A 4-room apartment with 100 square meters costs an average of only 1650 francs net in St. Gallen. This is less than half of what is charged in Zurich, which is only 45 minutes away. There is also no shortage of housing: in St. Gallen there is no queue for viewing apartments. For comparison: in Zurich, 14,000 applications were received for 193 apartments in the urban housing development Tramdepot.
This sounds encouraging from St. Gallen’s perspective, but it is an expression of larger structural problems.
Robert Weinert of Wüest Partner sees the city’s “below-average economic development” as the main reason for the low rents in the “NZZ am Sonntag”. St. Gallen creates few new jobs and little is invested in existing buildings – both in terms of renovations and new buildings. And the commuting distance to the economic center of Zurich is long.
St. Gallen is a famous business training center. But the city itself is hardly generating any new economic momentum. In the last four years, only a third as many new jobs were created in St. Gallen as in Zurich. This means that there is a lack of perspective. The result: While practically all large agglomerations are experiencing significant population growth, St. Gallen’s resident population is stagnating.
Walter Locher, president of the homeowners’ association (HEV) of the canton of St. Gallen, complained to the “NZZ am Sonntag” about the slow pace of construction and identified a culprit: “planning bureaucracy.” The procedures for building permits are lengthy. Added to this are the high level of taxes and the lack of planning certainty.
Other cities in the wider Zurich area, such as Schaffhausen, Frauenfeld TG, Wil SG or Buchs SG, are increasingly trying to set an example: new buildings and good connections to the city on the Limmat. Despite affordable rents and attractive home ownership prices, the influx from Zurich remains manageable.
The Swiss are simply not a traveling nation. (Blick)
