Building zone statistics: densification on the increase
The total area of Swiss building zones has remained constant since 2012, but it is being used more intensively: The density of use has increased by 7.9 percent in the last five years.
Since 2012, the number of residents in construction zones has grown from 7.4 to 8.0 million, but the total area of the main types of construction zones has remained roughly the same over the same period. Thus, significantly more people live in a virtually constant area. The average building zone area decreased by 18 sqm from 309 to 291 sqm per inhabitant. This is the result of the building zone statistics for Switzerland, which have now been updated by the Federal Office for Spatial Development (ARE). The statistics are based on the geodata of the cantons and are collected every five years.
The total area of building zones in 2017 in Switzerland, i.e. built-up and non-built-up areas, is 232,038 hectares. Almost half of these are residential zones. Work zones, mixed zones, center zones and zones for public use each account for shares of between 11 and 14 percent. The share of undeveloped building zones has decreased slightly. Compared to the last statistics five years ago, between 2,100 and 2,500 hectares were newly built over, which corresponds roughly to the area of Lake Walen. In 2017, work zones had by far the largest share of undeveloped construction zones (33 to 41 percent), followed by residential zones (11 to 19%).
The statistics also show that the accessibility of building zones by public transport has improved markedly between 2012 and 2017. The proportion of building zones with very good, good and average accessibility increased overall from 37 to 41 percent. These areas are largely located in urban areas and cover two-thirds of the inhabitants and employees.
If the still undeveloped building zones were to be completely built over at the same density as the built-up building zones, these would offer space for a total of around 1.0 to 1.7 million additional inhabitants, the ARE states, at the same time qualifying that this is a theoretical calculation. On the one hand, not all undeveloped building zones are in good locations, on the other hand, undeveloped building zones in favorable locations could be built over more densely than before.
