One country, one label

If someone's name is Balz Hösly, he must be right. "To be strong, you have to pool resources and knowledge," says the man who goes by this name and is also President of the (!) Greater Zurich Area (GZA). Hösly has done a bit of pooling and now wants to sell the whole of German-speaking Switzerland to foreign investors as the Greater Zurich Area. The president of the GZA is struggling to attract foreign economic power to (German-speaking) Switzerland. And since, in Hösly's opinion, there are only three Swiss brands of international renown abroad - Switzerland itself, Zurich and Geneva - everything has to come together under these three umbrellas. Sorry Lucerne! Sorry Basel! Sorry all the other cities that you think are attractive locations.

Struggle for rank

The location becomes the point of view. Which is: Zurich is the main thing! After all, Zurich is the most beautiful and largest city in Switzerland, if not the whole world. And therefore the benchmark for all things. The cantons of Glarus, Graubünden, Schwyz, Zug, Solothurn and Schaffhausen are already part of the Greater Zurich Area. It doesn't matter that this is rather "greater" and Fridolin, the Schaffhausen goat and co. are probably rolling their eyes or other body parts as a result. Regional sensitivities simply have to take a backseat to Hösly's alliances. But as I said, the man is right. After all, inside and outside are two different things. While a Swiss finds one and the same pot for Zurich, Schaffhausen and Glarus almost unbearable, Hösly's little cheating abroad is not at all dramatic. Worse still, it goes unnoticed!

After all, the foreign investors who are the declared target group of the GZA are not supposed to pass a test in Swiss local history, but simply leave a little money here. And Zurich, sorry: Zurich, simply sounds better than Glarus. So you need a sufficiently large pot, a suitable lid and the soup is cooked. Even the unspeakably un-Swiss brand name Greater Zurich Area makes it clear how Hösly's lens is set: it's all about dancing on the international stage. It's all about cash and credits. Nobody here wants to tell you what Switzerland is really like. Polyglott is simply fast. Cash is great.

Zurich is great!

Success proves them right: last year, the (!) GZA was able to attract 91 new companies with 1,200 planned jobs to the "region", i.e. Glarus, Graubünden, Schwyz, Zug, Solothurn, Schaffhausen and Zurich. If Aargau hadn't jumped ship a year and a half ago and thrown itself at Basel, there would now be white socks made in the Greater Zurich Area. That would have been something. But perhaps the "Greater Aarau Area (GAA)" will soon make it big. With Basel, Lausanne and Ticino under its roof. It's the mix that makes the difference.

The Hösly an

The bemused observer wonders whether the "Switzerland" brand would not suffice in view of the non-existent size of our little country. In any case, an investor from the USA will not understand why there is a Zurich, a Basel and a Geneva area on an area of 41,285 square kilometers - that is half the size of Lake Superior in North America. And he won't be interested either. If you live in a country 233 times the size of Switzerland, you probably can't even imagine the trench warfare in the mini-state.

A suggestion to Mr. Hösly: Couldn't the whole of Switzerland be made a Greater Zurich Area? Then we could finally bridge the cantonal divide and the divide between Switzerland and Switzerland. Or we could market Switzerland as the "Greater Swedish Area". After all, this thing with "Greater" and "Area" still sounds good, and the Americans keep confusing Sweden and Switzerland anyway. What's more, Glarus, Schaffhausen and Graubünden would certainly feel more comfortable under the umbrella of "Sweden" than under Zurich's wing. And perhaps Aargau would also be back in the mix.