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Swiss here and able to vote. In fact, just posted my voting letter today, before taking a 1h bike ride through the biggest city in Switzerland, having lots of
by bapo 4mo ago
Swiss here and able to vote.
In fact, just posted my voting letter today, before taking a 1h bike ride through the biggest city in Switzerland, having lots of space and freedom biking around in our beautiful city.
When taking the train to my parents house, I pass several farms and landly smaller cities. Alot of free space in between those, train mostly has spare seats, depending on rush hour timings. There usually are several big commercials on private farmer land stating “NO to 10 Million Population”, prompting people to vote YES on the SVP/UDC initiative.
The initiative’s lancers seem to play a lot on people’s fear of overcrowding, which even in the most population-dense city in Switzerland seems like a joke. There’s a lot of space and quality of living is still amazing here.
Yes, during rush hours, you might have to stand for 15-30min in public transport.
Yes, finding an appartment is getting harder and more difficult.
But is this a problem of more people coming here or the failures of the state preparing for future population growth? We have so much space, benefits from diverse cultures and love for human beings.
My letter was specifically voting AGAINST this initiative.
- Schiendelman 4mo agoIt's not just the state - it's your neighbors pushing the same building restrictions as the rest of the developed world, where people say "I don't want another neighbor next to me", which results in too few apartments for even the existing people's children...
- kakacik 4mo agoYou should check Geneva then - they are building apartment buildings like crazy in past 5 years. Too much if you ask me - in very center, almost every small park or green spot is now 6 story concrete building. Only the biggest protected parks are untouched. City is visibly and permanently degrading into concrete field. Weirdly schizophrenic move - they try to keep pushing bike lanes everywhere, even where not safe to share the road, yet they also remove greenery and trees. I guess the money is too juicy. But not to just bash - they build on outskirts too. Switzerland as a country usually strikes good balance between various extremes, much better than US or EU countries do. I have no doubt they will work it out, not ideally, but better than most. Immigration they tackled much better than rest of Europe for example. And for the vote - its 1:1 Brexit. Vote for capping, damage your long term prosperity, and those unpopular jobs still will need to be staffed, or country will work worse, be dirtier etc. And if one can earn cleaning streets or putting stuff in shop shelves as much as cca doctor in France (with higher costs of life, but it doesn't have to be extreme), the amount of people willing to try coming and working is basically endless. The idea one can freeze time and keep the country as some idealized image from their childhood (without the nasty stuff that happened ie in 70s to orphaned kids en masse, aka Verdingkinder), one would have to become second North Korea. Everything changes these days, massively and quickly. Dictators won't be sending their kids to study here under false names anymore, would they.
- lejalv 4mo agoI agree about bike lanes in Geneva, they should take the space away from cars. Their success is so phenomenal, that they are carrying more passengers/h in some sections than the much wider street they flank.
- hackernulls 4mo ago[dead]
- diath 4mo agoThese jobs are unpopular because the pay is shit, not because people don't want to do them, the government could simply have grants/bonus program for people employed in these positions so that the taxpayer money directly funds the bettering of the society and environment around them. Besides, Japan is a good real world example that you do not need to lean on immigrant labor to stop your country from becoming "dirty"; it's one of the most ethically homogeneous countries and also one of the cleanest places you can visit.
- actionfromafar 4mo agoYeah... but aren't there many more poor people in Japan, too?
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- alephnerd 4mo ago> Japan is a good real world example that you do not need to lean on immigrant labor to stop your country from becoming "dirty" Japan heavily utilizes foreign workers via a Gulf style guestworker program, and even that has led to the far-right Sanseito becoming Japan's highest rated opposition party and the far-right wing of the LDP winning internal party politics.
- 4mo ago
- rayiner 4mo ago> benefits from diverse cultures You mean "benefits from increased population," right? Because isn't the whole theory that people are the same? If so, you're just adding new people who are exactly the same as the existing people. So the only benefits come from having more people, or more people with certain skills (if you're filtering based on that).
- bootsmann 4mo ago> more people with certain skills (if you're filtering based on that) This is how freedom of movement works, yes, and it's a key reason why our country is so rich.
- philipallstar 4mo ago[flagged]
- bootsmann 4mo ago[flagged]
- philipallstar 4mo ago[flagged]
- mschuster91 4mo ago> only spends 16% of GDP on public welfare It's easy to not have to spend much money on public welfare when there is a constant stream of foreign money floating in.
