Zurich town trounces Davos as most dynamic Swiss location

Opfikon/Glattbrugg, near Zurich airport, has grabbed the title of most dynamic town in Switzerland Keystone

The mountain resort of Davos - home to the World Economic Forum's annual summit - has been pushed aside as Switzerland's most dynamic town by the nondescript Opfikon/Glattbrugg in canton Zurich, in a survey by the Swiss business daily, "L'Agefi".

The survey, published annually, takes into account the economic conditions in each town. It also assesses towns according to a variety of social and environmental criteria.

Opfikon/Glattbrugg, a town located close to Zurich’s international airport, jumped eight places to wrestle the number one spot away from the mountain resort of Davos, which slipped down to sixth place in this year’s survey.

The city of Basel, famous as a centre for the pharmaceutical industry, takes 11th place, just ahead of the Swiss capital, Bern, and Zurich, which came in 12th and 13th respectively.

The highest-placed city from French-speaking Switzerland is Fribourg, which takes 14th position, up 23 places on last year’s survey.

Fribourg, one of the few truly bilingual cities in Switzerland, achieved high marks for its investment in public services, its training programmes and for the quality of the natural environment.

Two other French-speaking cities, Geneva and Lausanne, fared less well in the survey, appearing well down the list in 90th and 55th positions respectively.

Compilers of the survey said both cities lost points in the categories concerned with unemployment and the amount of public debt per inhabitant.

swissinfo with agencies