More green in the city - But how?

For creating climate resilient urban structures for the future, actions have to be taken already today to proactively counteract negative microclimatic developments. A very effective option for significantly reducing the urban heat islands (UHI) effects are green-blue infrastructure measures. Although the need for greening measures is particularly high in densely populated areas, the financial strength and / or willingness of decision-makers and citizens to implement green measures is often lacking. This is the starting point for the project "LiLa4Green", which aims to support the realization of green-blue infrastructure (urban green areas as well as urban water surfaces) in existing residential areas. In order to realize projects that not only strive for climate-friendliness, but also take into account social aspects (quality of life, health, usability, awareness, willingness etc.), a living lab is set up that involves decision makers and users in the implementation process (co-creation) during the entire project. Concrete fields of investigation are "Innerfavoriten" in the 10th Viennese district and the Matznerviertel in the 14th Viennese district. In the first stage of the project, the status quo has been analyzed and greening potentials have been identified. The analysis showed high potentials for green-blue infrastructure in the streetscape even in the very densely built test areas. Analysis results are presented in this paper. Parallel to the analysis, the Living Lab has been established by means of advanced classical participatory methods such as interviews and workshops. So far, the participatory process revealed that participants were in general very interested in the topic of greening the city. Although many people could be addressed and involved in discussions, only a small group of people were willing to take part in the first workshop. Thus, in the next stage, the participatory methods will be extended to new IT solutions in order to reach additional population groups and to facilitate the realization of green-blue infrastructures in existing residential areas.