The settlement structure in Austria has changed in the last years. The expansion of high ranking transport infrastructure caused an increasing speed in the transport system. That makes it possible to reach ulterior regions in less time than in the past. This is also the reason that people are moving away from the cities and settle down in the suburban areas. These areas are characterized by high population growth in direct connection with increasing building activities. Often large peripheral areas were declared as building land without considering the consequences to satisfy the market. This led to car-transport-oriented settlement structures. One consequence of this bad planning is the increasing number of motorized transport commuters.

The first chapters of this thesis are devoted to the valid regional planning programs in their hierarchy. Based on an European Spatial Development Perspective an Austrian Spatial Development Concept was created. As area of investigation the area of "Biosphere Reserve Vienna Woods" was chosen leading to a consideration of the Land Development Concept for Lower Austria only. In addition to supraregional and regional planning programs a specific declaration for the area of Biosphere Reserve Vienna Woods which complies on the needs of this special reserve is existing.

To review the implementation of the objectives and measurements three sample communities were selected called Pressbaum, Judenau-Baumgarten and Alland. Using Google Earth aerial photographs of the settlement patterns from 2001 were compared to those from 2010. Settlement activities have been shown and compared with the offer of public transport possibilities. Furthermore facilities like regional supply, medical care centres and so on were drawn in the maps of the townships and their accessibility were evaluated.

The analysis of all documents has shown, that the stated goals of resource-conserving and reducing-traffic settlement structures and boost the public transport through a concentration of settlement structure can not be achieved. The closing of this thesis are named suggestions to reach the ambitious goals.