After successful completion of the course, students are able to... 

• summarize and critically reflect on current debates and approaches to the concept of the “Caring City”,
• name the relevance for the fields of urban development and planning and reflect on possible links with other urban policy models and strategies (e.g. age-friendly, dementia-friendly, child-friendly, sustainable, resilient, smart, etc.),
• examine concrete examples of application, initiatives and actors and independently apply methods of empirical social research,
• present and discuss their independent research work, results and findings.

Caring City refers equally to the vision and demand for a 'caring city' that focuses on the needs of its residents. It is about taking social responsibility for care and reorganizing it democratically. Deeply embedded in the everyday lives of city dwellers and in their socio-spatial relationships, countless activities take place that have long been treated in feminist research under the term care: the care of children, young people and the elderly, the routines of shopping, cooking and cleaning, social work in schools and neighborhood centers as well as care in hospitals and doctors' surgeries. Care not only refers to the respective care activities, but also sheds particular light on the relationships and socio-spatial contexts in which these multi-layered practices of caring take place. A care perspective on cities therefore also asks how care for one another should be organized and thus fundamentally how we want to live together in cities. Caring then not only concerns relationships with (fellow) people, but also includes a general care for the planet, the global ecological balance of nature, animals and plants or things and buildings. A caring city is therefore essentially linked to demands for climate protection and social climate justice.

Under the slogans of Caring City or Caring Communities, a variety of initiatives and concrete approaches are emerging at different scales at the intersection of political activism, civic engagement and science. Against the backdrop of social upheaval and various interdependent moments of crisis, they are trying to develop new networks of solidarity, ways of relating and organizational forms of caring. These range from neighbourhood health centers, alternative forms of housing and the reorganization of parenthood, communal kitchens, urban development oriented towards the common good and 'care councils' to care strikes, climate camps and forms of a “new municipalism”, as examples from Spain show.

The course combines lectures and exercises and thus includes input, discussions, independent literature reading and independent work on a topic as group work. Excursions to relevant actors and projects in Vienna are organized or invited as guests. 

The course is assigned to the following elective module:
- Elective module 5: Society, everyday life and space

The course is primarily aimed at students on the Master's degree in Spatial Planning and Architecture and interested Bachelor's students in their final semesters. We also expressly invite students from other universities who deal with spatial and urban research-related issues to participate in the course as “co-participants”. The course will be held in German. We support the active participation of students in debates through interactive learning formats. We encourage students to get involved in the design of the course in order to develop their own ideas and critical perspectives.

The performance assessment is based on
(1) the processing of the compulsory literature,
(2) the completion of group work
(3) the final written assignment.

All partial performances and 80% attendance are a prerequisite for positive completion.