One effect of this was that big companies and pension funds were desperate for some way to park their money. This lead to the situation that they would build lo

One effect of this was that big companies and pension funds were desperate for some way to park their money. This lead to the situation that they would build lots of new appartment buildings in metropolitan areas that would remain empty for years, not returning any income, they were just a vehicle to park the money. At the same time, this development was detrimental for the towns, but the towns couldn't do much against it. In the towns, people would move from the old appartments in the center to the cheap new appartments in the outskirts, leaving behind a dead center. (There was an article about this effect in the "Tagesanzeiger" called "Die Huttwilisierung der Schweiz", worth reading.)