" is probably more accurate.
|
| Though Hitler, Stalin, Trotzki and Tito did have something in
| common: they all visited the same coffee house, Cafe Central.
|
| Which is still open today, unchanged, now more famous for its
| delicious cakes and long lines of tourists though.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| We should also give fair share of the credit to Budapest and its
| "Martians".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists)
|
| Most of the great thinkers of the former Austro-Hungarian empire
| were Jewish, though. The Holocaust thoroughly devastated the
| Central European intellectual circles and turned a previously
| important region of the world into a somewhat mediocre place. Not
| a complete backwater, but a shadow of its former self.
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