Spatial development policy

Switzerland and its various cantons and municipalities currently face major challenges in the wake of dynamic population growth, economic expansion, demographic changes, and digitalization. We provide services to federal, cantonal, and municipal agencies to help them draft, implement, and evaluate their spatial-development policies.

The Swiss government is committed to the implementation of coherent spatial-development policies that take account of the various challenges faced by cities, agglomerations, rural areas, and mountain regions. It is the aim of spatially differentiated policies to simultaneously address both the specific functions of the various regions and their complex relationships to one another.

In our work we place great value on a holistic notion of spa-tial development: with a substantive coordination of the spatially relevant sectoral policies and an intensive interplay of federal, cantonal, regional, and municipal agencies.

We supported the various federal, cantonal, and municipal agencies by providing the following services:

  • Analyzing spatial structures, processes, and trends to highlight the latest developments and challenges
  • Overseeing the conception and development of spatially-relevant sectoral policies, including regional policies, agglomeration policies, environmental policies, and transportation policies
  • Developing a range of controlling and monitoring systems
  • Evaluating strategies, programs, and measures