something on basel as a border city
basel is located right at the border between Switzerland and France and Switzerland and Germany. there is one point in the port of basel where the three countries meet in one point, the "dreiländereck".
so there is lots of exchange between the different countries here. lots of commuters in both directions for different reasons. it is very easy to cross the border. normally one doesn't even get his passport checked.
in general terms is quite hard to tell where the actual borderline is located. beside official crossing points on main roads there is not much more. probably a sign on a footpath tell you that your crossing the borderline.
even in terms of the urban fabric, there is not much of a difference on this or that side of the border. the urban structure is mainly grown together.
in terms of politics and economics the borderline is extremely present in urban life. there is for example no public transport connection from Switzerland to Germany or France by tram or bus, the main mode of transport in Basle. all the tramline stop at the border. there is also no cooperation in terms of other facilities such as wast,water, swage or energy.
in political terms the Swiss border is only facing the European border. there is actually not much difference between France and Germany anymore, because their both members of the EU but Switzerland still isn't.
in terms of economics the borderline is extremely present. the taxes are different, the salary is very different, cost of living in general is in Switzerland much higher than in France or Germany. this provokes a stream of working commuters coming to Switzerland every morning and going back home in the evening. thousands of working travelers are crossing the border everyday. it seems to be cheeper for them to live in Germany or France but they earn more money if the work in Switzerland. this-for the city is a good factor. it generates enough workplaces in many different fields. along the border where there aren't settlements on both sides of the border there is almost no commuter.
in Switzerland we do have this case with a city right at the border in three other cases in a similar manner. this is Schaffhausen in Switzerland that faces the German border, there is Lugano that faces the Italian border and there is Geneva that faces the French border. in total there are four main cities right at the border.
besides people coming into Switzerland for work there are a lot of Swiss people who travel across the border. here the main reason is not to earn money, they spend the money. living costs in Switzerland are much higher than the cost of our neighbor countries. therefor a lot of people cross the border to go shopping, specially food and daily items.
right next to the official crossing point they built big shopping centers mainly for Swiss shoppers. there one can get anything and it is very busy. on saturdays there a long queues already at the border to cross, but also within the shopping centers.
if one would continue this logic onwards one could think Switzerland is loosing a lot of money this way. foreigners coming to work in Switzerland bringing their salary back to their country of origin and Swiss people traveling across the border and spending their money there. is seems as if all the money is going out of Switzerland. probably the very rich people are bringing the money back into Switzerland trough the Swiss banks. just this week UBS the leading Swiss bank announced its best year in a series of 11-years. their growing by 45% in the sector of extremely rich private bankers...
what if the borderline wouldn't exist anymore? there are actual talks going on between EU and Switzerland on how to integrate Switzerland and there are discussions in Switzerland to join the EU. this is going to take a long time. personally I do think it is stupid not to join the EU but the Swiss people decided not to join. beside this there is a set of new agreements between Switzerland and the EU. one of them is about mobility an the freedom for EU people to move and relocate within EU including Switzerland. it just recently became easier for those people to move to Switzerland. there are still talks going on for other agreements. at the moment taxes are a very big topic, as Switzerland allows EU companies to move to Switzerland and therefore they pay taxes in Switzerland and not in the EU, but they d rather would have the money... very difficult.
but back to the question what does the borderline preserve or what for does it stand. on the level of everyday life it actually doesn't have a function anymore. people are traveling back and forward working, shopping, whatever without referring to the political border. but in terms of economics the border is very effective and has a high impact and therefor is very unlikely to disappear.
in terms of urban planning and urban function it would make much sense to work much more across borderlines. first of all to optimize functions and consumption especially in terms of sustainability. and second of course in terms of urban planning in general.
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3 comments:
It sounds very interesting to me when you are talking about the Swiss boundary. This is unbelievable to Asian people that you guys can plan someone over the countries boundaries. I have an extreme example contrasting to yours. That is Shenzhen and Hong Kong (Ming Fai and my home cities). We are neighbor just like Genève and Lyon (I guess we are even closer), but we have very clear political boundary. The situation is just opposite to the context in Switzerland. The economic boundary is blurring even though the political boundary is very strong. Among all Chinese cities, the living standard of Shenzhen is the highest even though it is now lesser well-known than Shanghai and Beijing. Their salaries and expenditures are the highest. No one would query on the reason – the influence from Hong Kong. Even though there are a lot of limitations on economic activities due to the political boundary, the interaction between these 2 cities is increasing. Due to the high land value of Hong Kong, a lot of Hong Kong industrialists moved their factories to Shenzhen; while a lot of Hong Kong people cross the boundary working and shopping in Shenzhen.
I am not sure about the reason causing the difference between Switzerland and Hong Kong, but I guess the political boundary is getting weaker in Europe is probably due the formation of EU – there was a political consensus. I think the disappearance of political boundary in Europe is a top-down policy. For instance, the political boundary between EU and other country, like Russia is still very obvious as Russia is not a member of EU. On the other hand, the clear economic boundary is more like a negotiation of political power and market needs. Why Shenzhen and Hong Kong getting closer is due to their market needs, especially in such globalization process. They can gain more in economic term from working with each others. It happens anywhere – EU, South Asia, East Asia and South America, etc. All of these regions try to set up a economic zone in order to further or speed up their economic development and increase their competitiveness. Positioning of cities would affect their economic types and so as the way their work with their neighbor countries.
For me one of the most important aspects about this topic is the capability to adapt of the people, not only to social aspects, but also to economical and political ones, I think that the most interesting behaviuors among people show when there is larger differences between communities were we not only learn to live with this differences, but we also learn to get the best part of it, I guess is in our preservation instincts to adapt to different realities. It is also very interesting to see two different border lines like the one in Basel and the one in Hong Kong it seems one is dissolving and the other one is fortifying to reach a peak so it can eventually dissolve maybe there is a cycle between different cities or communities that due to globalization crash but eventually they have to learn to live together. I also guess this cycles gets shorter due to our present times....
it seems to be a very similar situation. and maybe this is so not by chance, I think it goes this way rather by a global development - globalization - or the total power of economics.
we discussed this topic already many times and the more I think about it the more I get convinced that the political boundaries have less and less eligibility of existence. as both the examples show economy is acting with not respect of any political borderlines any-longer. and not since now, this development already started long ago and it seems to be properly establish and very strong. people just follow and adapt to this new force or power.
politically there is no mode of regulating such a global economy. as I argued before, there are those global companies acting on a level of no control by anyone expect competitors.
I actually do not see the differences between the HK and the BS example. may J u could specify what u think is different. I think the two are very similar. in both cases there is a political border that gets ignored by the economics in order to optimize profit. the people follow this development and the political officials do not have any methods of reacting on this.
one reaction can be the one they try now here in basle. to start planning under political aspects across the border and establish a very good partnership with its neighbors in order to sync the goals and guidelines.
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