Municipal mergers: Why a minimum size is necessary

The announcement appears every year in some bulletin: No candidacy has been received for the vacant seat on the municipal council by the deadline. The municipality re‑announces the seat. The second time someone might show up because they have been asked long enough.

This is not an exception. In the national municipal monitoring 2023 about half of Swiss municipalities report having difficulty filling their executive offices. The usual answer is: higher compensation, better work‑life balance, a campaign for the militia office. That is well‑meaning but misses the point.

A municipality that can no longer fill its offices and cannot fulfil its tasks professionally does not need better recruitment. It needs a different size.

The problem is not the office, but the size

Switzerland has 2'110 municipalities. Half of them have fewer than roughly 1'750 inhabitants, almost a third fewer than 1'000 (FSO, own analysis). The tasks of such a municipality are not correspondingly smaller. It approves construction, runs a tax office, organises schools and social assistance, protects its IT from attacks and is supposed to offer its services online. In essence these are the same tasks as in a city, just with fewer cases and fewer people to carry them out. 37 percent of municipal administrations have fewer than five employees.

In 25 years of digital products I have learned a rule that almost always holds: a secure online counter costs roughly the same whether 800 or 80 000 people use it. Costs grow with the task, not with the number of users. Small municipalities pay a multiple per capita or forgo the service. The results show this: in 2023 only one in five municipalities offered full electronic registration and deregistration of residence.

The same applies to people. Those who are ambitious look for a role where they can make an impact and an environment where they learn from others. An administration with four positions rarely provides both. The same pattern appears in municipal councils: only 18 percent of executive members are younger than 45, compared with 24 percent in 2008. This is not only about size, but it fits the picture.

I live in the city of Zurich. Its administration has a specialist for almost every question, and when a position becomes vacant, people apply who specifically want that role. This is not a merit of Zurichers. It is a matter of size.

Plural is discussing an initiative idea, “Promote municipal mergers”. One of the problem statements, not authored by me, puts the point in one sentence:

Where no one looks, control is missing

There is a second reason that rarely appears in the merger debate: the public. A municipality of 600 inhabitants is hardly ever covered regularly by a newspaper. The number of large regional newspapers in Switzerland fell between 2001 and 2016 from 36 to 28, and the remaining editorial teams cover larger areas with fewer people.

This has consequences. A University of Zurich study of over 400 Swiss municipalities shows: where a newspaper covers the municipality well, participation in municipal elections is higher. In the USA research goes further. After the closure of a local newspaper financing costs rise for the affected communities, together with higher wages and deficits in administration. Funders apparently assume that less oversight will occur.

Another finding that concerns me more than any turnout figure: in many small municipalities, according to the municipal monitoring, only as many candidates run as there are seats. An election without choice is an appointment by ballot.

There is no study for Switzerland showing that small municipalities are therefore poorly managed. I am not claiming that. I claim that no one would notice.

A lower limit and a right to delegate tasks

Therefore I consider two things necessary.

First, a minimum size for municipalities, set by the canton. The exact number can be debated. A ZHAW analysis for the canton of Aargau concluded in 2025 that municipalities with 3'000 to 3'500 inhabitants achieve at least half of the possible efficiency. This is not a magical threshold, but a guideline.

Legally this is the cantons' business. The Federal Constitution guarantees municipal autonomy only according to cantonal law. Several cantons can already order mergers, and the Federal Court has repeatedly protected such decisions. The canton of Bern expressly allows it when a municipality can no longer fill its authorities. That such a measure does not have to come from above is shown by Glarus: in 2006 voters at the Landsgemeinde decided to merge three of the 25 municipalities. Originally up to seven were planned.at most seven.

Second, a right to hand tasks upward. Some tasks become cheaper through mergers, but never cheap enough: software, registers, online counters. Such tasks become more efficient the more people use them, and the appropriate unit is often the canton or the federation. A municipality should be allowed to hand them over, and the higher level should be obliged to take them on. Approaches already exist: in the canton of Zurich, 133 of 160 municipalities build a joint platform for online services together with the canton. I have included this proposal in the initiative idea on Plural:

I deliberately do not argue with savings. A University of Lucerne study of 140 Swiss mergers finds a 12 percent lower administrative expenditure, but no effect on total spending. Those who justify mergers with lower taxes promise too much. It is about something else: that a municipality can fulfil its tasks itself.

One could argue that municipalities already cooperate in areas like Spitex, fire services and social assistance. That is true and often sensible. But every association is a contract that each participating municipality must approve. Each has a veto, none bears responsibility for the whole. And the more tasks move into such associations, the less the municipal assembly decides on its own.

The strongest objection: more people participate in small municipalities

The strongest objection to all this is: Small municipalities are the most vibrant democracies in Switzerland. The numbers support this. In municipalities with fewer than 250 residents, more than a fifth of eligible voters attend the municipal assembly, compared to the Swiss average of 7.5 percent. After mergers, political engagement in the majority of municipalities declines. In Glarus, voter turnout fell by 4 percentage points, while it rose in neighboring cantons. When municipalities are enlarged, many people lose the short path to participation. And this short path is not a side effect, but the core of what makes the municipality in Switzerland unique.

I do not dispute these numbers. I consider them the wrong metric. They show how many people participate, but not how much their participation decides. Small municipalities value their own autonomy more than larger ones, especially those with 500 to 999 residents. Tasks have been shifting to the canton for years, with child and adult protection being the most well‑known example. At the same time, most people's lives no longer take place in their home municipality. About 70 percent of commuters work outside of it, and the 2024 Concern Barometer reports that more people identify with their canton than with their municipality when asked where they belong.

A lot of participation with little decision‑making power, or a bit less participation with more: I consider the latter the better democracy.

The closeness is not completely lost. Attachment to the municipality remained stable in most merged municipalities, and interest in municipal politics recovered the longer the merger was in the past. Still, I am not entirely sure. A study of the Danish municipal reform from 2007 shows that larger municipalities weaken the feeling of understanding and being able to contribute to local politics. Anyone demanding a lower limit must name the price. I consider it affordable, but it is not zero.

The same question arises one level higher

If you argue this way, you must also ask the question for the cantons. Winterthur has more inhabitants than each of the cantons of Appenzell Innerrhoden, Uri, Obwalden, Glarus, Nidwalden, Appenzell Ausserrhoden and Jura combined. The city of Zurich has more than these seven together (BFS). If size matters for municipalities, why not for cantons?

I have no definitive answer. But I do not think the question can be asked of municipalities and not of cantons. A structure that no one questions any longer is no longer a tradition. It is a preset.

The initiative idea on Plural starts at a different point than I do, focusing on merged settlements and unequal taxes. Meanwhile it includes proposals ranging from the obligation to negotiate mergers to the mere consolidation of administrations. Some of the problems and solutions in it I have contributed myself. You now know the arguments of both sides. What is your view?

Oliver Herren is co‑founder of Plural, Digitec Galaxus and True Wealth. He writes his personal opinion here, not that of Plural.