"At that time, I was pregnant with my first kid," she said. "I lived in a two-room apartment … it was an OK building, but it was small for us."
[She] went to an online portal, entered her income and requirements, and was ranked alongside thousands of other residents. Soon, she was assigned a new apartment: a three-bedroom unit in a brand-new building, adjacent to Vienna's Central Station.
"I love it. It's in the middle of Vienna," she said. "A lot of young families moved in at the same time…. There's a big campus here, with a kindergarten and primary school. There's dancing classes, and a boulder bar, and a huge park."
[She] wasn't desperate to find housing. She and her partner earned middle-class incomes. But in recent years, Vienna has become renowned among housing experts for its model of social housing, which provides heavily subsidized rental units to more than half of the city's two million residents.
The key is taking profit out of construction (at least 96.5%), and a robust government that isn't afraid to impinge on the private sector.
Federally, only two parties have formed government. They change their names etc, but it's pretty close to being a two party system already.
It's fair to say other parties have had an effect (like the NDP before the last election), but they haven't gotten anywhere near forming government.