metroléman€¦ · report 2008 metrobasel metroléman metrozurich metropolitan Switzerland basel, Geneva and Zurich want to achieve a bigger impact by acting together

report 2008

metrobasel

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basel, Geneva and Zurich want to achieve a bigger impact by acting together

The metrobasel report has already appeared three times in the “Basler Zeitung” in 2005, 2006 and 2007. On each occasion, its aim has been to take an inward look from vary-ing perspectives at metrobasel – the Basel metropolitan region, with its outstanding strengths and its needs as regards future de-velopment. Today, in this 2008 edition, the fourth in the series, we take a look at Metro-politan Switzerland, with its three metropol-itan regions: Basel, Zurich and Geneva. On this occasion, persuasive arguments are put forward to show that the sum of 1+1+1 is greater than three when it comes to keeping Switzerland right up front as a business loca-tion in the international competitive field.At present, the world is trembling from the financial crisis, and the sums of money being provided for countermeasures are astro-nomical. Nobody appears to have any clear idea as to how deeply the real economy is going to be cut back. One thing is, however, certain, namely that international competi-tion between business locations is going to become tougher, precisely as one of the out-comes of the crisis. A strong appeal for Swit-zerland to adopt precautionary measures is made by Christoph Koellreuter, the director of the metrobasel platform. He is convinced that Basel, Geneva and Zurich – each with its own particular advantages – ought to be learning from one another and speaking in unison both nationally and internationally. The first practical instance of this is going to be at the World Expo Shanghai 2010, as Sab-ine Horvath reports. An approach that can work in China is one that ought to be prac-tised in Berne too, when it come to influenc-ing the Swiss federal authorities in how they shape the general business environment. That is one target that has been identified in

all three metropolitan regions, as emerges clearly in the reports from each of them.Ralph Lewin, economic-affairs minister in the cantonal government of Basel-Stadt (Ba-sel-City), and Guy Morin, president of that government, describe how those with politi-cal responsibility have espoused the cause of promoting Basel’s trump card in the life sci-ences, how they now feel no inhibitions in dealing directly with large industrial part-ners and how that situation has enlarged their room for manoeuvre when taking sov-ereign action. Elmar Ledergerber, the mayor of the city of Zurich, describes the process of Zurich’s further metropolitan development, the encouragement of the city’s enviably lively creative sector and its excellent system of “S-Bahn” (regional-express) trains, which transport passengers to meet personally with partners in even the most far-flung parts of the network in only a matter of min-utes. Geneva’s perfection in making interna-tional visitors and talented individuals feel at home is the topic discussed by Tatjana Darany, director of the “Fondation pour Genève”; it represents an excellent example for the whole of Metropolitan Switzerland to follow!This magazine also shows how the regula-tory environment brings advantages and disadvantages in the competition between business locations, what conclusions can be drawn from the Konso surveys into differ-ences between the metropolitan mentalities within Switzerland and how the effects of national borders are resulting in more growth on the Swiss side in metrobasel than in the other two countries. Finally, now that metrobasel has been formally established as a registered association, we present its aspi-rations and its plans for the immediate fu-ture.This report also contains a premiere of a very special type: the announcement of the “metrobasel comic”, giving readers a mouth-watering foretaste of the forthcoming publi-

cation. ETH Studio Basel is an urban re-search institute, and the comic it has created provides a new vehicle for becoming famil-iar with metrobasel and the issues, opportu-nities and problems that concern it. It is a work that has been created cooperatively by the eminent lecturers and their students. The new comic is scheduled to be published in February 2009, and it is certainly some-thing to look forward to.

5 Switzerland’s strong trio Christoph Koellreuter appeals for the metropolitan regions to act

together more both nationally and internationally.

8 Nothing to top metropolitan Switzerland Christoph Koellreuter presents the evidence to show why Basel,

Geneva and Zurich are internationally ahead of all their rivals.

10 how basel-Stadt is ousting taboos Ralph Lewin and Guy Morin report on learning processes and the

metropolitan mindset in the canton of Basel-Stadt.

12 What makes Zurich creative The city’s mayor, Elmar Ledergerber, discusses Zurich’s strategies

and the successes they have brought.

14 how Geneva is becoming a “think office” Tatjana Darany, director of the “Fondation pour Genève”, describes

what an excellent host the city is for its visitors.

16 Joint appearance in Shanghai Sabine Horvath, head of Basel’s location-marketing unit, looks forward

to Basel, Geneva and Zurich together at the World Expo 2010.

17 premiere: the “metrobasel comic” ETH Studio Basel presents metrobasel, with its advantages and

shortcomings, in pictorial form.

20 Where regulations act as brakes Polynomics analyses the results of surveys into the effects of

regulation on pharmaceutical research and banking.

23 Why it is Switzerland that is profiting Christoph Koellreuter shows how borders are disadvantaging

the other parts of metrobasel.

25 missing links metrobasel’s transport group is setting out to convince Switzerland

of the benefits of better transport services.

26 Where metropolitan dwellers tick differently Hans-Ruedi Hertig, of Konso, has been researching the differences

in mentality between the peoples of Basel, Geneva and Zurich.

29 metrobasel’s plans for the future

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THE METROBASEL COMIC IS AN URBAN RESEARCH STUDY AND POR-TRAIT OF BASEL AND ITS TRINA-TIONAL REGION, WRITTEN AND

PUBLISHED BY ETH- STUDIOBASEL.*THE COMIC NARRATES AN ARCHITECTUR-AL AND URBANISTIC HISTORY WHILE ANA-LYZING THE REGION ACCORDING TO URBAN THEMES AND ACTIVI-TIES SUCH AS LIV-ING, WORKING, MOV-ING OR RECREATION. WHILE UNCOVER-ING POTENTIALS AND SHORTCOMINGS, IDEAS AND VISIONS OF HOW METROBASEL COULD TRANSFORM AND FUL-FILL ITS POTENTIAL ARE BEING DEVELOPED.

*ETH STUDIOBASEL IS AN UR-BAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE AT THE FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE, AT THE ETH ZURICH. THE IN-STITUTE IS BASED IN BASEL. FOUNDED BY THE ARCHITECTS ROGER DIENER, JACQUES HER-ZOG, MARCEL MEILI AND PIERRE DE MEURON, IT CONDUCTS URBAN RESEARCH AND HAS FOR MANY YEARS DEALT WITH THE REGION OF METROBASEL. THE RESEARCH PROJECTS WITH STUDENTS OF THE INSTITUTE FORMS THE BASIS OF THE PUBLICATION.

..

ANNOUNCING:

WOW. IT LOOKS GREAT.

LET‘S SEE!

HEY PATRICIA, HERE IS THIS COMIC

BOOK BY ETH STUDIOBASEL ON BASEL AND ITS TRINATIO-NAL REGION, WHERE WE PLAY

THE LEADING ROLES.

OH HOW NICE. THE COMIC SHOWS HOW MICHEL AND I MET EACH

OTHER AND HOW WE ARE SCOU-TING THROUGH THE CITY. AND ... SIGH ... HOW OUR FRIENDSHIP IS

GETTING CLOSER AND CLOSER ... SIGH ...

THEMETROBASEL

COMIC CONSISTS OF AN INTRODUCTION, DE-

SCRIBING THE URBAN HISTORY OF THE

REGION...

... SIX THEMATIC CHAPTERS: LIVING, WORKING, MOVING, SHOPPING,

LEARNING AND RECREATION...

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THE IN

TRODUCTION

AIMS FOR METROBASEL:LIVING:

- 15.000 ADDITIONAL APARTMENTS in Basel-Stadt!

- LIVING HAS TO TAKE PLACE ALONG THE RHINE! INDUSTRY AND ALOT-

MENT GARDENS SHOULD BE RELOCATED.

- MORE AFFORDABLE APARTMENTS AND MORE EXCLUSIVE RESIDENTIAL

SPACES. WE HAVE TOO MUCH MEDIOCRITY!

WORKING:- ALL HARBORS SHOULD RELOCATE IN THE NORTH OF BASEL.

- TRANSFORM INDUSTRIAL ZONES INTO MIXED URBAN AREAS. THESE AREAS

CAN HAVE A HIGH DENSITY OF DIVERSE URBAN PROGRAMS.

MOVING:- COVERING INFRASTRUCTURE WITH NEW PARKS OR WITH MIXED USE AREAS IN

ORDER TIE THE CITY CLOSER TOGETHER.

- THE S-BAHN 'HERZSTÜCK' WITH THE NORTHERN LINK HAS TO BE BUILT!

- WE WANT A TRI-NATIONAL LOCAL TRANSPORTSYSTEM WITH TRAMS.

SHOPPING:- INNERCITY SHOPPING HAS TO BE CURATED. metrobasel needs the best

shops as well as affordable and innovative stores!

- we want a great food court and better urban markets.

learning:- BASEL needs a young art scene. spaces for art production and art

galleries can act as urban pioneers.

- basel university should operate tri-nationally and be embedded in a

context of swiss, french and german high-end research centers.

- BASEL needs an opera!- BASEL needs a mosque!RECREATION:- BASEL needs a lake in the city center!

- we want a 'central park' with a dense surrounding city fabric

- the core city should be understood as the gate to the nearby

landscape regions of jura, black forest and the vosges!

THE CORE CITY AND THE TRI-NATIONAL REGION:

- WE HAVE TO PLAN AND DESIGN TRI-NATIONALLY!

- A CLOSELY LINKED TRI-NATIONAL REGION WHICH UNDERSTANDS THE

CORE CITY AND ITS SURROUNDINGS AS A UNIT, BRINGING TOGETHER

THE INDIVIDUAL PARTS.- NATURE IS PART OF OUR SHAPED AND CULTIVATED ENVIRONMENT.

WE WANT TO FORM THIS NATURE. ESPECIALLY REGARDING THE

FUTURE, WITH ITS CHANCES, PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES.!

...SO, LETS LOOK AT WHAT

IDEAS AND AIMS WE CALL FOR:

...AND A CON-CLUDING CHAPTER IN

WHICH WE ARE BRING-ING ALL OUR IDEAS

TOGETHER...

METROBASEL COMIC

PUBLISHED BY ETH STUDIOBASEL.

AVAILABLE SOON ALL OVER METROBASEL!

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..And AN OUTLOOK!

the 2008 metrobasel report focuses on metropolitan Switzerland

publication data The metrobasel report is published once a year in November in cooperation with the “Basler Zeitung” by the metrobasel association (in full: “metrobasel – platform for the development of the Basel metropolitan region”. The original German version of the 2008 edition was published as an insert in the “Basler Zeitung” (complete edition), the “Neue Fricktaler Zeitung” (extended edition) and the Sissach “Volksstimme” (extended edition); it has also been distributed to all the households in Landkreis Lörrach, Germany. (Print run of German version: 313 000).This English version (print run: 20 000) is available on order and for distribution on special occasions.

editor: Martin Hicklin layout: Birgit Leifhelm. proof-reading: Lesley Paganetti and Sabine Steinhart. advertisements: KeyMedia. english translation: Mike & Barbara Evans. printed by: Birkhäuser+GBC SA, Reinach. cover photograph: Territorial Agency. Source of images: © Google, © 2008 DigitalGlobe, © 2008 GeoContent, © NASA, © 2008 Cnes/Spotimage. Website: www.metrobasel.org

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Christoph Koellreuter* > the three met-ropolitan regions – basel, Geneva and Zurich – complement one anogher nicely and have much in common, as is shown by the latest data. they ought to make use of this potential in a way that will benefit Switzerland.

Even though governments and central banks are currently closing ranks in combat-ing the financial crisis, it would be danger-ous to jump to the conclusion that interna-tional competition between business loca-tions had thus been rendered inoperable. The more likely scenario is that it is going to become fiercer, and that it is going to be felt especially in those metropolitan regions whose focus is on financial services, but the life-sciences regions are going to feel it too. The reason is that both of these sectors are very attractive ones to be in on account of their high intensity of wealth creation. Moreover, the effect is going to be even more marked in those economies and countries in which the metropolitan regions contribute at least 60% (but often as much as 80%) of the gross domestic product (GDP).* Christoph Koellreuter is director of the

metro basel association – the platform for the development of the Basel Metropolitan Region – and also delegate of the association’s board.

