ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by first mapping displaced survival in urban spaces of global capitalism and, secondly, decentring the Vienna Model and its claims of affordability, equality and commitment to subsidized housing in the new millennium. It describes that monetized governance has reproduced a reality in which surplus workers are, at once, vital to Vienna’s service sector and yet made to live lives of precarity through what the author describes as displaced survival. Vienna’s rental housing comes under strain with the steady influx of new racialized migrants initiated by the European union enlargements in 2004 and 2007. Like in many cities across Europe and the globe, housing became a lucrative investment site in Vienna. While the social housing units remained off-limits, Vienna’s private rental units outside of the protected dwellings were fair game for both large-scale investors and small-scale investors.
