Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából 30. (2002) – Az ötven éves Nagy-Budapest – előzmények és megvalósulás

Szemző Hanna: Floridsdorf egyesítése Béccsel 1904-ben 93-119

Szemző Hanna Floridsdorf egyesítése Béccsel 1904-ben Hanna Szemző The annexation of Floridsdorf by Vienna in 1904 The end of the nineteenth century has brought with itself the profound restructuring of urban centers all over Europe. As a result of their sudden population growth, physical expansion and intense modernization, city governments were presented by new challenges that often required novel techniques of governance and control. A new, „active" city was born whose responsibilities transcended into spheres that formerly had not been regulated at all, or solely by private capital/interests. Municipal utility services and transportation companies were founded, and in the meantime both the questions of housing and social services were addressed to some extent. The article aims to put this above described process into a particular setting: Vienna. Here the birth of „municipal socialism" was exclusively connected with Karl Lueger, the charismatic Christian Socialist mayor of the city between 1897 and 1910. Lueger's controversial figure has undeniably contributed a lot to the modernization of Vienna, and laid the foundation of the communal infrastructure and services that were essential for the later Social Democratic experiments in the city. Putting the emphasis on the period Lueger was the incumbent mayor, the article tries to give an overview of the whole process of urban modernization in Vienna, arguing that the Christian Socialist epoch should be regarded as a transitory period between the elitist liberal and the Social Democratic city. The analysis of how Floridsdorf- till 1904 an independent industrial settlement- was annexed by the capital gives insight into how this transition was perceived on the political level, where the Christian Social party tried to suppress the strengthening Social Democratic one. 119