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Infrastructure systems are confronted with increasing pressures and multiple challenges in recent years. Their obduracy, long lifespan and lock-in mechanisms make their reconfigurations particularly challenging. The reconfiguration of infrastructures is simultaneously accompanied by spatial change since infrastructures have direct effects on spatial structures. This thesis emphasizes that planning as the practice of designing and regulating city-building must be viewed as the result of an institutionalization process with time- and place-specific, structural, and ideational constraints and opportunities as important variables for material and discursive transformation. I analyze established and newly emerging urban infrastructure systems – from networked infrastructures and their historical genesis in a specific urban neighborhood in Vienna and their context-specific development trajectories, to culture as social infrastructure institutionalized in strategic planning in Vienna to the emergence of platforms as digital infrastructures and their incorporation into urban planning agendas in Vienna and Toronto respectively. To analyze these urban infrastructure systems and their change processes, this thesis builds on institutional theory, using discursive institutionalism to explain how infrastructures are negotiated and planned and thus contribute to urban transformation. Discursive institutionalism and the division of distinct analytical categories of ideas makes the institution-shaping roles of discourses the center of investigation. The cumulative contributions of this dissertation highlight the importance of discourses, agents, and institutions influencing infrastructure development and urban planning. Instead of narrowing the research objective to one specific infrastructure sector, this thesis looks at social, networked, and digital infrastructure systems and their political contestations to understand the implications of wider infrastructural (re)configurations.

Critical scholars dealing with platform capitalism, platform urbanism and smart city developments have emphasized manifold challenges connected to the rise of digital platforms and in particular the “Tech Titans”. Due to their economic and political power, platforms are by now often understood as new forms of infrastructures, thus making them an inherent public issue. Alternative models of developing platforms as public infrastructures, such as the emerging concept of platform municipalism point to an ideological shift in planning ideas. However, research on the process of developing planning ideas and their connection to the actual implementation of public platforms is still rare. Thus, this article focuses on the discursive institutionalization of public platforms in Vienna, their ideological foundations and the discursive interactions between different agents to implement new digital infrastructures. The article finds that there has been an ideological shift in the strategic orientation of planning ideas towards a more human-centred development of platforms as new infrastructures. However, lack of coordination and institutional barriers persist. The article critically reflects on the role of local governments in developing digital infrastructures and thus contributes to debates on smart urbanism, platform urbanism and platform municipalism by providing in-depth knowledge on the case of Vienna., The paper is published by the European Journal of Spatial Development (EJSD). The previous version of the journal was host by Nordregio.

Der Öffentliche Sektor - The Public Sector 46(2): 7-12

Internet platforms like Google, Amazon or Facebook substantially shape our everyday lives. With their coordinated products, they create their own socio-technical ecosystems and act as gatekeepers that set and control rules. Their economic dominance is increasingly being addressed by competition authorities in Europe. Contrary to how they are often perceived, platforms are not neutral “intermediaries”, but powerful actors that shape opinions and public discourses - so far largely without much public control. Yet recently, debates regarding appropriate regulatory strategies are gaining momentum. To limit market dominance, restrictions to horizontal mergers in the same or similar sectors (e.g. Facebook's takeovers of Instagram or Whatsapp) and the banning of vertical mergers are discussed. This is done to prevent the market dominance of the platforms from spilling over from one business sphere to the next. The case for a closer interlocking of competition law with agendas of consumer and data protection is also being made. Moreover, proposals drawing on public utility regulation are developed since internet platforms can, in many respects, be compared to traditional infrastructures. Understanding internet platforms as a new field of public service provision would, among other things, guarantee universal access, similar to traditional "analogue" infrastructures. As history has shown, it is possible to regulate powerful actors in the interests of society as a whole and subjecting them to democratic checks and balances. This would imply to take a broader perspective on economic dominance and approach the problems pragmatically.

