town-country, switzerland's dividing line - swi swissinfo.ch

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OCT 21, 2012 - 11:00

POLITICAL RIFTS

Town-Country,Switzerland's dividing

lineBy Samuel Jaberg

Peri-urban housing is a magnet for the middle class

(Keystone)

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng


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The traditional way to slice Switzerland up has been along the

Röstigraben - the linguistic fault line. But in recent national votes there

has been more of a divide between town and country than between

Jürgs and Julians.

Philip Freimann made headlines around Europe when he did a simple thing. A 36-year-old

farmer, he decided to keep on farming. Freimann "had his health," he told journalists.

Why would he give up his land? But Freimann's farm happens to be in Zug, a pretty part

of Switzerland that is pretty attractive to companies too. Selling his land would have

netted the farmer SFr2,000 ($2,162) per square metre, or SFr30 million.

The story went far beyond Swiss television, which initially picked it up. Newspapers such

as Britain’s The Guardian and Germany’s Die Zeit told of a modern day William Tell, a

symbol of Switzerland's perpetual battle to keep its rural soul in the face of creeping

urbanisation. While Freimann makes for an interesting anecdote, his story also re!ects

something in the political climate.

The canton Bern minister Andreas Rickenbacher put it baldly in a recent speech. "The

town-country divide is the biggest political con!ict in Switzerland at the moment."

Growing gap

Political analyst Claude Longchamp, head of the gfs.bern research institute, backs up theminister. "All recent studies show that this divide between urban and rural opinion is

getting deeper. This is the political crisis plaguing our country, and it will only get worse in

the future."

The political analyst reckons that the divide has grown progressively over the last 25 years

- and reached a peak in 2011 with the rejection of a national campaign demanding that

guns be kept in public arsenals.

Other referenda that have split voters along urban-rural lines are the vote on whether to join the UN (2002), setting up a national maternal leave allowance (2002), joining the

European Economic Community (1992), and the Schengen-Dublin accords on freedom of

movement (2005).

"Any topic that touches on Switzerland opening up to the wider world is going to be

particularly susceptible to this divide," reckons Longchamp. "Since the 1990s, the towns,

unlike the rural areas, have become pretty dependent on the global economy. But the

di" erence in opinions is most marked when it comes to values: demographic growth has

brought about huge societal change in urban areas, while rural areas have stayed close to

traditional beliefs."


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Agglomerate away

This vision of a Switzerland with two distinct camps of post-modernists and traditional

country folk does not convince everybody. Georg Lutz, who publishes Selects, a guide to

election results, says some generalisations can be made.

"The rural areas are certainly more conservative. But the vision of a Switzerland peppered

with tiny villages where the inhabitants are mostly farmers is outdated. Between Geneva

and Lake Constance, the whole of Switzerland is one big agglomeration."

According to the Federal Statistics O#ce, nearly 40 per cent of Swiss residents live neither

in a rural area nor in an urban one, but precisely in an agglomeration, zones bordering on

urban areas with mostly detached houses.

"These are middle class people who are able to buy themselves a house and yet who

want to be closer to nature," says Georg Lutz. "But when they vote, they tend to voteconservatively. It's in agglomerations like these that the [rightwing] Swiss People's Party

has attracted most members."

But historian and journalist Joëlle Kuntz thinks that rumours of a divide between

urbanites and country folk are exaggerated. "They have both merged in a way that has

melted their di" erences," she reckons. "Country folk, mountain dwellers and city lovers all

watch the same television programmes, they go to the same shops, attend the same

schools and go on holiday to India or Bali. They have the same social aspirations."

Diverging interests

Where there is division inside Switzerland, it comes from diverging points of view - be

they agricultural, energy, property or $nance issues - adds Kuntz.

Lutz, meanwhile, feels the impression of a town-country con!ict has become stronger in

recent years. Why? Because of these diverging points of view on many issues, but also

because of attempts by towns and cities to a#rm their importance at a political level.

What that means is that cities are constantly pushing for favourable means to split the

$nancing of state institutions and the $nancing of infrastructure. These demands worry

agglomerations - although their political clout remains intact, with peripheral zones of

cities still overrepresented in national politics.

"Up until the 1990s, the rural areas were Switzerland," says Longchamp, "The national

identity was built around them, and the national interest was de$ned by them. Nowadays

the rebalancing of politics scares rural areas. They're scared that cities will swallow them

up, and the budget too."


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Remember the Röstigraben?

What happened to the Röstigraben, the imaginary line separating French- and German-

speaking Switzerland? Ever since the vote on joining the EEC in 1992, political analysts

have found it a useful way to explain di" erent vote results. "It has faded away a bit over

the last few years," says Claude Longchamp, "but it hasn't completely disappeared. This

dividing line comes into sharp focus whenever there are votes on the welfare state, for

example the law on tightening unemployment bene$ts."

Georg Lutz sees it di" erently.If the linguistic barrier is less remarkable than ever, it

doesn't necessarily mean it's melted away. "This is a consequence of the Swiss People's

Party's recent success over the last 10 years. When 20% of French-speaking Swiss started

voting for the rightwing party, we could no longer talk about "the Romand exception."

A tale of the cities

According to the Federal Statistics O#ce, the continued growth of large agglomerations

has given birth to 5 conurbations in Switzerland: Zurich, Basel, Geneva-Lausanne, Bern

and Italian-speaking Switzerland.

The BAK think tank in Basel presented a report on urban areas to coincide with the 115th

anniversary of the Swiss Union of Cities. 74% of Swiss residents live in urban areas, and

those areas count for 84% of the Swiss GDP.

Cities and towns may be gaining in demographic importance and wealth, but this is not

true at a political level. In the Senate, each canton has 2 seats, irrespective of population.

During national ballots, for which a double majority (of voters and of cantons) is needed,

a vote from canton Uri in the middle of the 19th century had the same weight as 17 votes

from canton Zurich. Today a vote from Uri is worth twice as much.

swissinfo.ch

Links

Federal Statistics O#ce - Agglomerations et metropolitan zones (German,

French)

Swiss City Association (German, French)

Regiosuisse – State Secretariat for Economic A" airs (German, French, Italian)

The Impact of Federal Agglomeration Policy on Swiss Federalism

http://www.ipsa.org/my-ipsa/events/madrid2012/paper/impact-federal-agglomeration-policy-swiss-federalism-governance-chanhttp://www.regiosuisse.ch/http://staedteverband.ch/de/Willkommenhttp://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/regionen/11/geo/analyse_regionen/04.html


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