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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

#291

Post by tempay »

throw-the-towel wrote: post #171
kaufmae wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most of the immigrants are highly educated professionals, big tech, pharma and meds. it‘s not the „empty“.

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 everyone.

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

#292

Post by JumpCrisscross »

kypro wrote: post #255
bapo wrote: post #146

Swiss here and able to vote. In fact, just posted my voting letter today, before taking a 1h bike ride through the biggest city in Switzerland, having lots of space and freedom biking around in our beautiful city. When taking the train to my parents house, I pass several farms and landly smaller cities. Alot of free space in between those, train mostly has spare seats, depending on rush hour timings. There usually ar…

[flagged]

> how diverse are we talking?

Switzerland is deceptively effective at assimilation. Migrants tend to learn the local language and customs.

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

#293

Post by Telemakhos »

philipallstar wrote: post #227
bootsmann wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> more people with certain skills (if you're filtering based on that) This is how freedom of movement works, yes, and it's a key reason why our country is so rich.

[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.

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

#294

Post by dweinus »

fractallyte wrote: post #9
jrflo wrote: post #3

So this is essentially a way to reduce immigration to the country? And if they get close to the cap they will "need to take measures, particularly in the areas of asylum and family reunification." Would be curious to learn more about why this is being proposed.

It's being proposed in order to maintain quality of life. No one wants to be overcrowded. This is a sane solution: collectively agree on the maximum tolerable population. Then it's down to individual responsibility to obey the norms of one's society. Edit: unless you're Swiss, your opinion is irrelevant. Swiss voters have a right to decide how they want to live. They're not beholden to EU laws; they can make their ow…

> unless you're Swiss, your opinion is irrelevant

Lol. Dude, sure the Swiss can vote however they want. But we all see you and can pass judgement on this thinly veiled anti-immigrant nonsense all day long. Respect it I will never.

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

#295

Post by ericmay »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #244
ericmay wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK government let Scotland vote, it didn't allow the entire nation of the United Kingdom to vote on it. And they allowed it because they know it will fail and the smart thing to do if your aim is to keep the UK together (much to Russia's dismay of course) would be to let these referendums proceed when you know they don't have the votes and then they'll sort of fizzle out over time. You did support Brexit though,…

> UK government let Scotland vote, it didn't allow the entire nation of the United Kingdom to vote on it The UK government represents the UK. Everything doesn’t need to be a referendum. > they allowed it because they know it will fail Irrelevant. They allowed it. If the EU agreed to Switzerland voting on Schengen per se , then it would be comparable. > don't think that is/was the only option on the table But it was o…

> The UK government represents the UK. Everything doesn’t need to be a referendum.

> Irrelevant. They allowed it.

Respectfully I just don't agree with your framing here. Another wrinkle could be Northern Ireland if we want to go into this further with the UK specifically.

> But it was on the table. That makes it distinct from the other examples.

It was on the table but it seems that it was on the table as a bargaining chip for a different aim which was to scare the EU straight on spending the money necessary to secure Greenland and these arctic routes. While I agree that the situation itself is distinct, that's true of basically all separatists movements, whether that's Scotland, Taiwan, or Catalonia.

Setting aside American "threats", we can look at tools the United States could use, similar to tools the EU can use with respect to Scotland, to achieve a popular vote in favor of secession that would be detrimental to the organizing entity (UK/Denmark). At what point is such a thing hostile, and at what point is it simply a population exercising what we consider to be a fundamental right? Is Spain being undemocratic by not even permitting Catalonia a vote on independence?

How do you feel about the separatists movement in Alberta? Would you fully support that as well if they decide on a referendum in Alberta to leave Canada? What about Quebec? Genuinely curious.

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

#296

Post by panick21_ »

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…

> If the population exceeds 10M then the current rail and road infrastructure will not handle it well.

Actually it will do just fine. Maybe if the very party who is proposing this wouldn't have spent 20 years preventing infrastructure improvements it would handle it even better. Maybe if this very same party wouldn't continue to fight sensible transportation choices at every turn. Maybe if this party wouldn't spend endless time and energy trying to put as much money as possible in unpopular and irrational highway expansion projects.

There are lots of easy upgrades we can do to our transportation infrastructure. For example, Zimmerbergtunnel 2. This was known to be needed since the early 90s, and was planned. But was not done and is now in planning. We did it in 2 stages, making it much, much more expensive. But in the same period we spend as much as we did on Zimmerbergtunnel 2 on highway expansions that have lesser returns.

> And it's almost impossible to significantly improve the throughput of rail and autobahn without extreme projects.

Well we should get moving on some extreme projects then, or maybe not have the party that proposing this constantly stand in the way of sensible polices.

Anybody who seriously thinks about this will realize having new high speed line across the country would be great. But they would never let that happen.

NEAT was an extreme project, and it will provide benefits for centuries.

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

#297

Post by panick21_ »

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.

Not really, the reality is that in some places Switzerland doesn't use ETCS 2 because it limits our system because ours is better.

I think you mean ETCS Level 3.

But that's just one of many investments that could be made.

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

#298

Post by oytis »

rayiner wrote: post #112
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…

Calling it a population cap for something that seems to be about stricter border controls is a wild marketing choice.

I believe people migrating to Switzerland are largely educated Europeans, so population density must be their biggest concern about migration

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

#299

Post by trnglina »

throw-the-towel wrote: post #182
Schiendelman wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's almost laughably infrequent - you can use single level trains with more doors to triple that without even going to automation.

Has any railway network managed to get less than 15 minute headways? Metros don't count, they're isolated and often enclosed.

Most of Tokyo's mass transit network is absolutely neither isolated nor enclosed, and operates with vastly higher frequencies.

Here's is the timetable for a suburban station on a commuter lines: https://train-cloud.navitime.biz/en/odakyu/railroads/timetab...

On a weekday at peak hours, there are up to 20+ trains an hour, with commuter trains continuing directly into Metro systems, and directly onto different commuter lines on the other end.

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

#300

Post by qingcharles »

oytis wrote: post #288
kaufmae wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most of the immigrants are highly educated professionals, big tech, pharma and meds. it‘s not the „empty“.

I think at least in Germany it's not true - among people coming to Germany there are more refugees of various kinds than professionals

These things aren't mutually-exclusive, though.
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