The streets are alive with hip-hop — but there’s still plenty of gold beneath them
In the mountains south of Zurich, as winter approaches, the farmers bring their cows down. The snowbound higher pastures will soon be empty, and the precious cattle walk down in traditional processions, some decorated with small flowers, the streets of the villages echoing with the sound of the famous cowbells. It’s a time-honoured tradition, and no one is ancient enough to remember when it began. Switzerland, the world’s oldest democracy, has existed as a recognisable country for over 700 years, and that’s enough time to build up more than a few traditions. The Swiss value constancy, solidity, continuity; these are integral parts of their culture — the canvas on which the life of the country is painted and it’s one of the attributes that outsiders like, too. It’s no surprise that at times of international crisis money washes into the Swiss franc, and the term ‘flight to quality’ is well chosen. What many people don’t realise, however, is that Switzerland, the archetypal landlocked island, is changing. Zurich is the exemplar of these changes, and it’s an interesting story. As the 21st century beds itself in, this once-Roman trading post is becoming very much a city of its times.
The first tremblings of what is now recognised as a seismic shift came a few years ago, and were unwanted, even tragic. Just a couple of weeks after 9/11 a gunman broke into the local parliament in the town of Zug and killed 14 people. Five days later the flagship national airline Swissair went bust. Three weeks after that a fire in the Gotthard tunnel killed 11 people. Things like this just don’t happen in Switzerland. The Swiss reeled from the multiple body blows as it began to dawn on them that they were far from immune from woes that only seemed to beset other, less fortunate countries. Although the Swiss are nothing if not resilient, and quickly picked themselves up and carried on, there was a growing realisation that perhaps nothing would ever be quite the same again. In the following year Switzerland at last joined the United Nations. More recently, a deal has been struck with the EU that allows for greater freedom of movement and residency rights between its member states and Switzerland. It seems as if the times are indeed a-changin’.
Most interesting of all, however, are those changes brought about not by political edict or legislation but by a subtle shift in the nature of the culture. It’s the little things you notice, like an increase in the use of English in advertisements and even official notices. Curry is now sold alongside the peppery sausages, bratwurst and cervelat in the Migros supermarkets that, along with the Co-op, dominate the nation’s food shopping (but not its drinking — Migros, famously and in the face of marketing logic, has never sold alcohol). The changes often seem to be driven by the younger generation — so Zurich has an annual hip-hop-technodance-fest called the Street Parade, which now rivals Berlin’s in terms of numbers, flamboyance and exuberance. Putting that German city further into the shade, the emergence of a new club and bar-swamped area known as Züriwest, coupled with the growth in smart restaurants and clothes shops, has led the city to be dubbed ‘the new Berlin’. A recent poll of business and professional people resulted in Zurich being voted the most popular city to live in for expatriates — in the world. Wallpaper magazine, that glossy arbiter of taste, gave it the sobriquet ‘hippest city in Europe’. It’s clean, efficient, prosperous, of manageable size (a population of fewer than 400,000 and a centre that you can easily walk around) and — something that not many people would have said about Zurich 20 years ago — fun.
Zurich’s main street, the famous Bahnhofstrasse, runs south from the main railway station like the arms of a Swiss watch set to half past one. At its other end is the perpetually calm Lake Zurich, which stretches in a roughly southeasterly direction and skims the northern edge of the Alps. If, Dick Whittington-like, you’re looking for a street paved with gold, Bahnhofstrasse is as close as you’re going to get. Deep beneath its surface, on which electric trams do battle with a few brave cars, lie the vaults of some of the nation’s world-renowned banks. Shoppers stand and stare through the windows of the mighty UBS at the electronic boards that constantly update the share prices from the SMX, the country’s principal stock exchange. The exchange itself is discreetly (this is Switzerland) tucked away down a side street, away from the fuss. If the onlookers are also investors, they’re probably in a good frame of mind and might be considering spending more this Christmas than in the past few years the market has slowly recovered from its downturn and is now back around all-time highs. But it’s not just the big banks that are grabbing the attention of the world’s money markets these days, although they still account for a colossal amount of privately held wealth. The hedge funds have set up camp, and have been welcomed. Although lagging behind Connecticut and London in terms of the number of managers and assets controlled, Zurich is fast becoming a serious centre for non-traditional investment management. It is rapidly shaking off its rather stuffy image and is becoming in many ways the place to be. Farming, yodelling and edelweiss all remain symbols of traditional values, an important part of Swiss life, and will no doubt do so for the indefinite future. But Zurich, which is to Switzerland as New York is to America — not its capital but its biggest and most vibrant city — is increasingly making its mark as one of the premier European cities of our time. The cows are coming down into the lower valleys, and the world is coming to Zurich. In the 15 years that I’ve been here there’s no doubt that the city has become a nicer place to spend your time in. And how many cities can you say that about these days?
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