In Switzerland it is also the case that the jobs in the financial-services and life-sci-ences sectors are to be found primarily in the metropolitan regions of the country. These are the two sectors with the highest em-ployee productivity by a long margin when compared with the other parts of the econ-omy. They are thus an important source of Switzerland’s ab ove-average prosperity.

The question that must inevitably be asked when considering the Swiss national economy as a whole is how well these two

sectors in Metropolitan Switzerland are equipped for coping with the challenges that have become bigger due to the finan-cial crisis and where there is a clear call for action. The following pages contain articles dealing with the international positioning of the Basel, Geneva and Zurich metropoli-tan regions in the life sciences and financial services and the quality of the key frame-work requirements for the two sectors in an international comparison. One of the most important conclusions of the survey results

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Metrobasel Report 2008: focus on the Basel, Geneva and Zurich metropolitan regions

metropolitan Switzerland’s strong trio

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our definitions of the basel, Geneva and Zurich metropolitan regions for the purposes of this report The articles on the following pages use various statistics (from BAK Basel Economics and other sources). They are based on the following geographic demarcations (which will hopefully be improved in future):

basel metropolitan region (metrobasel): Switzerland: the entire cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft, the districts of Rhein-felden and Laufenburg in Canton Aarau, the dis-tricts of Thierstein and Dorneck in Canton Solo-thurn and the district of Delémont in Canton Jura; Germany: Landkreis Lörrach; France: Pays de Saint-Louis (cantons of Sierentz, Hun-ingue and Ferrette).

Geneva metropolitan region (metroléman): Cantons Geneva and Vaud (i.e. excluding the lower territories of Canton Valais and the neigh-bouring French territories in the departments of Ain and Haute-Savoie, although they are actually part of the Geneva metropolitan region).

Zurich metropolitan region (metrozürich): Cantons Zurich, Aargau, Zug and Schaffhausen (i.e. excluding those parts of the cantons of St. Gallen, Thurgau, Schwyz and Lucerne that do actually belong to the Zurich metropolitan re-gion, but including the districts of Rheinfelden and Laufenburg in Canton Aargau, which are re-ally part of the Basel metropolitan region). The life-sciences data applies to Canton Zurich only.

Conurbation or isolated town Alpine resort

● Rural centre Core territory of the metropolitan area Other territories significantly affected by the metropolitan area

the other countries considered (USA, United Kingdom, Germany and Singa-pore); and

> Good domestic, continental and intercon-tinental transport to and from Metropoli-tan Switzerland.

learNiNG from oNe aNother. Each of the three metropolitan regions of Basel, Geneva and Zurich can learn and profit from the strengths of the others. > Basel sets an enviable example with its

life-sciences success formula and the ex-cellent active commitment of regional government, businesses and civil society to a good general economic framework;

> Zurich and Geneva offer top quality of life even on a world scale, including making the most out of their lakes to enhance the human habitat. They too have created good general environments for the devel-opment of services for their business and residential locations. Zurich has a strong scene for creative activities and businesses and an outstanding system of “S-Bahn” (regional-express) trains; and

> Geneva has a winning way in integrating highly-talented individuals from all over the world.

StreNGtheNiNG uNiverSitieS. The globally relevant universities in Metropoli-tan Switzerland ought to make more out of their strengths through divisions of labour and cooperation. > Taking the academic rankings of the vari-

ous disciplines as published by Shanghai

University, the areas worth concentrating on would be the life-science disciplines, clinical medicine and pharmacy at the universities of Zurich and Basel, the natu-ral sciences and mathematics at the ETH* Zurich and the engineering, computer and material sciences at the EPF* Lausanne.

> As regards the social sciences (including the economic ones) there is the worrying question concerning the innovation re-sources available to Switzerland as a fi-

nancial market, namely that no Swiss university appears in the corresponding ranking for the relevant disciplines, de-spite the fact that the Swiss financial in-dustry and the universities themselves have put in appropriate efforts.

improveD traNSport ServiceS. It is necessary to improve transport between the metropolitan regions of Basel, Zurich and Geneva – especially by rail. The underlying reasons for this are: > With the expansion of high-speed railway

connections throughout Europe and the steeply increasing costs of air travel in the longer term, the metropolitan regions of Zurich and Geneva need to have better connections to and from the major rail-way hub in Basel;

> Sufficient capacity needs to be available for the declared target of shifting freight traffic to the railway; and

> Improved transport will make it easier for each of the metropolitan regions to ben-efit from the strengths of the other two – in business, research, education and cul-ture.

coorDiNateD StaNce viS-À-viS the SWiSS feDeral authoritieS. The three metropolitan regions of Basel, Geneva and Zurich would be well advised to adopt a common front in the Swiss federal capital of Berne when lobbying for internationally competitive regulations for the life sciences, financial services and other key sectors. * Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

presented in this metrobasel report is that it is worthwhile for the three Swiss metro-politan regions – including in respect of Switzerland as a whole – to move closer together and to adopt and implement the following recommendations.

JoiNt appearaNceS. Regardless of what organisational solutions might finally be decided on, what matters most is for all those acting on behalf of the three metro-politan regions to be aware of their common strengths and also to exploit these proac-tively on the international stage:> Top positions in life sciences and financial

services – at least on the continental Euro-pean scale;

> Top quality of life by worldwide standards in all three metropolitan regions;

> Lowest level of taxation on businesses and highly-qualified employees, at least by comparison with the relevant competing metropolitan regions;

> The best innovation resources in the con-text of continental Europe; the availability of highly-qualified members of the work-force, top-class research quality at their universities and other institutions of higher education and also a very high level of expenditure on research and de-velopment; and

> An excellent regulatory environment – at least by European standards – as regards the labour market and life sciences (phar-maceuticals). In considering the regula-tion of banking, Switzerland scores best – by a small margin – in comparison with

christoph Koellreuter: “each of the three metropolitan regions can learn from the other two.”

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metropolitan Switzerland in figures

proportions of metropolitan Switzerland compared with the country as a whole:

Residential population: approx. 50%Gainfully employed: just under 55%GDP: approx. 2/3

proportions of financial services and life sciences in the GDp of metropolitan Switzerland as a whole and of the individual metropolitan regions:

Financial services: total: just under 20% Zurich: approx. 23% Geneva: approx. 17% Basel: approx 9% [around 11% taking the Swiss part alone]Life sciences: total: approx. 5% Basel: approx 16% [around 19% taking the Swiss part alone] Geneva: just above 2% Zurich: just below 2%

employee productivity in financial services and life sciences in metropolitan Switzerland:

2-to-2½ times the employee productivity in the Swiss national economy as a whole

innovation resources:

All the Swiss universities and similar institutions of higher edu-cation that are of global relevance (i.e. are included in the aca-demic ranking of the world’s best universities using the Shang-hai University method) are located in Metropolitan Switzer-land.

expenditure on research and development:

80-90% of the money going into research and development in Switzerland is spent in its metropol-itan regions.

employees with higher- education qualifications:

Around 2/3 of those in gainful em-ployment in Switzerland who have a higher-education qualification work in the metropolitan regions.

enormous progress made by information and communication technology, the possi-bility of meeting others face-to-face has be-come even more important, especially for the metropolitan regions, which need to main-tain their position at the cutting edge of the knowledge-based economy. That is the rea-son why the concept of “co-location” is gain-ing more currency in the world’s large inno-vation centres. What it means is more and more geographical proximity of high-tech research, development and manufacturing as well as university research. For that rea-son, the innovation centres are insisting more and more on good transport services with the world’s other innovation centres with similar specialisations.

In addition to that, dynamic metropo-lises rely absolutely on a dependable supply of incoming goods, and the timely export of the merchandise produced also needs ade-quate transport capacities.

Taking the parameter of the fiscal bur-den on businesses and highly-qualified em-ployees and combining it with the quality of life, Metropolitan Switzerland is clearly the best place in the world, and the Zurich met-ropolitan region is best of all.

In considering those general framework conditions that could be decisive for the suc-cess of a metropolitan region with high wage costs, and especially the availability of inno-vation resources and the nature of official

regulations, the Swiss metropolitan regions are admittedly always better positioned than the other European metropolitan re-gions in competition with them, but the US metropolitan regions are practically always in front in this respect.

That applies, in particular, to the re-search quality of universities and similar in-stitutions in all disciplines as well to the regulations governing the labour and prod-uct markets in general and the sectors of life sciences (or pharmaceuticals) more specifi-cally. When it comes to the regulation of banking, Switzerland is still at least, even if only by a small margin, in first place com-pared with the USA, the United Kingdom and Singapore.

As regards accessibility by the various modes of transport, Metropolitan Switzer-land lags behind the large European metro-politan regions of Frankfurt, Paris and Lon-don. Within Metropolitan Switzerland, the Zurich metropolitan region has better air services (both for continental and intercon-tinental flights) than Basel and Geneva. The situation is different as regards the conti-nental road and railway networks. Here it is Basel that is better positioned than Zurich and Geneva. As European high-speed rail-way services continue to be expanded and as the costs of air travel continue to rise, Basel’s position in this respect is likely to improve still further.

Christoph Koellreuter > Metropolitan Switzerland – comprised of the metro-politan regions of Basel, Geneva and Zürich – has the best possible hand of cards by international comparison.

The excellent international position of the Basel metropolitan region in life sci-ences and that of the Zurich metropolitan region in financial services can be con-firmed using a variety of criteria. These are employee productivity, size (measured in terms of jobs/individuals in gainful em-ployment), cluster quality (measured as the sector’s share in gross added value in the GDP of the metropolitan region) and the dynamic trends in jobs and added value since 2000.

Even though life sciences in the Geneva metropolitan region form a less powerful cluster than in the Basel metropolitan re-gion and even though its financial services form a less powerful cluster than those of the Zurich metropolitan region, the two sec-tors taken together have produced a mark-edly more dynamic trend in job numbers than the corresponding sectors in the Ger-man-speaking metropolitan regions. Tak-ing the indicator of added-value growth in life sciences, the Geneva metropolitan re-gion has also been clearly outperforming both the Basel and Zurich metropolitan re-gions.

LIFE SCIENCES WITH A FUTURE. Strength-ening the focus on life sciences ought in fu-ture to turn out to be even more worthwhile for the three metropolitan regions and also for Switzerland as a whole, given that the foreseeable growth opportunities for the Swiss financial market must be considered as much more restrained compared with past periods in the aftermath of the current finan-cial crisis.

Considering the wealth-management segment of financial services, with its inten-sive added value, the level of employee pro-ductivity in the Zurich metropolitan region is the third-best in the world; if the Swiss metropolitan regions are taken together, they perform fourth-best on this indicator. The scores, however, look a lot less good when growth rates are considered. Given that the importance of onshore banking has risen considerably, the Swiss financial cen-tres have lost ground, particularly accord-ing to the indicator of added-value growth. Many financial centres (including European ones) succeeded in producing higher growth rates for their financial services in terms of the real gross added value between

2000 and 2006 than did the Swiss metro-politan regions.

KNOCK-ON BENEFITS. Other sectors have also benefited from the strength and/or vital-ity of the key sectors of life sciences and finan-cial services. One example of this is the in-crease of just under 4% per annum between 2000 and 2006 in the number of jobs in the business-services segment in the Basel met-ropolitan region (outstripping the other met-ropolitan regions). This is a clear knock-on effect from the success of the life sciences in Basel. The next-best figures are for Southern California (3.6% per annum), Geneva (3.4% per annum) and Zurich (3.2% per annum).

The logistics sector has experienced cor-responding vigorous growth in the number of jobs too. The growth rates in all the met-ropolitan regions, however, were noticeably lower for logistics than for business services. The Geneva metropolitan region is the leader here. with an increase in the number jobs of 1.2% per annum between 2000 and 2006.

