Getting to love thy neighbour

Neighbours' Day is in its second year in Zurich tagdernachbarn.ch

Cities are often lonely places and you might only meet your neighbours as you cross paths in the hallway or because there has been cause for complaint.

However, European Neighbours’ Day, in which 16 Swiss places are taking part, is aiming to counter this by offering an occasion for people who live next to each other to socialise.

“The idea is that you get to know your neighbours or that you maybe establish or start to care more about the contact you have with them,” Anna Hofmann, project organiser of Zurich’s Neighbours’ Day, told swissinfo.

Neighbours’ Day, always held on the last Tuesday of May, started in Paris in 1990.

By 2004 – the year the first Swiss city, Geneva, joined – it had been designated European Neighbours’ Day. Last year 28 countries participated.

Zurich is still the only city in German-speaking Switzerland taking part. The rest are based in the French-speaking region, with one event in Italian-speaking Lugano.

Hofmann said it had been difficult to persuade larger Swiss cities to become involved.

“Some people live in Zurich because they don’t want to have neighbours or this village feeling,” she observed.

“But we think it’s really important and also increases the quality of life in cities if you have contact with your neighbours. Maybe they are not your best friends, but it makes life easier if you know who lives next door.”

Town versus country

Being neighbourly seems to be more present in the country. “In cities this feeling has been a little bit lost,” she said.

This is also the view of Christoph Schulthess who organised a barbecue to mark the day for his neighbours in Zurich’s Badenerstrasse, a stone’s throw from the city’s Letzigrund stadium.

“I know rural areas and what I miss here in the city is the friendliness of the countryside, that people say hello to each other on the street,” Schulthess, the caretaker at the block of flats, explained.

“This event is a good way of saying that people could be a bit friendlier to each other especially if you pretty much see each other every day anyway,” he said.

Zurich’s Neighbours’ Day also has the firm support of the authorities. City councillor Robert Neukomm, also attending, said high turnover of people in cities made it more difficult.

“But the advantage is that people in the city are perhaps a little more open than their country fellows so contact is easier,” he told swissinfo, adding that neighbours “were the most important people apart from the family for contributing to a good quality of life”.

Overcoming obstacles

And getting to know each other is especially important in multicultural Zurich, which counts 30 per cent foreigners among its 370,062 population, said Neukomm.

Newcomers to the city, whether foreign or Swiss, may not be aware of the strict rules surrounding city residential life, such as not mowing the lawn or doing the washing on Sundays.

Hofmann believes that if neighbours get to know each other, conflicts and tensions might be avoided.

Norma Rudolf, attending the Badenerstrasse barbecue, agrees, especially as before Tuesday she had normally only heard and not seen her neighbours – and not always in good circumstances.

“Now we can get to know each other from another side and we can sit sociably together. This brings neighbours closer,” she said.

swissinfo, Isobel Leybold-Johnson in Zurich

Neighbours’ Day

In Switzerland the day has been taking place in Chêne-Bougeries, Geneva, Gland, Grand-Saconnex, Lausanne, Lugano, Meyrin, Morges, Nyon, Onex, Thônex, Vernier, Versoix, Vevey, Yverdon-les-Bain and Zurich.

In Europe more than seven million people in 725 towns took part in the day in 2007. This included 28 countries, including 20 European Union nations. Further afield, Canada’s Quebec and Taiwan also held events.

This was the second time that the day was held in Zurich and the organisers said that interest had grown on last year. But they are hoping to encourage more participation in 2009, not only in Zurich, but also across the whole German-speaking region.