I'd recommend those who think that being 'close' to a larger town (Baden, Zurich, Basel, etc.) means nothing not be quite so cavalier about it... This a bottom-up country where the national government proportionately raises less money in taxes than the cantons, and where the sense of community (and belonging to a community) runs deep. Places like Nussbaumen and Ennetbaden have long histories that are punctuated by events (and statements) where they quite deliberately, and quite definitively, state that they are not part of the bigger community nearby and have no interest in joining it. True, Baden currently wants to fuse with Neuenhof - but Wettingen, which might seem the more logical candidate for fusion, has a rather decided disinterest in doing the same. Certainly: you can choose to see all this as small-minded localism - or you can try to understand why these kinds of identifications matter to people here.

J.