Are many HN members in Zürich? I was suprised to see this type of news with so many points, though it's quite amusing to see the mixture of different topics in the front page.
Yes and I am also surprised to see this news here. (I voted yes to the restriction) We also approved an initiative for cheaper public transport which is cool.
Thank you - it'll be years before I can vote in Zurich, but the neighbourly weekly leaf blower parade kept me closing my windows or working somewhere else
Not cool. It's not like a vote makes it actually cheaper to run public transport. It just means the city will tax the sort of tech workers who post on HN a lot more in order to give the money to other people (who already get subsidized rent and other privileges), driving ever more out to Zug, and that the currently well functioning public transport system will decay due to underfunding and lack of capital investment.
Even if it doesn't make it cheaper to run (I honestly don't know, it could be that there are economies of scale, if more people use public transportation?), people spending time in Zurich (including residents) could benefit if this leads to less people driving in Zurich, thus less air and noise pollution, and more pedestrian-friendly streets.
Indeed if it leads to less infrastructure investment it might worsen, but it's not obvious that this is what will happen.
There are never economies of scale to this sort of thing. Look at other cities to see what will happen. Germany has recent experiences, London too.
Zurich especially has no improvement potential here because it already does everything possible to force people onto public transport e.g. parking is heavily throttled, driving through the city is extremely slow. Transit is already saturated at peak times. There aren't armies of people driving cars around who would take the train or bus every day instead if a yearly Abo was only cheaper. Maybe a small number but not many.
> Indeed if it leads to less infrastructure investment it might worsen, but it's not obvious that this is what will happen
Of course it will lead to less investment! Not just of public transport but everything. This decision opens up a 185M CHF/year financial hole in a city of ~300,000 residents. It's already one of the most expensive cities in Switzerland, and the most expensive in terms of corporation tax. A full 25% of companies were already considering relocating out due to the high taxes.
Look at it like this. This decision is so bad that even public transit advocacy groups are criticizing it!
> The public transport information service (Litra) and the public transport industry organisation Alliance Swiss Pass are also critical of general discounts. Public transport always costs the same, even if customers pay less – in the end, the taxpayer pays more, they said.
How bad does a decision have to be for the subsidized services themselves to tell you it's a mistake?
It comes on top of other catastrophically expensive recent socialist decisions like the 13th AHV, buying up so much housing in prime real estate and restricting it to low earners, etc. Where will the money come from? It will come from higher taxes on "high earners" like tech workers (ordinary tech workers). It will come from us. This vote increases the cost of public transport for us, and probably by a lot. It just won't show up on the ÖV bills.
1) At least token engineering presence by every major tech company
2) Tech-savvy VC, legal, audit and tax services you can get on a short notice
3) A pool of talent to fill any engineering position
4) A funnel from a big engineering university to the industry that generates startups
5) Tax authorities willing to work through complicated situations like acquihires, IP riders in contracts for a consideration in the form of stock, etc.
It’s much smaller than the Bay Area, of course, but it’s the only place in Europe that has everything you need in one spot. (Except maybe London, but that’s more like the New York of Europe, minus the high salaries.)
Also, “IT hub” is a place where salaries are low and you plop down a call center. IT are the support roles that install antivirus, not a profit center. There’s a huge difference between that and a “tech industry.”
Berlin’s tech industry is to Zurich and London as Berlin’s art scene is to New York or Paris.
And yes, Switzerland, but especially Zurich, is on another level compared to the rest of Europe. (Except maybe London.) I’ve been a hiring manager at multiple large tech companies: Europe in general has less tech talent than the US, but in London and Zurich you can fill any role, from kernel, through ML, computer vision, hardware, manufacturing, robots, quantum computing, etc.
You said it yourself. I like Zurich, but I'm not sure just a list of checkmarks makes it comparable to Bay Area, or even brings it to the top in Europe. Quantitative metrics are important, and I think Zürich is too a bit small, and not quite fast-moving for the grande title.
I’ve done hiring in tech, and the availability of broad spectrum talent in Europe really only exists in London and Zurich. There are hubs for different fields, but only those two places have everything, IME.
Zurich is an important city for IT in Europe, and a city I personally like as a visitor.
But that's not it - I find this restriction interesting, and I wanted to learn more. I contrast this with the unrestricted American "freedom to" that I usually see in HN.
The leafblower is one of those partisan issues where one camp likes to score internet points by joining the chorus against Unpopular Thing even though they have never been impacted by it, and the other camp defending it because their area really gets a lot of leaves compared to the rest, leaves kill their lawns, and brooms/rakes are seemingly ineffective or they don't exist.