In our globalised, interconnected and increasingly competitive world, the importance of public space is often highlighted. This article aims at connecting the concept of public space to the concept of social infrastructure to point to the underlying and indispensable nature of public space. It builds on the assumption that public space is the physical manifestation of the interconnection between global urban processes and local tendencies where dynamics of festivalization and restricted access are on the rise. The town hall square in Vienna and its seasonal use for different festivals and events serves as the empirical case. The square, situated in the centre of the city, shows powerful dynamics within the production of public space and gives interesting insights into the prevalent global and local tendencies of urban politics. A two-step approach towards the deconstruction of social infrastructure for the conception of public space is introduced. Using the notion of social infrastructure allows to connect public space as a product as a physical place and organizational structure, which allows people to interact to its process its interpretative context, where meaning and value is assigned through the material context. The notion of the right to the city is applied to formulate an alternative approach for a right to public space. This allows for a multi-dimensional approach, which is necessary to grasp the multiplicity of perspectives and complexity of issues manifesting in public space. The aim of the paper is to understand how representational public space is used and which role the understanding of the right to the city plays in reclaiming public space as a form of social infrastructure.

In our globalised, interconnected and increasingly competitive world, the importance of public space is often highlighted. This article aims at connecting public space to the concept of social infrastructure to point to the underlying and indispensable nature of public space. It builds on the assumption that public space is the physical manifestation of the interconnection between global urban processes and local tendencies where dynamics of festivalisation and restricted access are on the rise. The town hall square in Vienna and its seasonal use for different festivals and events serves as the empirical case. The square, situated in the centre of the city, shows powerful dynamics within the production of public space and gives interesting insights into the prevalent global and local tendencies of urban politics.A two-step approach towards the deconstruction of social infrastructure for the conception of public space is adopted. Using the notion of social infrastructure permits to connect public space as a product – as a physical place and organisational structure, which allows people to interact– to its process – its interpretative context, where meaning and value are assigned through the material context. The notion of the right to the city is applied to formulate an alternative approach to the right to public space. This constitutes a multi-dimensional approach, which is necessary to grasp the multiplicity of perspectives and complexity of issues manifesting themselves in public space. The aim of the paper is to understand how representational public space is used and which role the understanding of the right to the city plays in reclaiming public space as a form of social infrastructure., IS THIS THE REAL WORLD? Perfect Smart Cities vs. Real Emotional Cities. Proceedings of REAL CORP 2019, 24th International Conference on Urban Development and Regional Planning in the Information Society, 361-370

Politik und Planung erleben seit einigen Jahren eine Renaissance der strategischen Planung. Dabei stellt die Kulturplanung eine wesentliche S��ule dar, die St��dte zu Alleinstellungsmerkmalen im globalen Standortwettbewerb verhelfen und so einen Ausweg aus der durch den ��bergang von Fordismus zu Postfordismus entstandenen finanziellen Krise bieten soll. Die vorliegende Arbeit geht der Frage nach, ob und wie Kulturpolitik und Kunstf��rderung in der strategischen Planung verankert sind und inwieweit eine r��umliche Strategie in Form einer hegemonialen Kunst- und Kulturproduktion zu erkennen ist. Auf Grundlage der Hegemonietheorie von Gramsci wird zu diesem Zweck eine Politikfeldanalyse zur Untersuchung unterschiedlicher stadtplanungsrelevanter Ebenen in Wien durchgef��hrt. Anhand einer Inhaltsanalyse der strategischen Stadtplanungsdokumente wird der kulturpolitische Diskurs untersucht, die Verteilung ��konomischer Ressourcen mittels der Analyse der Umsetzung raumrelevanter Kulturpolitik aufgezeigt und die kulturbasierte Raumproduktion wird durch eine exemplarische Beschreibung relevanter Kunst- und Kulturprojekte nachvollziehbar gemacht., During the last few years politics and planning are undergoing a revival of strategic planning. In this context cultural planning represents a relevant backbone, which should help cities to establish unique selling points in a global competition between cities and provide a way out of the financial crisis of city budgets due to the transition from Fordism to Postfordism. The thesis at hand pursues the question, how cultural politics and the promotion of culture is linked to strategic planning and to what extent a spacial strategy through hegemonial culture and art production can be recognised. On the foundation of hegemonic theory by Gramsci the applied method here is a policy analysis for the empirical study of different levels of urban planning in Vienna with the purpose of understanding the cultural discourse throughout the strategic planning documents, the distribution of economic resources through the analysis of promotional instruments and the spatial practice through the exemplary description of art and cultural projects.