DEMOGRAPHICS AND JOBS. Between 2000 and 2006, the three Swiss metropoli-tan regions had the second-highest rate of population growth (0.9% per annum), with only Southern California having a higher fig-ure. Despite that, the trend in the number of jobs in Metropolitan Switzerland in con-sumer-oriented services (such as retailing, eating out, entertainment, culture and sport) was disappointing. These declined by a mean of 0.1% per annum. This is considered to be a consequence of the very modest population growth of approximately 0.2% per annum, especially for the Basel metropolitan region, where the number of jobs in retailing actually fell by 2.4% per annum over the same period of time. It is possible that Switzerland’s still relatively high prices in these sectors com-

pared with other countries have played a part in this.

There are no grounds whatsoever for the fear sometimes expressed that the growth in the GDP of the metropolitan re-gions is achieved at the expense of the rest of the Swiss economy. It is important for the Swiss, with their general concern for strik-ing a balance, to realise that the growth in the real GDP of the Swiss economy as a whole since 2000 has been at more or less the same level as that of Metropolitan Swit-zerland. This situation contrasts with cer-tain other countries, such as the United Kingdom, where the mean national growth as been approximately two percentage points per annum lower than that of Greater London.

INNOVATION FACTORS. Today, high-wage regions must manage to achieve a high de-gree of innovation if they are to maintain their position as they compete with other business locations, which has now become a fiercer contest internationally. Quite apart from the critical size and quality of highly productive sectoral clusters in metropolitan regions, various locational factors must be present in as positive a form as possible.

One point that is crucial for a knowl-edge-based metropolitan region is that it should have sufficient innovation resources available to it, especially a large enough pool of qualified and highly qualified mem-bers of the workforce with the correct pro-file for the regional locational cluster.

A second factor promoting innovation is that as high a percentage as possible of the regional GDP ought to be spent on research and development. The proximity of world-class universities and similar institutions is of no less importance.

Even all of this together, however, does not lead to the ultimate innovation success – namely the creation of new, highly-pro-ductive jobs – unless the businesses present in the location find an innovation-friendly regulatory and fiscal environment.

A very important point indeed is the quality of life on offer, ensuring that the lo-cation is attractive for a cluster of talented people from all around the world, which constitutes a strategic resource for success-ful innovation.

IMPORTANCE OF GOOD TRANSPORT SERVICES. One final point of particular im-portance for the success of metropolitan re-gions is that they need to have good connec-tions by all modes of transport. Despite the

Life sciences and financial services in the metropolitan regions of Basel, Geneva and Zurich

Outstandingly positioned

The life sciences and financial services make a considerable contribution to gross added value in Switzerland (see diagram).

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More at ww.metrobasel.orgA comprehensive background paper is available in German with the title of “Metropolitanregionen Basel, Genf und Zurich: Quellen des Wohl-standes der Schweiz dank Life-Sci-ences und Finanzdienstleistungen. You can download it from www.metrobasel.org. At the same ad-dress, you can also download our past reports for the years 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Nicely positioned in Places 1 and 4The number-one position occupied by Metropolitan Switzerland and the Ba-sel metropolitan region in life sci-ences, on the one hand, as well as the number-four position occupied by Metropolitan Switzerland and the Zu-rich metropolitan region in financial services, on the other hand, can al-most certainly be ascribed to the top quality of practically all the general framework conditions. In comparing

Metropolitan Switzer-land with competing metropolitan regions in Europe, there are only a few instances of better ratings.As regards the quality of life-science and medical research at universities and simi-lar institutions, there is only one area in which a continental-European university beats the best Swiss university, namely Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. In terms of continental and intercontinental

accessibility by air, Frankfurt, Paris and London fare better than Metro-politan Switzerland as a whole and also better than the Zurich metropol-itan region.Businesses with global operations have no choice today but to make sure that they are represented in all the world’s major regions (North America, Europe and East Asia) with research, development and produc-tion in the initial phases of the innova-tion cycle and they must also have headquarters functions there. The top-class general framework condi-tions (innovation resources, regula-tion, quality of life and taxation) give the three Swiss metropolitan regions an excellent springboard compared with the rest of Europe. By compari-son with the metropolitan regions in the USA, which are better positioned than Switzerland as regards their in-novation resources and also as re-gards most regulatory aspects, the telling arguments in Switzerland’s fa-vour are especially the quality of life and the fiscal situation and, finally, the constraint already mentioned of the need for the major economic players to be represented in each of the big regions of the world. CK

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(linked with correspondingly expensive public investments), the businesses provide well-paid jobs, wealth creation and tax rev-enues running into millions of francs.

ACTIVE DIALOGUE. Basel removed the ta-boos from this relationship and mutual de-pendence earlier than did other places. For many years now, a regular dialogue between the cantonal government and the top man-agement of all the big businesses domiciled in the canton of Basel-Stadt has contributed to minimising the danger of misunderstand-ings and prejudices. The state either cannot or does not want to provide everything placed on the agenda by the companies during such talks (and the situation is the same the other way round too). Nonetheless, government familiarity with the needs of the businesses and the individual needs of the men and women in charge of them increases the likeli-hood that the companies will bring addi-tional capital and people into Basel.

This active dialogue, which Canton Ba-sel-Stadt extended two years ago to include important SMEs too, has led to visible re-sults. The current large-scale investment projects being implemented by Roche and Novartis (and both running into billions of francs) document the confidence that busi-ness has in the durable quality of the overall local business environment. On the other hand, the shift in paradigm (i.e. the “redis-covery” of big business at the local political level) is supported across the whole politi-

cal spectrum, and the cantonal parliament has now adopted a clear stance on the mat-ter for three legislative periods running. One evident reason for this is that it has been clearly demonstrated that business-friendly actions by the cantonal government and ad-ministration have created additional value for the regional employment market and the population as a whole.

HIGH-TECH LOCATION. Cooperation be-tween the state and business is particularly noticeable in the life-sciences sector. That is reflected, on the one hand, in joint strategic projects, such as “Campus Plus” (where the partners are Canton Basel-Stadt and No-vartis) and the teamwork between the can-ton and the company in the project o expand Roche’s headquarters and, on the other hand, in the close cooperation between the two Basel cantons and the Basel Chamber of Commerce. Since 2005, the latter has deter-mined the timing for the formulation and implementation of a regional life-sciences strategy. The cantons benefit substantially from the work done by the Chamber of Com-merce’s committee on the life sciences, whereas the latter sees its work making its way into the general business environment and the needs formulated by cantonal policy. That results in an accurate appreciation of reality on both sides and thus leads to an im-plementation of the jointly agreed measures that adheres closely to the intentions. A simi-lar philosophy is shaping the drive to encour-age innovation, which Canton Basel-Stadt is currently building up in cooperation with partners from the world of business. A new brand name of “i-net Basel” has been created for measures adopted by the canton in sup-port of the formation of regional networks and added value in selected fields of nano technology, the natural environment and en-ergy (“Greentech”) as well as the informa-tion and communication technologies. The medium-term intention is to develop the Ba-sel region still further as a leading interna-tional base for advanced technology and to make sure it is firmly positioned as such.

ACTIVE IN BERNE. In many instances local and regional successes in Basel, where the economic structure has a strong research base, are determined by general framework conditions, which are laid down by the Swiss Confederation. For that reason, Canton Basel-Stadt regularly makes representations at fed-eral level, along with other cantons and or-ganisations, to put forward a strong case in matters concerning infrastructure or regula-tions. Examples of issues that are important to Basel are the quality of the railway services in the Basel-Zurich-Geneva triangle and protec-tion for the innovations that are so important for the whole of Switzerland’s export indus-try. Not everything that is good for business in Basel is good for Basel, but anything that is bad for business is bound to be harmful for Basel and Switzerland as a business location.

Ralph Lewin and Guy Morin > The political authorities of Canton Basel-Stadt (Ba-sel-City) were amongst the first to kick the taboos out of their relation-ship with locally based industry. The canton’s policy is one of pursuing an intelligent dialogue with its partners in Switzerland and throughout the Up-per-Rhine region.

For more than ten years, the Basel re-gion has been the Swiss leader in economic performance and vitality. It owes this posi-tion to a large extent to the success of the

large businesses with big investment budg-ets and to the rapidly-growing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with re-search, development, manufacturing and administrative activities in Basel. The most important sector is life sciences, which is, of itself, directly responsible for 18% of the re-gion’s added value. The statistics show that there are further life-science jobs to be found in other sectors (such as IT or consultancy) or in companies supplying the globally ac-tive businesses and thus dependent on their success or failure.

For many years, those in political office used to shy away from this cause-and-effect reality. Both sides failed to take a serious look at the needs of the other side in a situ-ation characterised by a persistent lack of interest and reticence to rub shoulders with one another. The political authorities in Canton Basel-Stadt were aware of the pres-ence of the businesses which were growing ever stronger, but the latter’s economic de-velopment took place without them having a say. Whilst the economy was undergoing globalisation, political minds remained im-prisoned in the same old historical 37 square kilometres. Ambitions going further than

these geographic confines were considered as neither opportune nor necessary – apart from relations with the neighbouring can-ton of Basel-Landschaft and cooperative projects with the Upper-Rhine neighbours.

GIVE AND TAKE. The companies reacted to the pressures to adapt resulting from increas-ing globalisation by sharpening their mate-rial and geographic focus. With the growing mobility of capital and managers, an ever-larger layer of competition between business locations came to be superimposed on com-petition between companies. It began to dawn on the body politic that Basel (with the headquarters of numerous large businesses) was in a vulnerable position in this new world, but that it was also a business location sitting on a huge potential that it would be possible to leverage to improve the prosper-ity of the people living there. What was for-merly seen as a fate shared by industry and its location (represented by the state) evolved into an economically determined give-and-take relationship, which, although it does have historical roots, needs to be made into a living reality every day anew. In exchange for a bundle of attractive locational factors

How Canton Basel-Stadt is maintaining and increasing its metropolitan opportunities

No taboos in an active dialogue with industry

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The historic centre of the Basel met-ropolitan region affords a stunning panorama along the banks of the river Rhine, the city’s life-bringing artery.

Ralph Lewin, the economic-affairs min-ister of the canton of Basel-Stadt, and Guy Morin, president of the cantonal government.

10 metrobasel report



Basel-Stadt with a clear focus on the “metropolitan region” The introduction of a larger busi-ness element into politics and expe-riences to date with the globally ac-tive companies have inevitably had consequences for the foreign policy pursued by Canton Basel-Stadt. Be-ing a business centre, the city-can-ton is dependent on intelligent coop-eration with its partners. Both historically and psychologically, Basel has affinities with its neigh-bours in Alsace and Southern Baden, and today’s metropolitan area around Basel stretches north-wards as far as Mulhouse and Freiburg im Breisgau. The emergence of key matters of economic policy in Basel’s foreign policy have brought cooperation with Switzerland’s other growth poles (the Zurich and Geneva areas) more into the limelight, flanked by federal measures in the field of ur-ban and regional policy. It is still necessary to sound out how far co-operation within this triangle can go as regards the universities and eco-nomic development. At all events, the many shared interests and the common success factors of the three leading innovation locations show clearly that it has become im-portant for them to intensify their relations. Under the presidency of Basel-Stadt, the inter-cantonal govern-mental conference of north-western Switzerland (“Nordwestschweizer Regierungskonferenz”) has also fur-ther expanded the cooperation be-tween its six member cantons, stretching from Canton Jura to Canton Aargau.The decisions taken have been both sectoral (in the fields of economic, health-care and educational policy) and structural (with the creation of a new secretariat). North-western Switzerland has thus espoused the profile of a bilingual, transnational European region.Finally, in consideration of the grow-ing importance of innovation for fu-ture prosperity, cooperation with leading scientific and economic re-gions outside of Europe has also been expanded. In addition to Ba-sel’s traditional partners in the im-mediate region and throughout Switzerland, it has now concluded formalised cooperation arrange-ments with Massachusetts in the USA (in 2002) and Shanghai in China (in 2007). RL/GM

by the cantons of Zurich, Schaffhausen, Thurgau, St. Gallen, Schwyz, Zug and Lu-cerne as well as by nearly seventy communes, towns and cities. In doing so, they have com-mitted themselves to work with one another on a voluntary basis.

