Hello All,

We will be moving to Switzerland in about 4 months working in Basel. My German hubby refuses to live in Basel, he was a more city life than I.

Can someone recommend cities we can live in and use public transport to commute to Basel?

We do not have any major language restrictions, I speak French/Italian/English and conv. high German?

I would really appreciate some suggestions.

Thanks

Some people live in Freiburg/Breisgau and commune to Basel everyday, but I really don't see the benefit of it if the goal is to be in a city as big as possible.
Living in Zürich and commuting to Basel? Why not, distance Home - Zürich railway station will be a main factor, and money will be the only solution to that.
Mulhouse with daily commute would be... different.
Basel is the only city in the surrounding, even if some don't call it a city. Semantics.

Thank you so much for your response. I would not mind living in Basel itself but my husband does not like to live there or the surrounding area. He does not like Switzerland in general-too expensive, blah blah blah

I will have to do some more research I guess to compromise.

For the money, one says:
- Work in CH
- live in F
- shop in D

Otherwise, Freiburg/Breisgau is a common commute for people here. But he won't find a big city there either. Basel is the largest and more lively city in this corner of the world. Zürich is the only next bigger one. But it sounds like he won't pay for it. Too bad.

I don't suppose your husband objects to Swiss salaries. And unless you have children, you'll pay less tax in Basel (Basel-Land, preferably) than in France or Germany.

Basel is small but culturally very rich. I moved from what I would call a "real" city (4.5 million people), so I find anything in Switzerland or indeed within several hundred kilometres rather small -- but Basel is a great place to live.

If you want to work in Basel, you may as well live there. You won't find anything very much more city-like within commuting distance, and you can always go to Zürich or even a real city for the weekend.