- philipallstar 4mo agoThat doesn't make much sense. Do you think foreign money is directly paid to people who would otherwise be welfare recipients? Is there anything foreign money can't do, would you say?
- IlikeMadison 4mo ago[flagged]
- kypro 4mo ago[flagged]
- saagarjha 4mo agoYeah I think a culture that turns away asylum seekers is pretty awful tbh
- stouset 4mo ago[flagged]
- indiangenz 4mo ago[flagged]
- thin_carapace 4mo ago[flagged]
- stouset 4mo ago[flagged]
- thin_carapace 4mo agothanks for clarifying your personal situation, given the stated context my initial question was not a valid method of assaying your perspective, please let me try again. what would your reaction be if you lived in a peaceful place, and a violent neighbour moved in? to be clear i am not asking any question other than this one.
- stouset 4mo agoI suspect you are implicitly trying to make the point that a hypothetical afghani neighbor is potentially a violent person. Regardless, my answer is the same. Violent people live everywhere. Many of them are native-born Americans, and are already my neighbors. Many native-born Americans even actively support clearly anti-American and fascist political policies. If my neighbors commit violent acts, I expect and assume the law will deal with them. Until they have demonstrated otherwise, why should I presume that any possible neighbor is violent?
- panick21_ 4mo ago[flagged]
- kuerbel 4mo agoAlso swiss here. So many people seem to think that this is about refugees. Wrong. It's about Europeans. Mostly Germans. They are educated and highly skilled and for some swiss, that's a problem. They blame them for not finding a job or an appartement. Just read the comments on inside paradeplatz, you can translate with any llm, on a post about the referendum. A subset of the swiss Middle class has decided that they don't like competition, they want them gone. Of course they themselves are never the problem, the german with a middle management position is however, because quote "they are only hiring other Germans". Also voted no of course.
- jansport123 4mo agoseems to be a common concern amongst the local population everywhere "X identity is hiring only X identity"
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- xenonite 4mo agoYes, we have a really well recognized Spanish team lead here, yet he’s mostly hiring Spanish people (in Switzerland), oh yes and one Italian is the exception. Also we had a German team lead hiring Germans, well surprise it is easier being with similar ones. Diversity back in the day meant Physics, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering working together…
- meken 4mo agoI’m an American and I just had the thought - if I was working in Japan at a Japanese company and I had the opportunity to hire, would I have a bias to hire other Americans? Honestly probably, since I understand them the best.
- influx 4mo agoAnd that seems suboptimal for a Japanese company?
- izacus 4mo agoWell, first UK had to vote for their own anti immigration nonsense, then US tried out their MAGA winning and now it's time for Switzerland to follow in their footsteps and make their country great again with SVP at the helm. After all, this time it HAS to go better right?
- noncoml 4mo agoIt didn't work out that well for UK the first time. So now they are trying a second time. By voting for the guy that promised he would solve it the first time. This time he really means it.
- indiangenz 4mo ago[flagged]
- fHr 4mo ago[flagged]
- like_any_other 4mo agoSounds like a lovely place. Why wouldn't you want to pass a law to keep it that way?
- flexagoon 4mo agoWhy would you want less people to live in a lovely place?
- skiing_crawling 4mo agoMaybe some (or many) people believe that more people will make it less "lovely". I think this is a popular stance and I think many people are more than satisfied with the current population density of their area.
- like_any_other 4mo ago[flagged]
- eqvinox 4mo agoBecause it is the place it is due to the conditions it has grown in. Take away the EU and Switzerland loses a significant part of their economic power, which is needed to sustain being the place it is. Just like Brexit.
- like_any_other 4mo ago> take away the EU Is not accepting infinity immigration "taking away the EU"? And the population density is even more part of the conditions it has grown in. But much much harder to fix if it increases too much - shouldn't they take a precautionary approach? Regardless, that's not the question I asked. I asked why the poster was pretending they don't know population number affects the quality of a place.
- eqvinox 4mo ago
- MoonWalk 4mo agoConsidering the other EU ramifications, this is basically Swixit, is it not?
- hocuspocus 4mo agoYes. We can cap non-EU/EFTA immigration to zero but that's relatively small anyway. Getting out of Schengen-Dublin and more importantly the Freedom of Movement of workers would basically unravel all bilateral agreements.
