more men at work in zurich

In Zurich, streets are clean and pot-hole free, the trees are perfectly pruned, walls and buildings are cleaned and repainted as soon as graffiti goes up (in some cases on the very same day), garbage and recyclables are collected according to a precise schedule, buildings that previously looked perfectly fine are renovated, entire stretches of major streets are torn up for no apparent reason, tram-tracks ripped out (you should have seen the Limmatquai this summer! too bad I didn't take any pictures then...), and everything is put back into place 4-5 months later, looking even prettier than it ever did before.

For a cynic who has lived in cities where none of the really necessary things ever seem to get done or fixed, where potholes left untouched for months turn into craters, where the city-scape is marred with abandoned, half-finished projects because the city or developer ran out of money, where tunnels collapse during, or even after construction is complete, where inaccurate street signs have you driving around the same 10 block radius for hours, where someone forgot to put the sidewalk back in after doing some street work--it just seems like Zurich has way more money than they can figure out how to spend. In some of my other cities (which I still visit)--forget beautification! I'd be happy if they would just fix the potholes, and if they would just please, please, make sure no tunnels fall on my head!



cleaning tram tracks with a blast of water? (also note the scaffolding on the building in the background...)

street cleaning

spray cleaning something

I guess he got a little bored doing whatever it was he was supposed to be doing here and decided to do some window shopping instead.

putting the finishing touches on a wall after removing anti-WEF graffiti.