Happy New Year, Gang!

[Martin Naef]

Hi Peter

Quoting Peter Korsten <peter at severity-one.com>:
>> I think what you're observing is really the difference between city
>> and countryside. As a rule of thumb (with exceptions), the higher the
>> population density, the more "stressed" a region and its people feel.
>> I wouldn't attribute this to "England" in general.

> So how is this in Switzerland? I was looking at your Facebook photos
> yesterday (funny thing, I'd flown over that general area a few hours
> earlier; the snow suddenly stopped south of the Alps), and I don't think
> you live in a very urbanised area. Is it very much different from
> Zürich, or Glasgow?

I'd say this applies to Switzerland just as well. Zurich, as the  
biggest city, clearly has this somewhat "stressed" feeling, though  
it's pretty easy to escape it simply due to the small size.

The place where I live, and where these pictures were taken, is within  
easy commuting distance to Zurich (google for "Widen" where I live,  
you see "Hasenberg" where I took the pics just above it). I'd say we  
get a bit of both worlds: There's the countryside look (still  
relatively densely populated, this is Switzerland after all...), but  
the majority of people work in the cities (Zurich or Baden). Here you  
find the middle-class families who wanted to escape the  
"always-stressed" mode of the city centers, yet they are all part of  
the "machine" during their day-jobs. It's a rather different feel to  
what you get in the more remote villages that aren't touched by heavy  
tourism.

Glasgow is similar with regards to the "stress-level" to Zurich and  
its environments, though the transition between city and countryside  
is a bit more abrupt into most directions. While in Glasgow, I lived  
in "Newton Mearns" (again, google it), which is kind of comparable in  
terms of "feel": There's no "city feeling" to the place itself, yet  
most people work there.

Bye
Martin