VISION AND ASSOCIATION. The Zurich Metropolitan Conference was originally an initiative taken by Zurich, but its support has now spread beyond the borders of that one canton. A steering body has been set up to manage and finance the forthcoming imple-mentation phase; it is made up of members of the cantonal governments of Schaff-hausen, Schwyz, Zug and Zurich, the may-ors of Baden, Frauenfeld, Lucerne, Rapper-swil-Jona, Winterthur and Zurich and two representations of the association of com-munal mayors. As the basis for joint action, work is currently underway on drawing up a vision for the Zurich Metropolitan Area. The most appropriate organisational form is also under examination. As things stand at the time of writing, the prime contender ap-pears to be the variant involving a public-law association with two chambers, one of which would be the “chamber of cantons”, taking the form of a conference of cantonal govern-ments.

A much-publicised phenomenon known as the “anti-Zurich reflex” seems to be caus-ing far fewer problems than was originally assumed. There does appear to be a wide-spread factual recognition of the existence of a community of fate and interests. One of the

big unanswered questions is the definitive stance of Canton Aargau, which has also been invited to participate in the conferences. On the one hand, that canton recognises that the built-up districts in the eastern part of its territory are clearly focused on Zurich; but it would prefer to be part of an even larger co-operative project with the working title of “Metropolitan Region of Northern Switzer-land”, in which Canton Aargau would occupy a place in the geographic centre between the poles of Basel and Zurich.

Merging the two metropolitan regions, however, would amount to creating a group-ing of eleven cantons, which could well prove unwieldy and would be unacceptable in the eyes of Switzerland as a whole. More re-cently, a scaled-down version with only six cantons has been propagated, but its funda-mental drawback is that its territorial cover-age would not coincide with the functional ties that already exist between territories.

METROPOLITAN COOPERATION. Nobody in either Basel or Zurich denies that there is an axis of cooperation between the two met-ropolitan regions. The preconditions for working together already exist with the for-mation both to the west and the east of the river Aare of institutions with the necessary clout.

It is a matter of fact that the metropoli-tan regions are capable of working with one another and of learning from one another. It is, for instance, no less urgent from Zu-rich’s perspective for the Geneva, Basel and Zurich railway stations to be competitively linked into the European high-speed net-work. Shorter travel and transport times ought to have the effect of strengthening the exchange of people and goods amongst the metropolitan regions. There is particular need for action to improve the railway links between Zurich and Stuttgart and Munich and also the triangular links between the three metropolitan regions within Switzer-

land. What is at stake is to connect the whole of Metropolitan Switzerland up to the inter-continental airport in Zurich and to enhance the networking of the country’s main re-search locations, each with its own particu-lar profile. One thing is certain: we are going to be much stronger if we stand united!

Elmar Ledergerber > The Zurich Metro-politan Area has adopted an interna-tional format. For the future, the can-tons, cities, towns and communes within this area are intent on improv-ing their cooperation. Along with the metropolitan regions of Basel and Ge-neva/Lausanne, they bear major re-sponsibility for Switzerland’s interna-tional competitiveness.

The Zurich Metropolitan Area is the largest and most important metropolitan region in Switzerland. It is home to just short of two million people. Its 900 000 jobs account for nearly 40% of the value created

by the Swiss economy. Two thirds of Swit-zerland’s top thousand companies have their headquarters within the diamond formed by Lucerne, Baden, Schaffhausen and Frauenfeld. This business location at the heart of Europe is characterised by its knowledge-based economy and excellent quality of life. Its good position by interna-tional standards is by no means simply a gift of nature. The increasingly dynamic compe-tition between business locations is no longer being fought out primarily between countries but between metropolitan re-gions. As has been brought out very clearly by the current financial crisis, economic well-being in these metropolitan regions is strongly influenced by the happenings on international markets.

SPEAKING WITH ONE VOICE. The can-tons, cities, towns and communes within the Zurich Metropolitan Area have recog-nised that the best chance of securing their competitiveness and quality of life in the long term lies in working together to de-velop the location as a whole. There is also a need to put a greater effort into lobbying the federal authorities in Berne. When it

comes to influencing regulatory and infra-structure decisions, all the stakeholders in the Zurich economic region can still learn a lot from Switzerland’s mountain cantons by increasingly campaigning together for their interests.

The Zurich Metropolitan Conference, which is currently being created, is inten-ded to serve as a platform to give the Zurich-Metropolitan Area a single face and a single voice. The conference is also producing new opportunities for working more closely with private businesses and other players.

PORTRAIT AND CHARTER. The Metropoli-tan Conference has already arrived at its fourth round, scheduled to be held in Schaff-hausen at the end of November 2008. Its suc-cess to date is creating a mood of optimism, since it has taken less than a year for all those actively involved in the Zurich Metropolitan Conference to agree on a common “portrait” for it and to adopt a “charter” laying down the basic cooperative principles. The discussions and the exchanges across the borders of can-tons and communes have helped create a basis of trust. The “charter” for the Zurich Metropolitan Area has already been accepted

Broadmindedness: building up the Zurich Metropolitan Conference

Strategic cooperation in the interest of Switzerland

Picture-postcard panorama of Zurich and its lake – the heart of a pulsating metropolitan region.

Elmar Ledergerber is the mayor of Zurich.

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Various ateliers and a large indoor market are soon to open between the arches of this railway viaduct in the “Kreis 5” district of Zurich.




Creative Zurich – a model success storyThe creative businesses within the Zurich Metropolitan Area play a role which is of central importance to the whole of Switzerland. This ap-plies especially to the city of Zurich, but it also holds true for the other parts of the region’s conurbations.The creative sector is a dynamic, multi-facetted and important branch of the regional economy. Zurich’s municipal executive, for instance, in-cludes the creative segment as one of those to be given special promo-tion in its “Zurich 2025” strategies. The “creative sector” is defined as all those businesses that are in-volved in the creation, production, distribution and/or presentation through the media of artistic and creative goods and services. Some 8.8% of those with jobs in the city of Zurich work in the creative sector. With total sales amounting to ap-proximately CHF 9.2 billion, a con-servative estimate places their gross added value at around CHF 2.9 billion.What is it, however, that makes Zurich’s creative sector into a model for success? The first striking char-acteristic is its highly heterogeneous and fragmented structure, domi-nated by small undertakings. Sec-ondly, its players are predominantly young and well educated.It is a situation in which new models for working together are being cre-ated. A characteristic feature is the overlap between private and profes-sional life. The informal networks are created and consolidated not only through joint projects but also through the spaces provided for communication within the urban fab-ric, with short distances and prox-imity to both clients and those of a like mind. The actual work is often done in short-lived constellations.One of the outstanding qualities of Zurich’s urban environment is its ex-cellent public-transport infrastruc-ture. The high-capacity network of “S-Bahn” (regional-express) trains not only makes it possible to move speedily between the various hot spots that together make up of Zurich’s creative scene, but also re-duces the time it takes to travel be-tween the airport and the heart of the city to a matter of minutes – and it has also made the otherwise non-descript Hardbrücke station, which serves the creative hot spot of Zu-rich West, into the gateway to the world. EL

Telecommunication Union), WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) and the ISO (International Standardisation Organi-sation) – all of them organisations establish-ing rules within which globalisation can take place. These changes are advancing slowly, but have already caused a paradigm shift. In earlier years, people “were wanting to heal the world” (ICRC, peace conferences, and so on); today they are engaged in fresh thinking about it (WEF, WTO, and so on)”.

The presence of these organisations is challenging Geneva and the region around it to position themselves internationally as the driving force of an “intellectual diplo-macy”. The universities are also sharing in these changes. The IUED (Institute of Devel-opment Studies) and the IUHEI (Institute of Advanced International Studies) have pooled their forces to create a new institu-tion with an international claim, the IUHEID or “Graduate Institute”.

For longer than anyone can remember, the Geneva region has been characterised by its commitment in the field of education, and that has been intensified even further in recent years. A top-grade, private education service is a significant development factor for a region. The respectable number of pri-vate schools along with academic and voca-tional institutions is an important argument in attempting to attract businesses, as well as for development in general terms. Leading organisations and international business groups are looking to be close to schools and universities as well as to vocational-training

and research centres. This is one of the key strengths of the “Région lémanique”.

Advertising measures and novel broad-cast formats (such as Geneva Network, Ge-neva News, les Cahiers de la Fondation pour Genève, Geopolitics, les Forums de la RSR, and so on) and international radio stations (like World Radio Switzerland) create local platforms at the heart of the community, facilitating exchanges between nationali-ties and disciplines.

SHAPING THE FUTURE TOGETHER. The new demands of global competition and the new (systemic) financial and economic crisis are also forcing the region to redefine itself. The initial developments in this direction are already in evidence:> The development of a modern metropoli-

tan region concentrating on know-how and services in combination with a high quality of life, brought about by protecting the rural and natural environment and by fostering traditional values and hospi-tality;

> Structural developments within the re-gional authorities and the elected and ex-ecutive bodies of the cantons and com-munes and other official institutions of the cantons of Geneva and Vaud and the adja-cent French territory;

> The joint implementation (as a means of stepping up cross-border initiatives) of various forward-looking projects, includ-ing inter-communal cooperation in the form of so-called “agglomérations”; and

> Positioning the city and region as an inter-national centre for peace and sustainable development.

INTENSIFIED COOPERATION. In order to ensure that the successes are going to last, it remains indispensable to guarantee that the work “away from the limelight” is done prop-erly too. This includes intensified coopera-tion with other large metropolitan regions,

especially Zurich and Basel, the encourage-ment of good relations between public and private institutions and the provision of in-formation to the public at large. Preparing the future means having the courage to make changes – with the people and for the people.

Tatjana Darany > The “Arc Lémanique” (the urbanised crescent on the banks of Lake Geneva) has spared no effort over the past ten years in positioning itself as one of Europe’s most dynamic regions. The “modèle lémanique” is considered as something special.

The city of Geneva is continuing suc-cessfully to defend its position as a location for international and multilateral activities. The offices of the WTO (World Trade Or-ganisation) and the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, as well as those of numerous other international organisations and busi-ness groups and also the region’s further

development in the context of the informa-tion society are visible signs of the efforts it has made since the 1990s to strengthen the partnership between the public and private sectors. This, however, is only one element of the challenges the region has had to face up to. It also found it had a mountain of work to cope with in other less prestigious, but no less significant, areas. One of these has been developing strategies to assist and inform new residents and businesses.

THE “FONDATION”. All this “work behind the scenes” is indispensable in making the fi-nal outcome a success. For that reason the “Fondation pour Genève” has been support-ing the “Centre d’acceuil – Genève interna-tionale” ever since the 1990s – a centre origi-nally set up upon an initiative from the Swiss Confederation and the Canton of Geneva. It was at first intended that this centre would work as an advice and integration centre for the international organisations, but, thanks to the support it has received from private as-sociations, its remit has been extended to in-ternational businesses too. Its mission is to assist newcomers (company employees and their families) to acclimatise to their new en-

vironment. The centre has been setting an example of how to act in this respect. Ten years after its creation, the work of the advice centre is turning out to be more important than ever before. One of its activities is to bring together those associations that profit from the large expatriate community for the benefit of our visitors and also to involve individual citizens who feel called on to assist our visitors while they are with us. More than 50 000 people from all over the world are resident in our re-gion. Even if the advice centre is not always able to satisfy each and every wish expressed, it, nonetheless, gives our visitors the feeling of belonging within the community.

THINK OFFICE. The “Fondation pour Ge-nève” supports Geneva and the region round it through its information and educational work in presenting the latest developments to the outside world. It is a fact that Geneva’s role in the world has changed; the city has become a sort of “think office”, a centre from which the fate of the world is steered. This happens above all in international organisa-tions such as the WTO, the ILO (International Labour Organisation), the WHO (World Health Organisation; the ITU (International

Geneva has a flair for integrating its international visitors

Metropolitan Geneva is becoming a “think office”

Geneva’s splendid centre is inherently more international than the other metropolitan regions.

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Geneva has undertaken vast initiatives to establish itself as the home of international organisations and multina-tional businesses.




