Vienna's living streets The city where anyone can build an urban oasis

In a quiet corner of Vienna's well-to-do 18th district, Jana is explaining how her assembly of wooden decking and planters is bringing a bit of greenery to the area. "There's not a single tree on this whole street - it's just parking spaces on both sides."

- Will Grimond

This is a grätzloase, or neighbourhood oasis - a miniature park tucked into the side of the road. With the blessing of the city council, more than 100 of them have sprung up across Vienna.

The scheme has been growing since 2015, and its proponents say it has struck a rare balance for urban projects: cheap, community-driven and appreciated by local people.

In theory, anyone in Vienna can build one. A city-funded organisation, Local Agenda 21, provides grants of up to €5,000 (£4,300) to cover construction costs and helps with the admin.

Jana first heard about the scheme at a party in 2019 from someone who had recently put a "parklet" together. "A few weeks later I just went by and looked at it and thought: 'This is so cool," she recalls. But it took until the winter of 2020 for Jana and her flatmates to consider building one themselves.

"It's kind of complicated; you need to fill in a lot of paperwork," she says. This involved three different departments of city government, and her group needed to cost everything up before they started.

But she had a couple of things on her side. First, she lived with a carpenter, who could handle the nitty-gritty of actually building it. Second, the organisation told her there was another parklet being taken down on the other side of town that they could pick up and reassemble. The final hurdle was getting the street on board, with some residents opposing the idea.