We all know Vienna is a green city. How green you only realize once you have lived abroad for some time.
Here’s the thing: if you’ve never lived anywhere else, you don’t know how good you’ve got it here in Vienna. You know the saying, “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence”? Well, Vienna is the other side of the fence.
The Vienna Woods near Cobenzl
Photo ©Wien Tourismus / Popelka & Popelka
Literally: more than half of the Vienna metropolitan area is made up of green space, including some 2,000 parks and 19,000-hectare Green Belt encircling the city. The Vienna Tourist Board did the math: there are 120 square meters of green space for each of Vienna’s 1.7 million inhabitants.
I’ve lived in lots of places — seven cities in four countries on two continents. All these places had their claim on natural beauty (except perhaps Cleveland, Ohio, a rusted-out old clapboard shell in America’s Midwest) but none had the readily accessible green space as we do here.
Trees, wine, and the good lifeVienna is consistently ranked as the world’s most livable city. Maybe part of this distinction can be credited to the city’s reverence for nature amid the city walls. The Viennese seem to know instinctively how to balance health and indulgence, marking the city’s the unique marriage of outdoorsiness and convivial party-time. The balance between work and play is so much more easily attained here because out every office door there is a park within walking distance.
A vineyard Heurige on Nußberg
Photo ©WienTourismus /Peter Rigaud
Not to mention the 700 hectares of vineyard that ring the city like so many grape vines. Famously, Vienna is the only world capital producing significant quantities of wine within the city limits. These vineyards and the 10-kilometer-long Vienna Wine Trail showcase the philosophy of Gemütlichkeit — friendliness, good cheer and peace of mind — that is cultivated here. Green space encourages both meditation and socialization, two halves of a mental-health whole. Where a quiet walk through the dappled forests of the Wienerwald can refresh a cluttered mind, so too can a boisterous get-together with friends over gespritzter Grüner Veltliner among the cultured rows of Vienna’s 320 vineyards.
There’s everywhere to go but nowhere greenSure, it’s possible to make a good life in a city with little or no green space. I lived in Istanbul, Turkey for three years, where our neighborhood version of a “park” was a concrete track converted from a wastewater run-off. There were no playgrounds or sidewalks in my district, let alone wooded walking traiIs. Don’t get me wrong; it’s an amazing city, full of charm, culture and history…just not a lot of places to go jogging. When you’re boxed into a city like Istanbul with no green space — like so many ancient over-developed cities — you start to feel claustrophobic. It can be hard, sometimes, to breathe freely. The stress of such a hemmed-in life can be overwhelming.
Praterallee
©WienTourismus / Popp & Hackner
New scientific research shows that green space makes us happier and that accessible natural areas may be vital for mental health in our rapidly urbanizing world. Researchers aren’t sure why green space makes us happy — maybe it’s all that fresh oxygen, the smell of budding trees, or the Gemischter Satz.
Vienna is eminently livable and, more importantly, enjoyable. The focus the city places on green space, and in turn, the promise of a cleaner, healthier more viable life, is enviable. What makes other cities so jealous is how easy Vienna makes it look, so effortlessly combining city life and country life. Because, by its nature and nurture, Vienna has achieved a life-balance, unparalleled.