What Basel and Zurich can learn from Geneva – and vice versaChristoph Koellreuter. > Both Basel and Zürich could learn many things from the Geneva metropolitan re-gion – not only in terms of its com-mitment towards its international visitors (as presented on the left by Tatjana Darany), but also as regards entrepreneurship and company start-ups. The potential learning process works the other way round for Geneva too, as is illustrated in the strengths of other metropolitan regions presented on pages 5–9 and in the specific contributions from Basel (pages 10–11) and Zu-rich (pages 12–13). From the per-spective of the metropolitan region of Geneva/Lausanne, there are sev-eral fields in which the economic ar-guments would favour strengthen-ing cooperation with Basel and Zu-rich: the outstanding qualities of the three Swiss metropolitan regions when taken as a group (especially as regards their innovative re-sources, regulatory environment and quality of life) ought to be an in-centive for the Geneva metropolitan region to share an international presence with Basel and Zurich, as it is going to do for the first time at the World Expo Shanghai 2010 (page 20). The strengths the three metropolitan regions have in com-mon ought to facilitate cooperation between them in other fields too. It is, for instance, in the interest of the universities around Lake Geneva to intensify the division of labour be-tween themselves and those in the Basel and Zurich regions so as to make them all stronger on a global scale. Investing more in improved transport to and from Basel and Zu-rich is making it possible for the Ge-neva metropolitan region to make more out of its strengths and to benefit from the others. The meas-ures include better access to both Zurich Airport and the railway hub in Basel. Finally, it would be bound to benefit the whole economic cres-cent along the banks of Lake Ge-neva if its political representatives were to make common cause with those from the Basel and Zurich metropolitan regions in campaigning vis-à-vis the Swiss federal authori-ties for globally competitive legal en-vironments for the key sectors in the fields of financial services, life sciences and high tech.Tatjana Darany, director of the

“Fondation pour Genève”.

Sabine Horvath > For the first time, Switzerland’s three metropolitan re-gions are preparing to present them-selves together – at the World Expo Shanghai 2010, which is expecting some 70 million visitors.

The World Expo Shanghai 2010 is sched-uled to take place from 1 May to 31 October 2010. It is expected that more than 70 mil-lion visitors will attend the exhibition under the motto of “Better City, Better Life”, where, for the first time, the presentations will not be restricted just to countries, and a limited number of cities have been selected to present themselves too. Basel, Geneva and Zurich have agreed to share a pavilion, which is going to bear the motto of “Better Water – Best Urban Life”.

All the world exhibitions that have taken place over the past 150 years have concen-trated primarily on presenting technologi-cal advances. Shanghai 2010 is going to depart from this somewhat and is making considerable space available for showing the potential and development of urban life in the 21st century. To accomplish that, various cities have been invited to partici-pate in the so-called “urban best practice area”, where they can show the most out-standing examples of their achievements to the visitors (most of them Chinese) as a whole and also, more specifically, to repre-sentatives of the Chinese authorities. The three Swiss cities will be able to present

themselves in an extremely attractive set-ting covering an area of 720 square metres, and their neighbours will be places like Paris, Osaka, Bilbao, Vancouver and Phila-delphia.

Basel, Geneva and Zurich have chosen the title of “Better Water – Best Urban Life” and will be placing their main emphasis on the interactions between water and quality of life. They are thus dedicating their pres-ence in Shanghai to showing the decisive influence that water has on a high quality of life and prosperity in the cities. The purpose of the pavilion is to familiarise visitors with tangible examples from Basel, Geneva and Zurich, which are to illustrate the types of investments that can lead to a better water quality and thus also to a better quality of life.

The “Basel case” is going to illustrate the multifarious uses made of the river Rhine (including navigation, industry, swimming and drinking water) and is to show which measures and instruments can be used to meet all these different user interests sus-tainably and generally without amongst between them.

CENTRAL MESSAGE. The central message of the Basel case is focussed on what we do with river waters. It illustrates how all users take care of the quality of the water, and, at the same time, how they all benefit from it. Geneva’s theme is going to be the revitalisa-tion of its lake, while Zurich is going to present its system for capturing and treating drinking water. It is hoped to pass the experi-ence of the Swiss metropolises and the cor-responding know-how on, in particular to delegations from local authorities from China and the whole Asiatic area.

The concept for the shared pavilion con-tains three levels: an information level, an image level and a dialogue level. The ground floor is to house the presentations of the case studies, the ramp to the upper floor is to represent the pathway from the past to

the future, passing through the present, and the upper floor is to present the positive out-comes of investing in water in a visual form. The dialogue level is represented by an au-ditorium – the venue for the exchange of information amongst specialists. It is going to be used for a parallel programme, includ-ing lectures, presentations and debates.

FORWARD-LOOKING. The idea of Basel having a pavilion at the World Expo 2010 arose in conjunction with the recently con-cluded twinning agreement between Basel and Shanghai and is intended to act as a sort of “showcase project” for the twin cities’ part-nership. The added cooperation with Geneva and Zurich has given the project an addi-tional significance and dimension, especially since there is no precedent for the three Swiss cities joining ranks on this scale in presenting themselves abroad. The joint project was presented at a media conference on 3 No-vember 2008 by government representatives of the three cities: Guy Morin (president of the cantonal government of Basel-Stadt), Manuel Tornare (mayor of Geneva) and El-mar Ledergerber (mayor of Zurich). All three of them expressed particular delight that, in the context of this project, the centres of the three Swiss metropolitan regions were going to be appearing together on the international scene. In addition to the official Swiss pavil-ion, for which the Confederation’s PR body, Presence Switzerland, is responsible, it is go-ing to be possible to experience Metropolitan and Innovative Switzerland in Shanghai too. The world exhibition in Shanghai in 2010 of-fers a unique platform for business locations to present themselves as particularly innova-tive in the context of the global competition between them and to raise their profile. It is an opportunity that Basel, Geneva and Zu-rich ought to put to good use in a spirit of bundling their efforts..Sabine Horvath is in charge of Basel’s location marketing, and it is her unit that is coordinating the World Expo project on behalf of Basel.

THE METROBASEL COMIC IS AN URBAN RESEARCH STUDY AND POR-TRAIT OF BASEL AND ITS TRINA-TIONAL REGION, WRITTEN AND

PUBLISHED BY ETH- STUDIOBASEL.*THE COMIC NARRATES AN ARCHITECTUR-AL AND URBANISTIC HISTORY WHILE ANA-LYZING THE REGION ACCORDING TO URBAN THEMES AND ACTIVI-TIES SUCH AS LIV-ING, WORKING, MOV-ING OR RECREATION. WHILE UNCOVER-ING POTENTIALS AND SHORTCOMINGS, IDEAS AND VISIONS OF HOW METROBASEL COULD TRANSFORM AND FUL-FILL ITS POTENTIAL ARE BEING DEVELOPED.

*ETH STUDIOBASEL IS AN UR-BAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE AT THE FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE, AT THE ETH ZURICH. THE IN-STITUTE IS BASED IN BASEL. FOUNDED BY THE ARCHITECTS ROGER DIENER, JACQUES HER-ZOG, MARCEL MEILI AND PIERRE DE MEURON, IT CONDUCTS URBAN RESEARCH AND HAS FOR MANY YEARS DEALT WITH THE REGION OF METROBASEL. THE RESEARCH PROJECTS WITH STUDENTS OF THE INSTITUTE FORMS THE BASIS OF THE PUBLICATION.

..

ANNOUNCING:

WOW. IT LOOKS GREAT.

LET‘S SEE!

HEY PATRICIA, HERE IS THIS COMIC

BOOK BY ETH STUDIOBASEL ON BASEL AND ITS TRINATIO-NAL REGION, WHERE WE PLAY

THE LEADING ROLES.

OH HOW NICE. THE COMIC SHOWS HOW MICHEL AND I MET EACH

OTHER AND HOW WE ARE SCOU-TING THROUGH THE CITY. AND ... SIGH ... HOW OUR FRIENDSHIP IS

GETTING CLOSER AND CLOSER ... SIGH ...

Sabine Horvath is in charge of Basel’s location marketing.

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An artist’s impression of the pavilion to be erected at the World Expo Shanghai 2010, in which the three Swiss Metropoli-tan regions are to appear together for the first time

Three Metropolitan regions with a shared international presence

Threesome at Shanghai 2010

THEMETROBASEL

COMIC CONSISTS OF AN INTRODUCTION, DE-

SCRIBING THE URBAN HISTORY OF THE

REGION...

... SIX THEMATIC CHAPTERS: LIVING, WORKING, MOVING, SHOPPING,

LEARNING AND RECREATION...

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THE IN

TRODUCTION

AIMS FOR METROBASEL:LIVING:

- 15.000 ADDITIONAL APARTMENTS in Basel-Stadt!

- LIVING HAS TO TAKE PLACE ALONG THE RHINE! INDUSTRY AND ALOT-

MENT GARDENS SHOULD BE RELOCATED.

- MORE AFFORDABLE APARTMENTS AND MORE EXCLUSIVE RESIDENTIAL

SPACES. WE HAVE TOO MUCH MEDIOCRITY!

WORKING:- ALL HARBORS SHOULD RELOCATE IN THE NORTH OF BASEL.

- TRANSFORM INDUSTRIAL ZONES INTO MIXED URBAN AREAS. THESE AREAS

CAN HAVE A HIGH DENSITY OF DIVERSE URBAN PROGRAMS.

MOVING:- COVERING INFRASTRUCTURE WITH NEW PARKS OR WITH MIXED USE AREAS IN

ORDER TIE THE CITY CLOSER TOGETHER.

- THE S-BAHN 'HERZSTÜCK' WITH THE NORTHERN LINK HAS TO BE BUILT!

- WE WANT A TRI-NATIONAL LOCAL TRANSPORTSYSTEM WITH TRAMS.

SHOPPING:- INNERCITY SHOPPING HAS TO BE CURATED. metrobasel needs the best

shops as well as affordable and innovative stores!

- we want a great food court and better urban markets.

learning:- BASEL needs a young art scene. spaces for art production and art

galleries can act as urban pioneers.

- basel university should operate tri-nationally and be embedded in a

context of swiss, french and german high-end research centers.

- BASEL needs an opera!- BASEL needs a mosque!RECREATION:- BASEL needs a lake in the city center!

- we want a 'central park' with a dense surrounding city fabric

- the core city should be understood as the gate to the nearby

landscape regions of jura, black forest and the vosges!

THE CORE CITY AND THE TRI-NATIONAL REGION:

- WE HAVE TO PLAN AND DESIGN TRI-NATIONALLY!

- A CLOSELY LINKED TRI-NATIONAL REGION WHICH UNDERSTANDS THE

CORE CITY AND ITS SURROUNDINGS AS A UNIT, BRINGING TOGETHER

THE INDIVIDUAL PARTS.- NATURE IS PART OF OUR SHAPED AND CULTIVATED ENVIRONMENT.

WE WANT TO FORM THIS NATURE. ESPECIALLY REGARDING THE

FUTURE, WITH ITS CHANCES, PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES.!

...SO, LETS LOOK AT WHAT

IDEAS AND AIMS WE CALL FOR:

...AND A CON-CLUDING CHAPTER IN

WHICH WE ARE BRING-ING ALL OUR IDEAS

TOGETHER...

METROBASEL COMIC

PUBLISHED BY ETH STUDIOBASEL.

AVAILABLE SOON ALL OVER METROBASEL!

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..And AN OUTLOOK!

For these reasons, it was decided, for the purposes of the project, to evaluate banking regulation from two perspectives: firstly, in terms of the cost/benefit effect as seen by the banks and, secondly, in terms of the contribution to the stability of the fi-nancial system and thus to the overall de-velopment of the economy.

The elements included in banking regu-lations were grouped into three part-indi-ces for the purpose of evaluation (middle diagram on this page). In terms of the start-up of a banking operation, the rules focus primarily on the market launch, available capital resources and ownership. The regu-lation of the banking activity per se includes provisions directly influencing that activity

as regard both lending/financing and wealth management.

