The Island within the City of Zurich
Witikon is an island within the urban structures of the City of Zurich. It is cut off from the city by the Stöckenbachtobel and exists without any morphological connection to the nearest quarters. The island existence led to a development of Witikon-typical features of structural urbanization and specific social constellations.
Witikon can thus be described as a small city within the city, a microcosm in the aspects of infrastructure, the morphological structure, the topography and the proportion of green space.
The collective habit of the inhabitants differ from the one of the people of macrocosm of the City of Zurich. At a time when Zurich is constantly growing and the demand for new and affordable living space is growing steadily, the mental boundaries of the ‹City› need to be further explored in order to discover new places with urban qualities. So it is not wrong to understand the ‹Periphery› of the city as a part of the ‹City› e.g. the north to the airport, but also the Limmattal and the Glatttal and last but not least the small town in the southeast with the postal code 8053.
Stefan Welter © 2015