Research fields "Good Urban Governance" and "Strategic City Management"

Cities have experienced a fundamental growth in importance in the past decades: this is especially reflected by the relative population growth in the urban area and its increasing role as an economic and political hub. This development leads to new challenges: technological developments and factor mobility as well as changing lifestyles and demands from the population enhancing the competition between cities which is also reflected in the increasing attention on city rankings. Modern city management is therefore more and more confronted with the challenge to evolve the economic city profiles, to compete in the cities competition. The basis of the competition is formed through the identities of the cities. The analysis of city identities emphasises that they are either connected with hard or soft location factors. Cities like Frankfurt, London and Helsinki show through their introspection and external perception a very clear economic profile. The focus of research and practical city management is shifting to cities with a soft profile: so called "lifestyle cities" like Vienna, Copenhagen and Sydney, whose identity is mainly shaped through culture and education establishments as well as high quality of life.

That is where the research project begins: on the basis of a comparative consideration of the "Lifestyle cities" Vienna, Sydney and Copenhagen, the department researches in what way the cities use their already existing identity for their economic profile development. The focus is on the strategies developed from the city administrations and the chosen measurements to enable the implementation of those strategies. The study is characterised by an interdisciplinary research approach: especially the increase in status of the city identities connects accessibilities to city marketing, city development and urban management. To be able to consider relevant internal and external reference groups, international media and strategy documents of the cities are used as basis for the research.

The phenomenon "city" does basically not reflect a new research field. However, the combination of city identities with instruments of strategic management especially with a comparative and management orientated focus on the implementation of strategic plans is a completely new of current interest topic in the area of Urban Management & Governance.