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Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

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Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#331

Post by d3m0t3p »

Stevvo wrote: post #260
kuboble wrote: post #132

Being in Switzerland it looks to me like this is a really tough referendum. Both sides have very good arguments and from the side it looks like either way the Switzerland has to give up some asoects of its high quality of life. If the initiative succeeds, Switzerland will get a large hit from the cancelation of a lot of bilateral agreements with the EU. If the population exceeds 10M then the current rail and road inf…

ETCS level 2 can increase rail capacity by orders of magnitude without laying any new track. You can have multiple trains following each other separated by stopping distance instead of having to separate trains between trackside signals.

I don't think so, faster trains are overtaking slower trains. There is simply not enough space between the station to overtake without having an acceleration that would damage the trains or the tracks. For example in western switzerland the maximal train speed for the fastest trains are ~130 Km/h while the same train can go up to 200 in some swiss-german part, only due to more congestion on the western part. Trains cannot be bigger, some of them are already too big for the smaller train station and in case of rerouting / unexpected stop this causes issue. You cannot make them higher too.

You could get ride of the smaller train , only allowing big city to survive or decrease the commodity traffic or increase the rail network or increase the train station (more tracks allowing to overtake there, and have bigger trains) There is no easy solution otherwise it would have been done.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#332

Post by lejalv »

kakacik wrote: post #318
Schiendelman wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the state - it's your neighbors pushing the same building restrictions as the rest of the developed world, where people say "I don't want another neighbor next to me", which results in too few apartments for even the existing people's children...

You should check Geneva then - they are building apartment buildings like crazy in past 5 years. Too much if you ask me - in very center, almost every small park or green spot is now 6 story concrete building. Only the biggest protected parks are untouched. City is visibly and permanently degrading into concrete field. Weirdly schizophrenic move - they try to keep pushing bike lanes everywhere, even where not safe to…

I agree about bike lanes in Geneva, they should take the space away from cars. Their success is so phenomenal, that they are carrying more passengers/h in some sections than the much wider street they flank.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#333

Post by throwaway85825 »

tempay wrote: post #291
throw-the-towel wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you back up your claims? I don't have a dog in this fight, but do notice people ridiculing migrants as "doctors and engineers".

As with everything it's complicated but it's more true than not: https://nccr-onthemove.ch/indicators/how-qualified-are-migra... More importantly, education isn't everything. Half the economy runs on work that doesn't need higher education and that locals largely won't do: cleaning, care, hospitality, construction. The Spanish and Portuguese speaking workers doing those jobs are propping up a standard of living for e…

Won't do or won't do for slave wages?

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#334

Post by bojan »

throwaway85825 wrote: post #306
bojan wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Are the people supposed to eat rocks? Agriculture takes a lot of land but people need to eat. If anything agriculture is going to require more land in order to be sustainable.

People do need to eat, but over 80% of the Dutch agricultural produce is being exported.

Also, good portion of it isn't even meant for human consumption. Think flowers or cattle feed.

This is not about feeding the population or about sustainability. It's simply about profit.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#335

Post by throwaway85825 »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #326
throwaway85825 wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the people supposed to eat rocks? Agriculture takes a lot of land but people need to eat. If anything agriculture is going to require more land in order to be sustainable.

well duh let's just import food from elsewhere (and completely ignore that foreign politic squabbles might crash this system)

It's not like countries that import the majority of their calories have frequent food riots or anything.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#336

Post by selfmodruntime »

foobarian wrote: post #100
arjie wrote: post #31

This is such a fascinating referendum. The population is at 9.1m, and at 9.5m it appears they'll stall asylum and family reunification, and at 10m they'll execute a Swexit - Switzerland isn't in the EU but it allows freedom of movement to EU nationals. Boy it is interesting to see what's going on in the world right now. There were so many things that I saw growing up as relatively solid but I just happened to grow up…

Elderly people in our village in east Europe used to be super suspicious of the EU project and would say that European countries get along like "a sack of horns." Hopefully they were wrong :-)

The EU is effectively paralysed in foreign affairs and a common fighter jet project died just today due to economic infighting. They're right.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#337

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ashdksnndck wrote: post #323
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wasn't Switzerland already a rich country by then? In 1940, Switzerland’s GDP/capita was 2.9x [EDIT: the world average]; it peaked at 4.4x in 2000 and is now 3.8x [1]. (It increases linearly, long term, from the mid 20s until 2000.) Relative to Western Europe, Switzerland was 1.6x in 1950, about the same as today. [1] https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/relea...

I feel like I have to read this backwards to perhaps understand it. Is 2.9x the multiplier of Swiss GDP/capita vs the Western Europe average in 1940?

Sorry, edited for clarity.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#338

Post by lejalv »

jazz9k wrote: post #315
stymaar wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody in Switzerland is worried about the population growing due to birthrate. This referendum is about stopping immigration (even though in Switzerland more than anywhere else, immigration is at the foundation of the country's wealth).

[flagged]

Citation needed.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#339

Post by rayiner »

Telemakhos wrote: post #293
philipallstar wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The first time I was in Switzerland was 1985, and even then, I would not call it "homogenous." The people at the time spoke French, German, Italian, and Romanisch. Switzerland is an excellent example of the "harmonious" rather than "homogenous": it manages to integrate people from four linguistic groups into a well-ordered society.

China has 8-10 major dialects that are not mutually intelligible, but many would say that China is pretty homogenous. 90% of the population is classified as "Han Chinese," even though the subgroups are quite visibly different from each other.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#340

Post by selfmodruntime »

idiotsecant wrote: post #87
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This initiative is a trap. Essentially, it would allow for the termination of bilateral agreements with Europe Or their preëmptive re-negotiation. I’m not sure describing it as a trap is fair. Nobody voting on is confused about what the thresholds require. I’m not thrilled at how close they both are. But the fundamental idea of a maximum sustainable population for an Alpine republic isn’t abhorrent to me.

is the idea of economic destruction akin to what the UK has suffered abhorrent to you? In your excitement about the one you might consider the other.

How exactly are the Swiss in any position that would mean economic destruction?
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