- throw1234567891 4mo agoSwitzerland is not a member of the EU.
- saguntum 4mo agoSwitzerland is, however, a member of the Schengen Area, which is very relevant to this discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area EU citizens can freely live and work in Switzerland and vice-versa. It would be difficult to reliably cap immigration from other EU countries and stay in the Schengen Area.
- pjmlp 4mo agoWhen I was at CERN, it was before Schengen became a thing, so as Portuguese I had the same VISA issues as someone else coming out of the other side of the planet. Worse, being at CERN wasn't a plus for the hiring process, I would need to apply to the position as if still living in Portugal, as my VISA was tied to CERN directly with a three month deadline to leave Switzerland after the contract duration. It also did not help, that my fellow country folks do not have a positive image across the country, for various kind of reasons, which is another issue I experienced while living there, like being refused entry in clubs when showing a Portuguese ID card. Eventually I moved back to another EU country, still I do visit Switzerland, from time to time. Pity that right wing movements are taking off all over the place.
- hackernulls 4mo ago[dead]
- autoexec 4mo agoIt seems like a good idea to start worrying about population long before it feels overcrowded and there's no room left on the trains. The issue isn't about how much open space there is to stuff people into, but about how many people an area can sustainably support. I'm not sure that 10 million is a good target to aim for, but you sure don't want to wait until your quality of life declines before you start making plans. If people are already starting to have trouble finding work and housing that seems like the conversation is long overdue.
- dpark 4mo agoThis seems like xenophobia masked as sustainability. The article indicates the referendum specifically would block immigrants but not, say, require free birth control for citizens. Interesting how narrow the target is if sustainability is the real goal.
- mike_hearn 4mo agoBecause the Swiss already have below replacement fertility, like everywhere else.
- TomBogus 4mo agoThe economy is strong because of immigration, particularly white collar immigration from EU countries. Without them businesses cannot grow in the same rate. Immigration leads to net job creation, meaning also more jobs to fill for locals. It's not zero sum. Public finances would be in a much more dire state without immigration and the locals will have to bear the public debt burden, maybe not immediately but eventually. Granted, housing and infrastructure do have to be built to keep up with population growth indeed, but it's a better problem to have than a depressed economy with decaying infrastructure and housing stock.
- amunozo 4mo agoOr you can rather prepare housing and infrastructure for the increase of population instead of blaming foreigners and risk all bilateral agreements with EU in which Switzerland's economy depend on.
- nikolay 4mo ago[flagged]
- dlahoda 4mo agoCould just stop state financing farmers and raise import taxes on non bio products which will raise food praises hence less people will be able to survive is better option?
- kamaal 4mo agoAs a Indian I envy you. My whole life has been a struggle for living in places where there could be fewer humans.
- hibberl7 4mo ago[flagged]
- tpm 4mo agoThere are plenty of such places and as the population in many countries gets older there will be more even with available housing etc; the only issue is relatively lower pay.
- junior44660 4mo agoIn one of the religious texts, the supreme god Indra says "man acquires sin by living amongst humans, and ward it off by wandering in faraway places (void of humans)". Not far off to think that Indians have always had this trauma due to population.
- hibberl7 4mo ago[flagged]
- archerx 4mo agoReally? I live in Lausanne and it’s getting a bit crowded. The buses and trains are completely packed to the point of over flowing, the city as well. Sure there’s a lot of land but that doesn’t mean we need to maximize its use at the expense of the environment and the nature it supports.
- inglor_cz 4mo ago"We have so much space". No, you don't have that much space. The entire Switzerland is half the size of Czechia and half of it is taken up by high mountains. Your cities are already pretty dense. Maybe your threshold for "too many people" is very high, but in general Switzerland doesn't have much free real estate left in/around its urban centers and most people would probably prefer to keep the rural places rural. You could turn your cities into a highrise maze - does the majority of the population want to? I can fully see where this initiative is coming from. If Czechia was pushing 20 million people, I would consider it on the edge of being overcrowded.
- nailer 4mo agoAustralian/Brit here. A Sudanese man tried to decapitate someone in the middle of the street in Belfast this morning. I suspect if the UK had better immigration controls this wouldn't have happened.
- Gormo 4mo agoIn Belfast? Was that a Protestant Somali man or a Catholic Somali man?