I wish I could say the same for you...

What is this breakfast you speak of?

The thing which is now gone, contributing to the ongoing decline of QOL in CH.

As a 22 year old, single woman living alone in Zurich who has never felt unsafe out alone at any time of day/night, I'd say quality of life is pretty darn good!

For most people is quality of life not the availability of a good lawyer, but food, decent healthcare, a long life expectancy... and overall did the vast majority of people on the world have a dramatic improvement in their quality of life:


Europe and North America had a 100 year head start and used it to keep the others down for a fairly long time and benefit from it economically. We prevented them to get as developed as we are and were able to continue to sell them our products... not gonna happen anymore, so there will be less jobs and less profitable ones in Europe and more of those in some emerging markets. Commonly known as "globalization". Like it or not, it will happen. As a result will Europe have a hard time to keep the quality of life our parents enjoyed.

Simple example: The net purchasing power of an average employee did not increase in the last twenty years... it dropped significantly. Given the quality of the current governments do I frankly not see it happen...

(First three minutes of this program brings it to the point...)


CH is still doing better and the development is overall slower, but it will happen. Simple as that.

I don't know what you are talking about US. USA is very open to foreigners. They love to find out more about cultures and don't think everyone needs to be from the same home town to be friends. I was once a foreigner in US, then became a local (20+ years of living there). I can tell you that most Americans have nothing but positive opinions of foreigners - especially Swiss. Illegal immigration is a different story.

As far as a comment that US is unfriendly to foreigners, that is absolutely not true. USA is full of foreigners and it's part of the country.
As far as Swiss quality of life on the decline, it still seems pretty high to me. No complaints.

Maybe I (and perhaps others who complained) was not clear enough: It is the authorities that are not open to foreigners and take ridiculous "precautions" (in a completely uncoordinated way may I add).

But I agree that generally people in the USA are in fact really open and friendly. I never felt unwelcome in the US except by authorities.

I am on year 26 here.
What has improved:
Variety of food and restaurants is better (you think it's bad now, you have no idea how it was before. At least in the ancient days there was a KFC at Staufacher).

The Zurich main station (used to be a seedy, smoke filled cavern filled with ancient restaurants and drunks, and was only on one level).

No-smoking law...those of you who don't know, it was only recently that smoking inside was banned. For over 20 years I couldn't go out in Zurich without coming home smelling like an ashtray.

Acceptance of credit cards: used to be a cash only society.

More international: many more foreigners from all over the world due to mixed marriages and hiring talent from abroad.

EasyJet

Internet/Email/Skype/mobile phones: unknown 25 years ago, but that goes for basically anywhere

What has gotten worse:
Traffic
Prices for everything
Train punctuality
Crime
Drinking among the young
Prices vs. income: the inflated Swiss franc gives foreigners the impression that the salary they are offered to work here is is a good one when they convert to their own currency. Then they get here and realize just how expensive it it.
English in movies: used to be that English movies were always shown in original language with German subtitles. It is the exception now.


Service: I would say it is as universally bad now as it ever was.

I never quite understand this I have been here 8 years and I could count on the one hand how many times a train or tram has been late and when I say late I mean max 5 mins late.
Obviously I trust your judgement as you have been here for so long but you really should try the transport in the UK, its true what they say, you wait 30mins for a bus/train and then 5 come along at once.
The transport in Switzerland is without doubt the best transport I have even been on.

You are right, I guess going from atomic clock accuracy to a few minutes late is a relative observation. I know how bad it is in the UK, and it is nowhere near that level!

Nope, service has got a lot worse.

Back in the early 90s your typical waiter was a 50+ Italian with a fancy Salador Dali moustache and a lot of experience who actually took pride in being a waiter and made sure you noticed it. With most of that generation having retired or gone home to Sicily, restaurants these days think they can hire any schoolkid or dropout to do the same job.

I remember the time when there were two hourly trains between Basel and Zürich. Neither of them was non-stop. Today there are five (including the airport train) and two of them are non-stop. Bern similarly had two trains from Zürich, a fast one and a slow one. Today there are two fast ones and I don't know how many slow ones. So the service has been ramped up enormously. Similarly the trains have got longer as more and more people are taking them. So all that additional pressure on the infrastructure is bound to have some affect on punctuality and reliability.

this is just to accomodate us foreigners taking over CH...all that extra housing is also for us

nope. you just became old:

"When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint".
Hesiod, 8th century BC

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"
Plato, 4th Century BC

"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint... As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress."
Attributed to Peter the Hermit, AD 1274

Litter on the streets is a lot worse than when I came here 18 years ago. Also dog pooh.
Supermarket choice - much better!
And service? I would say it is not quite in line with the UK and USA yet. That would be really bad.

actually, i like the service in the US. i don't recall any service in the UK :P

Also I went without any British TV for years here.

There was only CNN, Super Channel and MTV in English. BBC Prime turned up in the mid 90s and BBC1 etc. only a few years ago...

Oh yes - unhappy memories