Yesterday my friend Darren Davis out of Auckland introduced me to a 3-part blog series that he recently did with Andreas Lindinger out of Vienna, which looked at pedestrian zones and shared spaces across these two cities.

The first post looks at the redesign of Vienna's Mariahilferstraße (important shopping street that I’m somewhat glad I get to write and not try and pronounce). The second post looks at Auckland’s overall shared space program. And the third one offers a direct comparison between the two cities. The posts are all hosted on an interesting blog called Vienncouver (Vienna + Vancouver), which I am now following as of this morning.

Compared to both Auckland and Vienna, Toronto is behind when it comes to pedestrian zones and shared spaces. So it’s interesting to see how other cities have managed to pull it off. It’s also further proof that you don’t have to be a warm climate city to have amazing public spaces.

Image: Vienna via Vienncouver (notice the cars and pedestrians mixed in)