The Physical Properties of Vienna before 1848

Vienna was founded by the Romans in the first century AD as a fortified camp as a part of their frontier defenses. Its location on the Danube river not only led to its rise as one of Europe's premier centers of trade (the first permanent bridge over the Danube was constructed between 1435 and 1440), but also made it significantly easier to defend. City defences were under constant construction during the 15^th and 16^th centuries, and because of this, Vienna was able to withstand Turkish attacks in 1529 and 1683. Fortifiacations were built around the Altstadt, the old city of Vienna, but suburbs began to spring up outside them as the city became increasingly crowded. They were destroyed during the sieges but quickly rebuilt. After the siege of 1683, the legal boundary of the city was expanded to include the suburbs and so a new series of fortifications was built to defend them. When Napoleon captured the city in 1809, he destroyed many of the fortifications. The ruins, which lay untouched until 1857, represented the end of the Altstadt and the beginning of the suburbs.

In comparison with Paris and London, Vienna grew to be much more of a cultural center than a political center. Vienna was the residence of the Holy Roman Emperor, and this was the main reason that much of the political power flowed there. Of the three cities, Vienna was by far the most beautiful. Its avenues were lined with trees, the air was fresh and crisp, and the mountains and hills that surrounded the city provided a beautiful view from any point in the city. Even the wall and its surroundings had been decorated and turned into "walks of great beauty". The narrow streets were lined with beautiful, expensively decorated mansions, and as the city grew and grew, because the walls limited the area of available land, these and other buildings increased in size. Another product of the limited area was that the city was, in a way, inside-out in that the poverty which was usually found in inner cities was pushed out to the suburbs by the bourgeois and aristocrats, and in time the bourgeois too were forced to leave.