Urbanistica calls for polycentric development in Switzerland
According to the Urbanistica Association, Switzerland has sufficient transportation infrastructure for a population of 10 million people. Small and medium-sized cities should be upgraded as places to live and work. The transportation fund should contribute 500 million francs per year for this purpose.
The Urbanistica association is calling for a paradigm shift in spatial planning. The current focus on large centres and the constant expansion of transport infrastructure is exacerbating the housing shortage, leading to unchecked increases in housing prices and ever-increasing commuter flows, writes the association for good urban development, which was founded in June 2023, in a resolution.
In future, residential development should take place in locations that already have a good transport infrastructure. “The existing transport infrastructure is basically sufficient to accommodate a population growth of up to 10 million inhabitants and the associated economic development,” the resolution states. However, the smaller and medium-sized cities need to be revitalised as interesting places to work with attractive amenities and a high quality of leisure activities. This would lead to sufficient living space, high settlement quality, sustainable economic growth and reduced mobility.
Spatial planning should therefore be geared towards a polycentric, networked and urban settlement structure, towards a Swiss city network 2.0. A quarter of the resources from the current transport fund, CHF 500 million per year, should be made available for this purpose.
Urbanistica had already launched a manifesto in favour of sustainable urban planning when it was founded. The manifesto is intended to stimulate a discourse on urban planning and urban development and has so far been signed by 1,500 people from business, universities and administration.
The current resolution was prepared by a number of experts from various fields. The following people took part in the discussions: Vincent Albers, Christoph Caviezel, Prof Kees Christiaanse, Remo Daguati, Balz Halter, Thomas Held, Michael Hermann, Alice Hollenstein, Joris Jehle, Dunja Kovari, Prof Stefan Kurath, Prof Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, Martin Neff, Mirjam Niemeyer Haris Piplas Marco Salvi, Markus Schäfer, Thomas Sevcik, Pascal Vincent, Joris van Wezemael.