The topics that are important in the area of wealth management include, for in-stance, bank/client confidentiality, meas-ures against money laundering and guaran-tees for bank deposits. The factors relevant for lending include risk evaluation and the organisation of the lending process. Finally, there are regulations applicable to the bank as a whole, including rules as regards the responsibility of the bank’s management, corporate governance, capital adequacy, li-quidity requirements and accounting prin-ciples. The three part-indices are weighted differently and totted up to form an aggre-gate index. In this, the provisions affecting the bank as a whole (50%) have the strong-est influence, followed by those governing

Stephan Vaterlaus*, Harry Telser*, Chris-tian Spielmann* and Andreas Zimmer-mann. > Regulation (in its various forms) is an important locational fac-tor in international competition. Poly-nomics has examined it in the context of a metrobasel project looking into the pharmaceutical and banking sec-tors.

It is an indisputable matter of fact that, for both Switzerland as a whole and the metropolitan regions of Basel, Geneva and Zurich, the pharmaceutical and banking in-dustries are absolutely key parts of the econ-omy. The internationality of both these sec-tors makes their regulatory environment into a crucial locational factor. In the con-text of a metrobasel project, Polynomics has carried out an international comparison of regulation as it affects them. As far as the pharmaceutical sector is concerned, the analysis was performed from the perspec-tive of assuring the continuity of research. In the case of the banks, the primordial questions were those of the cost implica-tions of complying with statutory require-ments and the benefit of regulation in en-suring the stability of the financial system. In the recent past, this final aspect has be-come a particularly prominent one.

RESEARCH. Health care is one of the most strongly regulated sectors of all. The purpose of regulation is to try and reconcile various targets, which in part are mutually exclusive. The ideal is for high-quality health care to be provided at the lowest possible cost. It is dif-ficult to cope with these diverging pulls, which explains why there should be such ma-jor differences in the regulatory systems practised in the various countries. This has a major impact especially on the pharmaceuti-cal industry, which, despite its international activities, must abide by national rules. The way it is regulated might thus have either a positive or a negative impact on research. For the purpose of this project, 27 regulated items were recorded, grouped under various headings and then evaluated. It was found that the strongest influence on the pharma-ceutical industry’s research activity comes from the rules that apply directly to the prod-ucts marketed, and these are grouped to-gether in a part-index called “supply-side regulation”. This part-index determines 70%

* Polynomics AG, Olten, www.polynomics.ch

of the aggregate index. It includes, for in-stance, the regulations applicable to the prices of medicines, which exist in nearly every country. The same situation exists as regards approvals, which all medicines must have before it is permissible to sell them.

Secondly, there is the regulation of re-search itself in a narrow sense, which has a direct impact on the actual research activity and includes the protection of intellectual property (patent law). Research activity is, however, also influenced indirectly through the regulation of demand. The part-index called “demand-side regulation” considers, by way of example, those regulatory ele-ments that govern the reimbursement of medicines through insurances. Some of the rules under this heading are intended to in-fluence the behaviour of health-care pro-viders (how doctors, pharmacists and hos-pitals deals with medicines) and patients (for instance through non-refundable de-ductibles).

In comparative international terms, it is Singapore that regulates its health-care sys-tem in the manner that is most propitious for research (cf. right-hand side of the up-per diagram on the opposite page). In 2004, it amended its patent law, introducing spe-cial arrangements for the pharmaceutical sector, where the life of the patent is meas-ured from the point of time when the ap-proval is granted (rather than the time of the application) and where parallel imports are prohibited for medicines. The aim of this measure is to strengthen Singapore’s locational quality for the pharmaceutical industry. The USA’s regulation of the health-care sector is similarly favourable for phar-maceutical research. It contains virtually no measures of demand-side regulation that would have a negative impact on re-search incentives.

WHERE DOES SWITZERLAND STAND? Switzerland comes after the two named countries in both its supply-side and demand-side regulations, but does score better than both the United Kingdom and Germany. Compared with the other countries, Switzer-land’s worst marks are for its regulations as they affect remuneration and patients. One reason for this is that new medicines take longer to qualify for health-insurance reim-bursements than they do in other countries. Another reason is that the Swiss are subject

to relatively high health-insurance deducti-bles by international comparison, which ad-mittedly has a positive impact on health-care costs, but must be evaluated as negative in its effect on the incentives to carry out re-search.

The United Kingdom stands out particu-larly prominently on account of its restric-tive demand-side regulation. Whereas the influence of its supply-side regulation is comparable with the Swiss situation, the provision of health-care services by the state through the National Health Service results in negative incentives for research coming from the demand side. Health-care provid-ers, in particular, have to comply with very restrictive rules. It is the regulation of health

care in Germany that is the least auspicious for research. That country’s system of refer-ence prices regulates the prices of medicines strongly downwards, and research itself is subject to a set of strict rules too.

BANKING FROM TWO PERSPECTIVES. The financial crisis has made banking regu-lation into one of the most debated topics all around the world. The crisis has underscored just how internationally networked the banking world now is. The banks too are sub-ject to conflicting targets. More restrictive, unilateral provisions increase the costs for the banks affected. They make their prod-ucts more expensive and have unfavourable effects on international competitiveness and growth. As opposed to this, it is quite possi-ble that regulations do have a stabilising ef-fect on the whole of the financial system. This produces a beneficial effect for the whole economy, from which the banks also benefit.

An international comparison for the key sectors of pharmaceuticals and banking

Regulation as a factor in competition between locations




30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Pharmaceutical regulation and conduciveness for researchThe higher the index value, the greater the conduciveness for research

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SingaporeUSASwitzerlandUKGermany

*Life Sciences: nur Kt. ZH, ** Life Sciences: n.a.

30

36

42

48

54

60

Banking regulation and cost effectiveness / system stabilityThe higher the index value, the more favourable the cost/benefit ratio

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SingapurUSASchweizGrossbritannienDeutschland

USAGermanyUKSingaporeSwitzerland

56

56.5

57

57.5

58

58.5

59

59.5

Banking regulation and cost effectiveness / system stabilityThe higher the index value, the more favourable the cost/benefit ratio

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Source: Polynomics AG, 2008

Cost/benefit ratio from the banks’ perspective

SingapurUSASchweizGrossbritannienDeutschland

37 37.5 38 38.5 39 39.5 40 40.5 41

United Kingdom:Overall rating 3

Germany:Overall rating 4

USA:Overall rating 5

Switzerland:Overall rating 1

Singapore:Overall rating 2

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The quality of locations for pharma-ceutical research and for banking de-pends on the general regulatory envi-ronment.

the bank’s activity (40%) and those for en-tering the banking business (10%).

The part-index called “regulation of the bank as a whole” shows that the costs of ob-serving the rules outweigh the benefits. The USA has a particularly unfavourable cost/benefit ratio in this respect. That is likely to be linked to the fact that, on the one hand, the USA practises very restrictive rules as regards bank management and corporate governance (such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act) and that, on the other hand, the im-provements brought about through Basel II have not been implemented there in their entirety. That contrasts with the rules appli-cable at the product or process level (the part-index called “banking activity”), where the USA applies comparatively liberal provi-sions. In the United Kingdom, the rules are particularly favourable in permitting moves into additional activities alongside the clas-sical banking business.

ADVANTAGE FOR SWITZERLAND. Swit-zerland has the best cost/benefit ratio in the aggregate view and also occupies a very fa-vourable position for each of the three part-indices. That gives it a competitive edge. However, the differences between the finan-cial markets included in the study are much smaller than those found for the regulation of the pharmaceutical sector. Even though Switzerland’s advantage is only small, it is of

central importance for it as a business loca-tion, given the great international flexibility in both the demand for financial services and the supply of them.

Two causes have been made out to ex-plain the differences between the countries. The first of these is the unfavourable cost/benefit ratio as the banks see it, and the sec-ond is the inadequate contribution to the stability of the financial system made by the rules. Whereas the banks consider the USA and the UK to be the same from a cost/ben-efit point of view, the regulations in the UK are seen as contributing much more to fi-nancial stability in that country than are those in force in the USA (cf. diagram). There is a similar explanation for the differ-ence between Switzerland and Germany, which the banks see as resulting from the cost/benefit ratio. The background to this includes the (strict) provisions laid down in the Markets in Financial Instruments Direc-tive (MiFID), which is binding throughout the whole of the European Union and which makes the processing of wealth-manage-ment transactions very considerably more expensive.

SMALL DIFFERENCE, BIG IMPACT. The globalisation of the markets is making na-tional regulations into a central competitive factor for all banking locations. The differ-ences in the regulation of the pharmaceuti-

cals sector are very marked in places, due to the strongly national character of health-care systems. Switzerland is at present still positioned in the middle of the field of the countries considered. In the case of banking, the nationally specific differences in the reg-ulations are much less pronounced than in pharmaceuticals. This is a logical conse-quence of the international dovetailing of the financial systems and the relatively high mo-bility of capital in comparison with pharma-ceutical research. It is a situation in which even minor differences in the national provi-sions suffice to set in train movements from one place to another.

Against this background, it is also of cen-tral importance, when consideration is be-ing given to tightening up the regulations, to assess and weigh up with care the effects on costs and benefits. Singapore provides one example of the fact that competition between locations to attract the key sectors can be increased through efficient regula-tions. That country pursues a policy deliber-ately focused on only a handful of sectors (technology, pharmaceuticals and financial services). However, if other countries were to follow Singapore’s consistent approach as regards promoting itself as a business lo-cation through the regulations it adopts, there would be a risk that Switzerland, as a business location, could start to fare worse in the medium term.

Christoph Koellreuter > It is due to differ-ences in national regulations that the Swiss part of metrobasel is growing faster than its German and French part-ners.

In the course of the past five years, the Basel metropolitan region has experienced a new growth impetus. Whereas its real GDP had only risen by an annual mean of 1.8% between 1980 and 2003 (i.e. 0.4 points slower than the mean for western Europe), there has been a significant change in trend between 2003 and 2007. Its GDP has risen by no less than 3.1% per annum (which is 1.1 points above the mean for western Eu-rope). In other words: the mean annual growth has jumped by 1.3 percentage points compared with the whole 1980–2003 pe-riod.

Taking just the territory of “north-west-ern Switzerland”, the mean difference in annual growth between the two periods has been even higher at 1.8 points (i.e. a jump in GDP growth from 1.7% to 3.5%), whereas there has been a slowing down in economic growth in Landkreis Lörrach (Germany) and Pays de Saint-Louis

(France), with respective figures of 0.8 points and 1.8 points.

MORE PEOPLE IN EMPLOYMENT. It is quite evident that the differences between the Swiss side, on the one hand, and the Ger-man and French sides, on the other hand, as regards the general framework conditions, which are so important for life sciences, have now become so pronounced that proximity to the border is having a negative impact on the French and German parts of metrobasel. This is reflected in an approximately 10% loss of jobs in the chemical/pharmaceutical industry between 2003 and 2007, whereas the number of jobs in that sector in the Swiss part has increased by around 5% over the same period.

Taking the total number of people in em-ployment, however, Landkreis Lörrach and

Pays de Saint-Louis have developed very differently. While there has been a 0.6% in-crease per annum in Landkreis Lörrach be-tween 2003 and 2007, Pays de Saint-Louis has suffered a mean annual loss of 0.4%.

HARTZ AND THE 35-HOUR WEEK. The likely explanation for this is to be sought in the diverging developments in the regula-tion of the labour market. In the case of Ger-many, implementation of the Hartz reforms has brought about a decline in the OECD in-dex of labour-market regulation for that country from 2.4 in 2000 to 1.8 in 2005, whilst it has gone up from 2.8 to 3.0 for France on account of various measures, espe-cially the introduction of the 35-hour week. It is as good as certain that Pays de Saint-Louis’ proximity to the border has brought very negative consequences for it, since, in w

Growth in the Basel metropolitan region and its sub-regions

Greater on the Swiss side

INSERATHecht& Meili

INSERATInnovation-

scenter Lörrach

The Novartis Campus is going to add a

splash of colour to Basel in future.




