Introduction

During the last century the Swiss population has more than doubled and an increasing amount of people is living in cities (BFS, 2020). With a growing population and an increasing demand for living space in cities, conflicts about the distribution and availability of living space formed. Those are especially concentrated in the city of Zurich, where the lack of affordable appartements is a well-known and often discussed topic.

Two of the most important processes, that influenced the Swiss population dynamics were ‘sub-‘ and ‘reurbanisation’. ‘Suburbanisation’ refers to the process of population movement to suburban areas instead of urban area, resulting in the enlargement of urban areas outside of the urban centers. ‘Reurbanisation’ on the other hand is the process of population movement from suburban to urban areas. Both can have negative side-effects, one of them being segregation. Residential segregation describes the separation of social groups within a city or region, depending on a variety of factors such as economical resources or political orientation as well as other factors. While vertical segregation refers to the separation of groups by hierarchical characteristics like financial resources or education, there is also horizontal segregation, that refers to a separation by the manifestation of characteristics like lifestyle or political orientation (Heye & Leuthold, 2006).
What factors influence the choice of living space for different lifestyle groups?

How are ideal living spaces, respective to certain user groups, represented in the
canton of Zurich and how diverse is the distribution of those living spaces?

What indications do the findings give for policy makers and spatial planers?
To answer those questions, different factors that influence the choice of living spaces and the respective weight of those factors per lifestyle group shall be researched. Further, the living space suitability for each lifestyle group is computed per municipality. Those results shall be visualised to help answering the final research question in the discussion part.

Background