In future the city should expand the production of renewable energies. In the surrounding area of the city there is a lot of water. Therefore the city of St. Veit should try to focus additionally on water energy, and not just on solar energy. In the mountains the government of the city could built storage power station of water or hydraulic power stations in the rivers. This would improve their power on international markets, especially in the Alps-Adratic Region.
Furthermore, the industrial cluster area could be extended to ensure the city as an high-tec location. As an result, other international companies will possibly settle there. In addition, the location can once establish to a ‘little Sillicon Valley’. This development could solve the problem of brain drain, too. However, this is very unlikely for St. Veit because the suitable infrastructure is missing in the city.
The tourism must focus on a nature-based development to maintain its currently good standard. In this development I see the biggest capability for the city and the surrounding area. Local farmer could establish a second main stay beside the agriculture. In a society where, compared to our modern stressful life, the tourism on a farm shows a real opposite. At the end of a valley they probably have no internet and in cases of great thundersturms, farmers could have no electricity for days.
To understand the urban sprawl in a better way, it is important to know that Austria was a monarchy for a long time. In this periode it was common that landowners had big seigneuries. These include forests, fields, gardens and of course a huge residence of the landlord. In order of that, decentralised settlement pattern were appropriate. This was the basis for the later urban sprawl.
Nowadays, especially alpine farmers have huge areas of fields, grasslands and forests. The young generation does not want to keep the farm upright. Therefore, the image of a landscape is endangered. The landscape in the mountains is categorised into nativeness, (bio-)diverity, uniqueness and harmony. The categories qualify the human impacts in nature. It is describing the resilience of a place which shows how long and strong humans can affect an object without an irreversible change of main features.
That means farmers have sheep, goats and cows or they cutting tress in different kinds of intenstity. If there is no little cultivation anymore in these days, the forests would extend and there would be a monoculture of tress, especially firs, all over the mountains. This would also destroy the rural landscape in this areas. Because of this it is important to keep some population in the mountains upright. This also justify a decentralised settlement pattern in the mountains.
For more information you can visit my website: https://ersmarioword.wordpress.com/
Sense of Place 
You mentioned that the city of St. Veit, Austria focuses mainly on solar energy and you would like to see them also focus on hydropower. Solar energy and hydropower are great alternatives for the burning of fossil fuels. I was unsure of the benefits of either, so I did a little bit of research to expand my knowledge. I found that hydropower continues to generate electricity as long as there is water flow but solar energy will only produce electricity when the sun is out and directly overhead. Hydroelectric power also causes a greater impact on the environment. Hydro plants change the natural flow of a body of water that they are using and it also affects habitats. It’s hard to decide what source to use because they both have their advantages and disadvantages. Thank you for writing about this topic, it really helped expand my knowledge about solar energy vs. hydropower.
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Hi Lyliana, thank you for your reply! Your doubts are justified but you have to consider the fact that there are two types of power stations: the storage power stations and the run-of-the-river power plants. If you use the second type the natural flow won’t be affected because only a water wheel is put into the river. With this power plant only the baseload electricity is secured.
Hydraulic storage power stations have, of course, a natural impact but in my area they are only in front of a reservoir dam. Nevertheless, the barrages contain a fish ladder. This allows the fish to get up and down the river. In order to that there are no strong effects of their habitats.
Nowadays, solar power stations can produce their complete capacity by a minimum of solar energy, too. The sun is accumulated in a parabolic mirror which can be turned vertical and horizontal, for example. In the center of the mirror, a lightly heatable liquid, e.g. ammoniac, will be heated and a wheel connected to a generator is working.
The solar power stations can storage the generated heat in a brine. If the air is very cloudy the brine will heat the liquid and the electricity production will be secured.
Altogether, I hope that I could remove your doubts and you could get a better view of that topic. For more information you can visit the homepage of the DESERTEC project or do not hesitate to ask me.
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Hi Mario. I really enjoyed reading about the future of St. Veit and the awesome sustainable energy sources being suggested (hydraulic and solar). I’ve done a policy analysis on wave energy being proposed in Sonoma, CA at CSUMB and I think it’s cool that they are considering to use the river and surrounding bodies of water as a source of hydraulic power stations because I’ve never actually thought of a river being a source of energy (as silly as that sounds but I think that is because all of my focus has been on the ocean). Have they started an hydraulic plan already? or are they just getting into looking into it? Since tourism is a big thing there there are a few environmental friendly (with respect to habitats that may be in the area) designs that do not put the aesthetic of the city in jeopardy that I think could work there. I really like this idea as a way for sustainable energy especially if done right since solar power could be very limited to daylight whereas, waves are a pretty stable source for energy (at least in the ocean not really sure how rivers or other bodies of water work but I am assuming there is constant flow; unless there is a drought) instead of other unsustainable sources.
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Hi Lisette, thank you for your reply! Oh ok but it is working in the rivers, too. 😀 For more information have a look on my comment to Lyliana (above yours).
They only get looking for the hydraulic power stations. It is not easy to establish a power station because all the rivers in the area of St.Veit are not as big as others in my state. In sum, it is very unlikely that the city will focus on water energy because the amount of water for one turbine cannot be supplied.
For more information do not hesitate to ask me.
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Dear Mario,
I’m interested in your website because I studied in the North-Eastern part of Germany (Western-Pomerania. This federal state has so much in common with your region, whether the historical context is different. The issue of brain drain is a typical phenomena in this type of rural areas. At the EMAU-Universität Greifswald, we tried to develop strategies beside growing economy approaches. These types of strategies are really under-represented. But to my Opinion, some regions have to live with the trend of urbanisation and need to develop innovative strategies to use potential they have. I think about cooperations with other communities in the case of school complexes or the centralization of administration. But also this is a much discussed approach because some are pro and others for decentralization. What do you think about this issue (maybe pros and cons)?
Thanks, Jan
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Dear Jan,
thanks for your answer on my website. Oh that’s great when we have some equal fields of studies. The brain drain in my town is a huge problem but you cannot stop it. In the public sector, e.g., no person with an academic career is employed. There are not many academic people needed and as a result young people with a final exam leave the town. Most of them never come back again.
Urbanization is not a real topic in my region because the biggest city is Klagenfurt with about 100.000 inhabitants. The population only increases slowly.
Nevertheless, the decentralization in my area is really high. That’s an important topic because every single house needs an infrastructure. As a result, the public expenses for establishing the infrastructure are really high. However, it is important to have a cultivation of many alpine pastures to secure the high biodiversity, for example on mountain meadows. Otherwise, if there is an overgrowing of nature/forest, the unique landscape would be destroyed. From my point of view, it is important to maintain the decentralization in order to secure a high level of biodiversity in our mountains.
Greetings,
Mario
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