Also, as an American transplanted in Vienna, I am very much not surprised to see that Austria leads the list with per-capita hackerspace density.
One of the interesting elements (that I suspect nobody here on Hacker News will mention) is government support.
As somebody else said, coworking kinda follows the gym membership model and hackerspaces are by nature more transitory, ephemeral, and more likely to "just go away" if people "wander off."
Austria, and the city of Vienna specifically, set aside a fairly significant budget for supporting local cultural projects and ones that advance Austria/Vienna in socio/economic/cultural ways.
Thus, for example, metalab has a primo ___location right by the Rathaus (city hall) that they could never afford if the city didn't support them. And Net Culture Lab is in the MuseumsQuartier, the very apex of hip govt-funded culture.
True, there is a annual budget for digital arts and culture from the administration of Vienna and the Metalab gained some funding. Of course this helped/helps to GTD faster (e.g. renovation work) but our hackerspace was founded without this perspective and is designed with the idea of base financing by membership fees - and I can assure you that this is how we still handle it. The Net Culture Lab you mention in contrast to our community-drived space is financed by the biggest Austrian telco, a quite different approach but we believe in plurality and welcome alike initiatives.
One of the interesting elements (that I suspect nobody here on Hacker News will mention) is government support.
As somebody else said, coworking kinda follows the gym membership model and hackerspaces are by nature more transitory, ephemeral, and more likely to "just go away" if people "wander off."
Austria, and the city of Vienna specifically, set aside a fairly significant budget for supporting local cultural projects and ones that advance Austria/Vienna in socio/economic/cultural ways.
Thus, for example, metalab has a primo ___location right by the Rathaus (city hall) that they could never afford if the city didn't support them. And Net Culture Lab is in the MuseumsQuartier, the very apex of hip govt-funded culture.