SOLO-THURN

JURA

BASELLAND

LANDKREIS LÖRRACH

PAYS DE SAINT-LOUIS

BASEL-STADT

AARGAUFricktal

Thierstein/Dorneck(SO)

District de Delémont (JU)

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INSERATBasel Area

Switzerland would benefit from expanding public transport

Faster transport services

metrobasel must improve its trans-port infrastructure. A study has been commissioned to show how such an ex-pansion would bring benefits for Swit-zerland as a whole as well.

One of the most important locational fac-tors for a metropolitan region is its ease of access. According to studies carried out by BAK Basel Economics, Basel’s regional acces-sibility is good by general Swiss standards, but not as good as Zurich’s. In terms of access from the rest of the continent, Basel comes off poorer than the average for European centres. The number of spare train paths is growing scarcer all the time, rail access to EuroAirport is inadequate, and some sec-tions of motorway are chronically congested – to mention just a few of the critical points. The problems and the capacity bottlenecks have been recognised, and planning has started on various fairly large projects. Find-ing the necessary funding for them is, how-ever, still very uncertain, and there is a dan-ger that they will not come to fruition.

STUDY LAUNCHED. Against this back-ground, metrobasel has commissioned a baseline study with the title (translated) of “New transport infrastructures in the Basel metropolitan region – opportunities for Switzerland”. The study is being carried out jointly by Infras, IG Modus and BAK Basel Economics, and three targets have been set for it:> Definition of appropriate directions for

future investments in transport (packages of measures), focusing on transport by rail and road;

> Quantitative investigation into the effects these development directions are likely to have on accessibility; and

> Qualitative investigation into the costs and benefits of pursuing these development directions.

The study is intended to show what op-portunities will be opened up for the Basel region and Switzerland by investing in transport infrastructure. It is then to be fol-lowed by various more detailed written communications and organised events, which ought to provide regional and na-tional decision makers with good argu-ments as to why crucial investment projects in north-western Switzerland must be given appreciably higher priorities than they have enjoyed up until now.

The study itself is not going to carry out any analysis of bottlenecks but is to pick up the threads of existing planning processes and to focus on the discussion of benefits. At

its centre are all the large infrastructure projects with national implications that are currently part of the planning and political debate, but on which no firm decision has yet been taken. Projects with primarily local or regional effects are not the main concern of this study, since they will continue to be considered in the more specific programme for the conurbation.

The study has already advanced as far as formulating the directions to be pursed in the sense of supply-side scenarios for trans-port in future. Basically, these boil down to comparing two possible directions for de-velopment without any massive new infra-structures (referred to as “the current situa-tion plus enhancements”):

> ASSURING MAINTENANCE OF CAPAC-ITY: This development direction is based primarily on increasing the frequency of public-transport services. The underlying thesis is that the capacity available today for both passenger and freight services will reach its limits fairly soon in the medium term. The most crucial bottlenecks in the public-transport network are the railway lines between Basel and Muttenz/Pratteln and the line through the Jura. If these lines are suitably upgraded, it will be possible to operate regional train services every quar-ter of an hour in the inner part of the con-urbation and to increase very considerably the number of train paths available for longer-distance passenger services and freight trains. The primary aim for the road network is to assure maintenance of the present-day capacity to prevent more traf-fic from spilling over onto purely urban roads. Action is most urgently required on the eastern ring road.

> IMPROVING ACCESSIBILITY: This devel-opment direction would aim to secure the current capacity (like the first one), but would go further in also improving the at-tractiveness of the transport systems through new or accelerated public-trans-port services. The underlying thesis is that expanding capacity will not by itself bring an adequate improvement in accessibility for Basel and a business location. As far as rail transport is concerned, it would envis-age the construction of a new line through the Jura, which would not only increase capacity but would noticeably accelerate the train services between the big conurba-tions. The achievable additional benefits for long-distance services ought to be coor-dinated with further expansions to the sys-

tem of regional and “S-Bahn” trains and further increases in the number of services for the benefit of the whole region. The main element for local services would be to develop the “heart” of the network of the regional and “S-Bahn” system (in addition to the creation of segregated tracks in the eastern approach to Basel). Apart from a general increase in capacity, it would then be possible to offer new cross-city and cross-border services. As far as road traffic is concerned, the essential element would be to examine the impact of the southern bypass.

Initial results are expected to be availa-ble by February 2009, and the final report is planned for April 2009. It is intended to make the results widely known. The aim is then to try to influence the most important planning processes at the earliest possible stage and to ensure the availability of the necessary funding. The study is being su-pervised by a steering group comprised of representatives of the cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft and the Basel Chamber of Commerce, along with metro-basel’s director, and is being accompanied by additional experts and representatives of the transport operating companies.

On behalf of the steering group of the metrobasel transport project:

Christoph Koellreuter (metrobasel), Alain Groff and Maria Lezzi (Canton Basel-Stadt), Markus Meis-inger (Canton Basel-Landschaft) and Martin Dät-wyler (Basel Chamber of Commerce)

addition to the more liberal rules applicable in Switzerland, the amended German ones have started to have an effect too.

LÖRRACH’S STRENGTHS. It is very prob-able that the good employment result achieved in the German part of metrobasel can be also ascribed to the fact that Germany has a more liberal regulation of the product market than does France, and it is certainly much more liberal than Switzerland. This appears particularly in the services sector,

where the number of employees has grown fastest in Landkreis Lörrach between 2003 and 2007 – i.e. by 1.6% per annum – com-pared with 1.4% in north-western Switzer-land and only 0.1% in Pays de Saint-Louis.

LIFE SCIENCES IN BASEL. Within north-western Switzerland, all the sub-regions have also benefited as business locations from the life-sciences successes. The best fig-ure here has been achieved by Canton Basel-Stadt with 2.9 percentage points more an-

nual growth when the same two periods are compared. In second place is Canton Jura with 2.2%. All the other part-regions have also experienced an acceleration in economic growth (even if by clearly lesser amounts), with the sole exception of Fricktal, where growth has been slower between 2003 and 2007 than it was between 1980 and 2003. This trend ought to be reversed in coming years, given the restructuring measures that have now been formally agreed.

LIVING IN METROBASEL. Fricktal, on the other hand, has been that part of metrobasel where there has been the fastest expansion in the resident population (1.4% per annum between 2003 and 2007), followed by Lei-mental (0.7%), Oberbaselbiet and Laufen-tal/Schwarzbubenland (each with 0.5%) and Pays de Saint-Louis (0.4%). Pays de Saint-Louis still remains very much in de-mand as a place to live. Its resident popula-tion has grown faster than the mean for metrobasel between 2003 and 2007, which has not been the case for Landkreis Lörrach. One of the key influences here is likely to be the availability of land in Pays de Saint-Louis for cheaper single-family houses and blocks of flats. Over the same period, Canton Basel-Stadt has had to accept a further population decline of 0.2% per annum. Current trends, however, point to a stabilisation of the resi-dent population.

Better transport services are vital (the photograph shows a TGV train in Basel).

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The national borders may be invisible, but they certainly have their effects, with the Swiss side benefiting more.

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much more critical of air travel and trans-port than those living in or near Zurich, Lausanne and Geneva (whose intensity of criticism was between a quarter and a half less).

BUSINESS, THE STATE AND THE CHURCH. An above-average proportion of the inhabit-ants of the Zurich metropolitan region indi-cate that they would be willing to spend as much as 5000 francs a year to have a free choice of schools. The people of metrobasel, by contrast, are convinced to a lesser extent than the national mean that competition within the school system would lead to en-hanced quality and equal opportunities. They admit to a critical stance on the ques-tion of religion, and the vast majority of them have broken their ties with the church as an institution. The situation is very different on the banks of Lake Geneva, where an above-

average proportion of the inhabitants not only confesses to the Christian faith, but be-lieves in its institutions too.

As the evaluation of our surveys shows, the people living in the Zurich and Geneva metropolitan regions are aware of the para-mount importance of the financial sector, and the people of Zurich are fully conscious of what they are doing in playing the supe-riority card in global competition. The peo-ple of Geneva and Lausanne, on the other hand, recognise that bank/client confiden-tiality is the sector’s saving grace, while an above-average proportion of the people of metrobasel see this selfsame confidentiality as dispensable.

Views of the prospects for long-term economic development are clearly much more optimistic in and around Basel and Zurich than in the Geneva metropolitan re-gion. For the people of metrobasel, farsight-

edness seems to an important virtue, whereas their French-speaking counter-parts appear to find some solace in calcu-lated pessimism.

The data obtained through numerous Konso surveys confirms the statistical find-ing that the attractiveness of a location for highly qualified individuals and those with an entrepreneurial drive is decisive for the vitality of the metropolitan regions as the driving forces of social and economic devel-opment. Those divergences between the Swiss metropolitan regions of Basel, Ge-neva and Zurich that cannot be ascribed to higher-order socio-cultural differences (such as between German-speaking and French-speaking regions) are available for use by the political leadership in presenting a finely-tuned profile of their region to the outside world – and one that also strikes a chord with the people who live there.

Hans-Ruedi Hertig > How big, actually, are the differences in mentality be-tween the inhabitants of the three metropolitan regions around Basel, Zurich and Geneva? This report presents the results of an analysis based on several Konso studies.

Konso AG, the Basel-based market and social research institute, has selected nine studies looking into matters of social and economic policy out of several dozen repre-sentative surveys in an attempt to find out if the people who live in the Basel metropoli-tan area have different perceptions and sen-sitivities from those in the other two large Swiss conurbations, namely those around Zurich and Geneva/Lausanne. One point to be made right away is that it is only on 20% of the total of 84 items covered in the studies that there is a sufficiently clear statistical difference between people living in the me-tropolises and those living in the districts around them. By way of contrast, differ-ences were detected between the three met-ropolitan regions on more than half the items examined.

SPECIFIC FOR METROBASEL. There would appear to be just a handful of points that characterise the specific metrobasel identity: primarily an orientation towards sustaina-bility and ecology and a great deal of trust in both top entrepreneurial achievements and in state systems, such as education. A high level of education and entrepreneurship give the metropolitan regions their economic vi-tality. Within the metrobasel population, there are a quarter more university gradu-ates compared with the mean for non-metro-politan Switzerland. In Zurich, there are a third more highly-qualified individuals, and in the Geneva metropolitan region the figure is as high as 50% more than the national mean. These high levels of education explain

an important part of the attitudes and life-styles detected as typical of the metropolitan areas in the surveys.

The rate of business start-ups in and around Zurich and Geneva is almost twice as high as in metrobasel, as is shown by the fig-ures published by the Swiss Federal Office of Statistics for the trend in job numbers in newly founded businesses since 2001. This also indicates that metrobasel is lagging be-hind the other two Swiss metropolitan areas as regards the potential for entrepreneur-ship.

However, future economic vitality is go-ing to be determined by the level already at-tained by “knowledge-intensive” service pro-viders and by the locational quality for the high-tech sector. In this respect, metrobasel is keeping pace with the other two compet-ing metropolitan areas. The financial crisis is showing that the locational advantage of the area around Zurich and Zug, with its strong focus on the financial sector, has inherent risks too. Within the “Arc lémanique” it is not only private businesses but also the interna-tional organisations that have their share in knowledge-based operations.

LIFE SCIENCES AND MENTALITY. It is widely known that metrobasel owes the level it has reached as a business location prima-rily to the life-sciences industry – i.e. the pharmaceutical companies and their periph-eries. This represents a focus on highly spe-cific competitive advantages, which would appear to be decisive when compared with the more general locational advantages. This specific feature of metrobasel is also reflected in the outlook of its inhabitants.

The interrelationships between the life-sciences industry and the typical metroba-sel mentality are presumably based on a genuine give-and-take, with historical roots too. It is possible to detect an important characteristic in a tendency to take longer-term views of matters and to strive for a cer-tain harmony of purpose with non-eco-nomic factors, such as art and culture. Ex-amples are the active roles played by patrons of the arts and even the socio-political back-ground of organisations such as the Merian Foundation and GGG. This is precisely the situation to which it has become popular to apply the term “sustainability”.

