Beer with subtitles

I hope to slowly work my way through my copy of “Prime Guide Zurich 2008/2009″, which I picked up at Pile of Books (#92) a few weeks back. This afternoon, thanks to an early furniture delivery – which unexpectedly included delivery – I had time to visit a couple more:

• #1 – 1000 Objekte
  A nice shop to wander about for a little while admiring the design (both of the shop and the objects) but the prices are stereotypical Zurich “who on earth buys this stuff?” material. Of course, while I was there, somebody was actually buying this stuff.
• #30 – Chocomotion
  A beautifully designed small chocolate shop with a central circular display of well chosen chocolates from around the world. There’s also a tiny café which I was devastated to discover serves only the “real chocolate melted in hot milk” variety rather than the true pure melted chocolate variety; albeit, the best I’ve ever tasted. When I ask for some chocolate with ginger in, I’m presented with at least four totally unrelated options: ginger pieces rolled in chocolate, ginger paste in chocolate bars, raw cocoa flakes mixed with ginger…

Again, I’m reminded that there are some beautiful streets here in the old part of town, such as Spiegelgasse, dotted in the guide with about a dozen markers for cute interesting little independent shops like the above pair. Of course, being interesting cute little independent shops like the above pair, they close at 4pm on Saturday. Next weeekend: get out earlier.

If, like me, you grew up watching bad (albeit classic) 1980s genre movies like “Robocop”, Detroit was the ultimate dystopian city of the future: gangs of marauding vigilantes roamed the streets; ordinary people eking out an existence hoping to avoid the trouble around them for one more day; mega-corporations peopled by amoral executives in glassy offices get rich off the chaos.

Now, the future looks a lot different. Could there be a clearer example of how the energy-strapped 21st century will turn out than that swathes of vast industrial power-house Detroit is reverting to agricultural use? Transport yourself back to 1945 and compare Detroit with Hiroshima: one of America’s largest and richest cities behind much of the industrial might that won the second world war vs. a city literally lying in ruins. Jump forward 60 years to 2009 and Detroit is de-evolving to the agricultural era while Hiroshima is a thriving mini-metropolis with bullet trains arriving every 15 minutes from Tokyo, world’s largest city.

Richard Heinberg devotes a chapter in “The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies” outlining a seemingly-prophetic future in which energy concerns precipitate a drastic fall in population levels: a self-correction mechanism providing a more realistic counterpoint to predictions of never-ending population growth.

Rather than the doomed combination of an inexorable rise in numbers and cultural vacuum depicted in the movies, perhaps Detroit as the biggest (138 square miles vs. San Francisco’s 47) and earliest is simply the first real-world example of the eventual, benign, fate of many large cities: smaller, compact, partly self-sufficient cities. A number of excellent articles have recently appeared to discuss this “shrinking cities” movement, with Detroit as the study – worth reading:

• A special Time Magazine series on whether Detroit can be “saved“
• New Geography discusses the “shrinking cities” movement and the new home of the “Urban Farming” movement, Detroit

Unfurnished apartment living is a new world for a Dubliner newly arrived in Switzerland: while you avoid the possibility of inheriting a hideous couch, you had better find your own couch fast (and consider how it will look in your next apartment and how easy it will be to move). I spent a little time investigating the furniture shops around Zurich and found a pretty good cluster of shops in Dubendorf, easily accessible by public transport.

These are all served well by the Dubendorf local transit. To begin, take the S3, S9 or S11 (or #7 tram) from Zurich Hauptbahnhof out to Bahnhof Stettbach. After that, we’re on the 787 bus – the furniture bus!:

• At the first stop, Ringstrasse, you’ll find something called “Wohnland”, which has Toptip, Pfister and Mobitare all right beside one another. A couple of minutes walk away is Interio.
• A couple of stops later at Altriet you’ll find Schubiger Mobel (the #9 tram stops here, too).
• Next stop, Zentrum Glatt, has Conforama.
• Finally, after a few more stops on the 787, you’ll find IKEA at Industriestrasses.

The 787 runs every 15 minutes and all these shops open until 8pm during the week and 6pm on Saturdays (IKEA 9pm and 8pm, respectively) so it’s pretty easy to shop around here.
View Furniture Shops: Dubendorf in a larger map

For what they’re worth, I have the following mini-reviews to offer:

• Pfister
  Nice shop with some good quality stuff starting at affordable prices. Good service and I bought a bed (and some nice bed clothes) here and delivery was pretty quick.
• Mobitare
  I didn’t spend much time here; seemed less affordable than Pfister.
• Interio
  Good quality stuff, cheaper than Pfister – like Habitat back home. I bought cutlery here.
• Schubiger Mobel
  Great selection if you have a ton of money to spend and want furniture to last several lifetimes. A lovely shop, though, worth seeing.
• Conforama
  A slightly more upmarket version of IKEA, though cheaper for many things. Good selection of couches at decent prices. I bought a kitchen table with chairs and a coffee table here and though delivery was slightly pricey it arrived within a few days and included assembly. They also sell electronics.
• Toptip
  Similar to Conforama but perhaps more expensive; I saw one couch here I really liked for a better price than Conforama and bought it.
• IKEA
  This IKEA has the honour of being the very first branch ever setup outside of Sweden (not incidentally, IKEA’s owner is Switzerland’s richest resident). I don’t like much IKEA stuff apart from Expedit shelves but also bought a mattress here: delivery with the wahrentaxi was a disaster and expensive.

Also worth considering around Zurich is Micasa, Migros’ furniture department, although it’s more awkward to reach by public transport than any of the above, and the second-hand stores dotted around the city.