Vienna in focus: Mayor Ludwig opens global city summit 2025

Vienna in focus: Mayor Ludwig opens global city summit 2025

Wien, Österreich - On July 3, 2025, Mayor Michael Ludwig opened the World Cities Summit Mayors Forum 2025 in the Vienna City Hall. This significant conference gathers over 100 mayors and decision -makers from more than 50 cities worldwide. This makes it the largest international mayor conference that has ever taken place in Vienna, and guests from cities such as Addis Ababa and Zhenjiang took part. The city of Vienna received the prestigious Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize in 2022, which contributed significantly to the organization of this forum.

Ludwig emphasized the central role of cities for sustainable urban development and how important the commitment of the city designers is in this process. The conference topic "Local Solutions - Global Impact" draws attention to responsibility, which bear cities in terms of climate protection, social inclusion and creation.

innovative projects and common goals

As part of the forum, a program that was developed in cooperation with the Singapore Center for Liveable Cities is presented. It offers innovative solutions for social housing, general interest and climate protection. Vienna has managed to reduce CO2 emissions per capita by almost 40 percent and strives to become climate-neutral and climate-neilient by 2040. The measures include the Smart Klima City Strategy, which includes over 100 approaches in various areas.

An essential topic of discussions are the challenges of the affordable living space and the energy transition. Minister Chee Hong did paid homage to Vienna's pioneering role in climate protection and reflects the trend that the urban population is expected to be more than twice as high by 2050. It is estimated that almost 7 out of 10 people will live in cities, which also places high demands on the infrastructure.

insight into the best practices

The forum, which takes place in Vienna until July 4, offers a variety of interactive meetings and thematic excursions, for example to the seaside city of Aspern and the Danube Island. The event is supplemented by the exhibition "Singapore - Wien", which presents innovative projects of both cities. Vienna's social housing is considered an international model, since almost two thirds of the population live in a funded or local residential building.

The city's residential construction goals target affordability, high quality and social mix. Vienna organizes general interest according to the common good principles, which contributes to a high quality of life for the residents. A decisive element is the Vienna Plan 2035, which defines the framework for growth to up to 2.2 million inhabitants, but focuses on a green area share of 50 percent.

The challenges of urbanization not only require visionary approaches, but also international cooperation. German development cooperation relies on socially friendly, climate-friendly and resistant urban development, especially in growing small and medium-sized cities. At the World Cities Summit, the networking of stakeholders and the development of innovative methods is of central importance in order to meet the upcoming urban challenges.