Spreitenbach

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Spreitenbach

Canton	Aargau
District	Baden
Coordinates	47°25′N 8°22′E
Population	10,055 (December 2005)
Area	8.60 km²
Elevation	421 m
Postal code	8957
SFOS number	4040
Mayor	Rudolf Kalt
Website	www.spreitenbach.ch
Surrounded by	Würenlos, Oetwil an der Limmat, Dietikon, Bergdietikon, Bellikon, Remetschwil, and Killwangen
Twin towns	Bra (Italy)
Spreitenbach

Spreitenbach is a municipality in the district of Baden, in the canton of Aargau, Switzerland. It lies southeast of the district center directly on the border with the canton of Zurich.

1 Geography
2 History
3 Coat of arms
4 Demographics
5 Politics
6 Economy
7 Transportation
8 Education

[edit] Geography

The town lies between Baden and Zurich on the south side of the Limmat. The settled area stretches along a plain between the Heitersberg and the waterfront. The old town center, through which the Spreitenbach stream flows, lies to the south and has preserved its original character well. North of that is the modern city, with wide apartment buildings, industrial areas, and shopping centers. To the far north, across the highway and railway, in a bend in the Limmat, is the expanded industrial zone Neuhard. The eastern part of the plain is dominated by the classification yard Zurich-Limmattal.

The Franzosenweiher ("French pond") lies in the forested area south of Spreitenbach, near the municipal border with Dietikon. The "Altes Bad" biotope is made up of a pool and a wetland with a great diversity of plants. The municipality has set aside this area and the neighboring forest as a protected natural zone. The name comes from the fact that Napoleon's troops camped at the pond, before crossing the Limmat at Kloster Fahr.

Around 2 km west of the town, at a height of 650 m, lies Heitersberg, a hamlet set on a high plateau in the Heitersbergs. Not far from there is the highest point in the municipality (672 m). The lowest point, 385 m, is the Limmat. The area of the municipality is 860 hectares, of which 302 are forested and 305 are developed.

[edit] History

The first historical mention of Spreitenbach was in the year 1124. Along with many convents, the most distinguished landholders were the Knights of Schönenwerd (in Dietikon). They were forced to sell all of their farms to the Wettingen Abbey between 1274 and 1287.

In 1415 the Old Swiss Confederacy conquered Aargau and Spreitenbach was made part of the district of Dietikon in the County of Baden, a unit in the confederacy. In 1541 the Wettingen Abbey acquired low justice. Om 1670 and again in 1785, many of the houses in the town were destroyed in fires. In March 1798, France invaded Switzerland and declared the Helvetic Republic. Spreitenbach became a municipality in the short-lived canton of Baden; since 1803 the municipality has been in the canton of Aargau.

On August 9, 1847 the railway between Zurich and Baden was opened. The citizens of Spreitenbach lobbied for the path to go far to the side of the city; for this reason, the nearest station today is in the municipality of Killwangen, although it has about seven times fewer residents. Industrialization began in 1862 with the opening of a cotton spinning works.

View from the north

In the 1950s, Spreitenbach was still a quiet farming town with a small business community and a gliderport. However, a major construction boom followed. In the canton of Zurich, then forbidding concubinage (i.e. unmarried cohabitation, banned until 1972), the demand rose for housing in the canton of Aargau, especially in Spreitenbach. This was in addition to the general housing demand, which rose due to the population growth of the Zurich area. A "New Spreitenbach" was planned and built. It was planned as a satellite city: a string of high-rise developments and designated commercial and industrial zones. In the middle of the 1960s, the planners anticipated a population of 35,000 and 20,000 jobs at the end of the construction. Because of the oil embargo and the economic crisis of the 1970s, the vision changed to a more modest development. In 1981 a new construction zone plan was designated, which had a less dense settlement plan and turned away from high rises.

In 1970 the first American-style shopping mall in Switzerland opened. In 1974, a second, larger one followed. Spreitenbach served as a negative example for urban sprawl on the Swiss Plateau. Between 1960 and today, the population has more than quintupled. No other municipality in the canton has registered such a large growth in recent times.

[edit] Coat of arms

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is: "Geviert von Blau mit gekröntem gelbem Leopardenkopf und von Rot mit sechsstrahligem weissem Stern" ("Quarterly, Azure, a crowned leopard head Or; Gules, a six-pointed star Argent"). On the coat of arms from the municipal seal from 1872, a linden and a fir were pictured. Today's coat of arms comes from a recommendation of the local historians and was adopted in 1930. It appears on a map of the canton of Zurich from 1667. The leopard head alludes to the Schönenwerd nobility, and the star to the Wettingen Abbey, the former judges.

[edit] Demographics

Historical population
Year	Population
1780	383
1850	669
1900	913
1930	1064
1950	1173
1960	1964
1970	5978
1980	7198
1990	8315
2000	9127

On December 31, 2005, 10,055 people lived in Spreitenbach, including 48.9% foreigners, the highest of any municipality in the canton. In the 2000 census, 40.0% were Roman Catholic, 20.4% were Reformed, 7.9% were Orthodox, 14.7% Muslim, and 1.3% of some other religion. As their principal language 72.1% spoke German, 7.0% Italian, 6.1% Serbo-Croatian, 4.8% Albanian, 2.3% Turkish, 1.2% Spanish, and 1.1% each French and Portuguese.

[edit] Politics

The elected municipal assembly has legislative duties. The executive authority is the municipal council. Its members have a four-year term and are chosen by majority vote of the people. The council represents and leads the municipality, and for that purpose execute the resolutions of the assembly and the responsibilities assigned by the canton and the federation.

The five members of the municipal council for the 2006-2009 term are:

Rudolf Kalt (CVP), Mayor
Peter Hautle (SVP), Vice-mayor
Joseph Bütler (FDP)
Fredy Nüesch (SP)
Monika Zeindler (not affiliated)

Legal disputes are handled by the Baden court. Spreitenbach belongs to the judicial district of Wettingen.

[edit] Economy

Spreitenbach is a distinguished economic area, because of its protruding position in the west of the Zurich metropolitan area. Over 700 businesses employ about 6900 workers. Of these 1% are in the agricultural sector, 22% in the industrial sector, and 77% in the service sector. The two large shopping centers Shoppi and Tivoli as well as the furniture store IKEA (the first store opened outside of Scandinavia, in 1973), form the backbone of the service economy. Several leading companies operate in Spreitenbach; the most notable are Zweifel Pomy-Chips (potato chips), Bridgestone (car tires), Johnson & Johnson (pharmacy/cosmetics), Nestlé (foodstuffs), Miele (household goods), and Globus (retail trade).

[edit] Transportation

The municipality lies on the frequently used Zurich-Baden highway. The Dietikon entrance to the A1 autobahn lies 2 km east of the town. Until 2008 Spreitenbach will have only an entrance in one direction (from and toward Bern). In Spreitenbach and its neighbor Dietikon, the largest classification yard of the region was built in 1978 (later expanded), the Rangierbahnhof-Limmattal (RBL).

Spreitenbach can be reached from several bus lines, which end there. The lines 2, 4, and 8 of the Regionale Verkehrsbetriebe Baden-Wettingen go in the direction of Killwangen, Neuenhof, Wettingen, and Baden. A line of the ZVV goes to Zurich via Dietikon, Urdorf, and Sclieren. The entrance on the Zürich S-Bahn lies in the nearby stations Killwangen-Spreitenbach and Dietikon (lines S3 and S12). In the medium term, the new Stadtbahn Limmattal is being planned to include stops in Spreitenbach.