2025-12-26 - Verdichtung

2025-12-26 - Verdichtung Verdichtung is German word that loosely means "densification". It represents an alternative to urban sprawl0 that is prevalent in US cities and has been the dominant strategy for Zurich's expansion. What it means is that even though there would theoretically be new space available on the outskirts, the city, or canton, instead of dedicating it to new construction it prefers1 to repurpose existing buildings by increasing the number of floors or by reducing the distance between buildings. I am actually currently living in such a building created from Verdichtung where before this was partially a parking lot and partially an annex of another building. Looking at historical maps, there are many such occurences Two Google Earth images of Schlieren from 2009 and 2024 showing the practicalities of verdichtung. Look out for the central area turning multiple smaller housing blocks into a larger one and eliminating "wasted space". But top-down maps only tell half the story as they often look directly from above, Verdichtung also often means an increase in height. This does create more living space overall but it also creates some weird apartments that feel way too close together and that often can only serve people that do not are financially unable to have any demands for either sunlight, privacy, or quietness. For example, a parking lot not far away was repurposed into a hotel-like complex where balconies made out of pure concrete are facing each other. Example sketch (not real but pretty much 1:1 of an apartment complex built close to where I live in 2025) of what Verdichtung looks like in practice. There was a parking lot before here, now we have balconies made out of pure concrete facing each other with no sunlight, privacy, or coziness. The prices are sure high though! Effect on ownership? Ownership in Zurich has undergone a quiet shift in the last years; where private individuals held 41% of the stock in 2010, they now account for barely 31% in 2024 ( data from stadt-zuerich.ch ). While this generally follows the trend of Switzerland simply having the lowest home ownership in Europe ( link ), it could be empirically argued that Verdichtung has played a role in this shift as demolishing and building denser is highly complex and expensive, something which would be nearly impossible to do by a private individual, especially so since your neighbors can essentially complain and delay the project for a while. Compare that to you just buying a new plot of land with reasonably well defined rules and building there or just renovating an existing building and it is night and day. Hence projects doing Verdichtung generally lead to four ownership scenarios for land that might have been previously owned by individuals: A private company does the project and rents out the flats generating very good stable and predictable revenue per m2. A Genossenschaft (cooperative) or a pension fund does 1. A private company does the project and sells the flats to individuals (less...

Preview: ~500 words