The reactions to the new Florida book are unanimous on one point: part of the negative effects of the success of cities is that not enough city center building is being built. In The Antlantic and New York Times articles by economic geographers of stature appear that describe building in the pasture as urban disagglomeration. So the enormous wave of pleas to build mainly outside the city can be added to the bulky waste.

At one point the apologists of building in the pasture are right: inner-city building in the Netherlands is damn difficult. Not because there would be no space (walk outside the center of the big Dutch cities and the low densities and open spaces alienating on the walker). No, it is the long-lasting legal procedures, the inhibiting effect of the green buffer zones, the nimby attitude of city dwellers who have managed to get a place in the sought-after city, the resulting electoral fear, monuments anarchos, the garden city believers and unwillingness of developers who make inner city building more difficult.



It works in Zurich. And it is still possible to build for middle-income people. The pressure on the housing market in Zurich is relatively the same as in Amsterdam. The sparsely populated city grows with about 5000 inhabitants per year (400,000 inhabitants, 1.5 million in the agglomeration). There must therefore also be built a strong inner city here. But: crooked living is negligible, there is no question of an overstretched housing market, and medium-rent is offered to a large extent. Finally: there is flow !! You do not believe your ears. How is that possible?

These are private institutions that build and rent out homes at cost price. As an individual, you can join Genossenschaft by buying a share (not cheap, up to 25,000 euros). The Genossenschaft leases land from the municipality (Zurich also has a kind of long-term lease), agrees with the municipality to build about 10 percent socially, and realizes one (or more) complexes with a deliberately mixed supply of two, three, four and five-room dwellings.