ECOLOGICAL FOCUS. The surveys show that the people of metrobasel have a strong

ecological focus and that there is consensus among them as regards the close intermesh-ing of private business and the state, for in-stance in educational policy. They are aware of the importance of values, such as individu-alism and independence, on the one hand, and tolerance and modesty, on the other hand.

Some 90% of the people of metrobasel are of the opinion that Switzerland is in a position to make a substantial contri-bution to dealing with the worldwide pro-ble m of climate change. Just over 60% of the inhabitants of the Zurich metropolitan region share this belief, but only 20% of those living in the Geneva metropolitan re-gion do.

A higher proportion of journeys are made by public transport in Basel than any-where else in Switzerland. In responding to the surveys, the people of metrobasel were

Konso survey into the sensitivities of the Swiss metropolitan regions

Do metropolitan dwellers tick differently?

Hans-Ruedi Hertig is managing partner of Konso AG.

City folk don’t always all go in the same direction.

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Konso taking the pulse of the Swiss population Since 2003, Konso has been carry-ing out between three and five rep-resentative surveys each year into topical socio-political subjects on be-half of the fortnightly magazine “Sch-weizerischer Beobachter”. On each occasion, it collects the views of 700 inhabitants spread over the German and French-speaking parts of Switzerland. For decades, Konso has had a commission from Seco (the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs within the Federal Depart-ment of Economic Affairs) to carry out surveys into the economic mood of the Swiss through 1100 repre-sentative interviews every quarter. Konso works only with genuinely ran-dom samples, which produce re-sults that can be assessed on the basis of statistical criteria.www.konso.ch


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It all began in 2005 and is continuing in 2009

metrobasel – a think tank for the metropolitan regionChristoph Koellreuter > metrobasel is in-tended to be a platform and a think tank for the development of the Basel metro-politan region. It has far-reaching plans for 2009.

metrobasel was launched with its first report and forum in November 2005. Under the title of “World-class in life sciences”, that first report three years ago documented metrobasel’s outstanding position in the life sciences compared with competing loca-tions in Europe and North America.

The second metrobasel report in 2006 turned to the subject of safeguarding this success in the longer term. It presented the “metrobasel 2020” vision, a comprehensive project drawn up for future metropolitan development, insisting strongly on m ain-taining the Basel metropolitan region’s in-ternational competitiveness, improving it further and ensuring its sustainability.

NEWLY CREATED. In April 2008, a new registered association with its headquarters in Basel was created in accordance with Ar-ticle 60 ff of the Civil Code and is known as “metrobasel” for short. Its founding part-ners were Canton Basel-Stadt and Novartis International AG. This action was taken to ensure that the Basel metropolitan region would have a platform, a voice (to propa-gate the output of a think tank) and an ac-tive body to support the efforts of govern-ment, business and civil society in imple-menting the “metrobasel 2020” vision. The creation of the association was synchro-nised with the transfer to it of the metroba-sel programme, which had been launched by BAK Basel Economics in 2005 and which, by then, had attracted the active support of 75 additional partners from the fields of politics, business and civil society.

OPEN FOR EVERYONE. Given that the Ba-sel metropolitan region is too small and too fragmented to be able to afford several think tanks in competition with one another, metrobasel is open to all local-government bodies, businesses, clubs, associations and private individuals in north-western Swit-zerland, Landkreis Lörrach and Pays de Saint-Louis who want to work actively for the implementation of the “metrobasel 20202” vision. This makes it absolutely unique. None of the other more than thirty institutions operating across cantonal and/or national borders is targeted in this way to achieve the essential comprehensive geo-

graphic coverage and the channelling of all available forces. By applying the project-based method, metrobasel has also entered into cooperative arrangements with “extra-territorial” entities from all around the world, but especially from Switzerland.

PROGRAMME UP UNTIL JUNE 2009. The following paragraphs outline those topics that we intend to deal with in greater depth in the course of the first half of 2009. We are going to support lobbying of the fed-eral authorities in Berne in two fields:> Maintaining and improving the regulatory

quality in key sectors, first and foremost in

pharmaceuticals and banking, on the basis of the regulation indices for Switzerland, Germany, the USA, the UK and Singapore (using the Polynomics findings). Likely date for a presentation to the federal au-thorities in Berne: first quarter of 2009.

> Additional transport infrastructure for the Basel metropolitan region. Here we intend to show the profitable effects for the whole of the Swiss national economy. We are to be assisted by Infras, IG Modus (a spin-off of Institute of Transport Planning at the ETH Zurich) and BAK Basel Economics. Likely date for a presentation to the federal au-thorities in Berne: second quarter of 2009.

INSERATOffen

Already the fourth metrobasel report The many partners from business, government and civil society supporting the metrobasel initiative presented their first communication to the general public in 2005 in the form of an insert in the “Basler Zeitung”, which was destined to become an annual report. The aim of all these reports up until now has been to make progress in discussing the advantages and draw-backs of the tri-national Basel metropolitan region.

> METROBASEL REPORT 2005: LIFE SCIENCESThe first report in 2005 not only launched metrobasel as a “brand” for the first time, but spread the message of the excellent position of the Basel metropolitan region within Europe in the field of life sciences with greater precision and in greater depth than ever before. “World-class in life sciences” was its title, and this statement was supported by comprehensive studies carried out by BAK Basel Eco-nomics. On the other hand, the report did not shy away from tackling problems, such as the severely fragmented structure of the metropolitan region.

> METROBASEL REPORT 2006: VISION 2020Having first carried out an analysis, a group of fifty authors came together to think about the future of metrobasel. The outcome was a “Vision 2020”, which formulated half-a-dozen core attributes as targets for action. In future, the metropolitan region on the “Rhine Knee” is to be cosmopol-itan minded, learning and enterprising, leading in life sci-ences and excellent in its quality of life and is to practise solidarity across borders and live sustainably.

> METROBASEL REPORT 2007: QUALITY OF LIFEThe third report chose quality of life as its central topic – a subject of importance to all 900 000 inhabitants, including the highly-talented individuals for whom the metropolitan re-gion is a temporary home. For the first time, it reported on research into how metrobasel ranks relative to comparable business locations. It does not come out at the very top, but it is high up the league table. It is lacking a lake, but nature is nearby. It could do with more “creative individuals” and im-proved transport services within the metropolitan region.



Partners of the metrobasel programmeFounding partners: Canton Basel-Stadt; Novartis Interna-tional AG; Regio Basiliensis; Tri-national Eurodistrict Basel (TEB/ETB); BAK Basel Economics AG

Project partners: Basler Zeitung¹; ETH Studio Basel – Contemporary City Institute²; Canton Basel-Stadt³; Canton Basel-Landschaft³; Basel Chamber of Commerce³; Novartis International AG³; Basel Cantonal Bank³; Vitra AG³

Partners of the metrobasel forum: Basel Cantonal Bank and Novartis International AG

Partners of the regional forums:

metrobasel lörrach forum: Lörrach municipality;

metrobasel saint-louis forum: Saint-Louis municipality;

metrobasel fricktal forum: Initiative für einen starken Wirt-schaftsstandort Fricktal;

metrobasel laufen forum: Promotion Laufental & Forum Re-gio Plus (association for the economic promotion of Schwarzbubenland);

metrobasel jura forum: Canton Jura;

metrobasel birstal forum: Communes of Aesch, Arlesheim, Birsfelden, Pfeffingen and Reinach;

metrobasel leimental forum (as of 1 January 2009): Com-munes of Allschwil, Biel-Benken, Binningen, Bottmingen, Burg, Oberwil, Rodersdorf and Therwil

Association partners: ARB Angestelltenvereinigung Re-gion Basel; Arbeitgeberverband Basel; Gewerbeverband Ba-sel-Stadt; Interpharma; Unia Nordwestschweiz; Wirtschaft-skammer Baselland

Corporate partners: ABN Amro Bank (Switzerland); Advo-cacy AG – Communication & Consulting; AHA Marketing Communication; Bank Sarasin; BLT Baselland Transport AG; B, S, S. Volkswirtschaftliche Beratung AG; BVB Basler Verkehrs-Betriebe; Capgemini Switzerland; Datalynx AG; Deloitte AG; E. Gutzwiller & Cie Banquiers; EBM Elektra Bir-seck; Ernst & Young; EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg; F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG; Fischer + Partner AG, Rechtsan-wälte & Steuerexperten; Genossenschaft Migros Basel; Grand Casino Basel; GSI Bau- and Wirtschaftsingenieure AG; Hecht & Meili Treuhand; Helvetia Insurances; Herzog & de Meuron Architects; Hiag AG; Inlingua Basel AG; Konso AG; La Roche & Co Banquiers; Manor AG; MCH Swiss Exhi-bition; Mercuri Urval Basel; Merian Iselin Hospital; Nation-ale Suisse; openjointcompany; Palmesino Rönnskog Territo-rial Agency; Polynomics AG; PricewaterhouseCoopers; Prognos AG; ProgTrans AG; Rapp Group; Syngenta Interna-tional AG; ThomannFischer; Vischer Lawyers & Notaries; VischerVettiger Communication & Design AG; Zwimpfer Partners Architects

metrobasel’s statutory bodiesBoard: Ingrid Duplain (chair); Guy Morin, president of the Basel-Stadt cantonal government; Christoph Koellreuter, di-rector and delegate; Georg Krayer, president of the Regio Basiliensis; Landrat Walter Schneider, president of the Tri-national Eurodistrict Basel

General meeting: First general meeting scheduled for 28 April 2009 Office: Aeschenvorstadt 4, CH-4051 Basel, Tel.: +41 (0)61 272 11 44

Assistent: Maura von Heydebrand

E-mail: [email protected]

> www.metrobasel.org

¹ Partner/publisher of the metrobasel report

² Partner/publisher of the metrobasel comic

³ Partner of one or more of metrobasel’s baseline projects in support of the concerns presented in the “metrobasel 2020” vision in the fields for action, laid down in the associ-ation’s statutes, of regulation of key sectors, transport, cul-tural offerings and creative businesses. Other fundamental metrobasel projects are to follow dealing with the topics of research and education, local and regional planning, the quality of metropolitan life and energy and the environment.

INSERATMesse CH

OTHER SUBJECTS LAID DOWN IN OUR STATUTES:> Local and regional planning and the qual-

ity of metropolitan life: publication in Feb-ruary 2009 of the “metrobasel comic” cre-ated by the ETH Studio Basel (Prof. Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron);

> Better local and regional planning in the Basel Metropolitan Region thanks to the use of benchmarking): a project being de-veloped along with Palmesino Rönnskog, Territorial Agency, Basel;

> Energy and the environment: metrobasel is playing an active part in Switzerland’s “tripartite energy forum” (“Energietrialog Schweiz”), whose aim is to develop a “Switzerland 2050” energy strategy, aim-ing to secure the broadest possible support for it;

> Research and education: a possible project in cooperation with the Capgemini com-pany into the continuous benchmarking of customers’ opinions (research and busi-ness); and

> Culture and creative businesses: targeted learning from benchmarks. A project is be-ing developed under this heading with Cyrill Häring (coordination), the cultural departments of the cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft, the Basel-Stadt of-fice of economic affairs, BaselArea, BAK Basel Economics and the design and art department of the FHNW (University of Applied Sciences of North-western Swit-zerland ).

As a platform, voice and active player on behalf of the Basel metropolitan region, the metrobasel association is open to everyone. Individual inhabit-ants, businesses, clubs, associations, communes and other local-govern-ment bodies are welcome to join and channel their commitment. Please use this form to request further information.

{ } PLEASE SEND ME INFORMATION ABOUT METROBASEL

{ } PLEASE SEND ME THE NECESSARY DOCUMENTS FOR APPLYING FOR MEMBERSHIP

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PLEASE RETURN TOBy post: metrobasel, Aeschenvorstadt 4, Postfach, CH-4010 BaselBy telephone: +41 (0)61 272 11 44By telefax: +41 (0)61 272 11 42By e-mail: [email protected]

Becoming a metrobasel member✄


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INSERATNovartis

Documents

metroléman€¦ · report 2008 metrobasel metroléman metrozurich metropolitan Switzerland basel, Geneva and Zurich want to achieve a bigger impact by acting together