More than 70 % of Europe‘s population live in urban areas. If we are to achieve our climate policy goals and ensure a reliable supply of energy in future, too, we shall need intelligent technologies and new organizational solutions for energy-efficient, climate-compatible ways of living and working in the city. District heating and cooling systems can make a major contribution to conserving resources in urban areas by using alternative sources of heat, such as waste heat or heat from renewable sources of energy, on a larger scale. In Austria new solutions for tomorrow‘s cities are being worked out and demonstrated in a number of R&D projects.