As you maybe all already know, I live and work in the Langstrasse quarter in Zurich, the area with the highest criminal record in Switzerland. You may ask, how bad is it really? Not that bad, it's Switzerland after all. I have no problem walking through this area at any time. But there are nevertheless some things, which are concerning.
Maybe 10 years ago, this part of the town was the top red light district of Zurich with a lot of street prostitution. The government of Zurich realized, that this was not the sort of development they could support for such a central location and started a program called “Langstrasse Plus”. One goal of that program was to cut down the red light establishments and they succeeded in that with buying those houses when they were on the market and putting offices, new (trendy) bars and normal flats in it. That's how our beloved Rossi – our regular lunch and after-work-beer place – came into our street. They also made street prostitution illegal in the whole area. That helped a lot and one is not anymore constantly approached for some hot encounters or whatever (I lived for a while directly at the langstrasse, and the women before my entrance never wanted to learn that I just live here…). But as usual, the demand is still here and the brothels now just moved a little outside of “my” area, where the city doesn't control it and the market still is free…. So the success of that approach is questionable, but it certainly helped the area, I live and work.
But the red light scene is just one problem, the other big problem are the drug and alcohol addicts. You may heard of “Needlepark” and “Letten”, which were the open drug scenes quite some years ago. They were closed down (and are nice areas to have a beer now .)), but of course the addicts still need a place to be and to get their drugs. That happens to be just in front of our office now… It's not that bad as it was during the open-drug-scene days, seeing someone doing his “fix” is a seldom thing, but dealing and just hanging around is a common “task” here (and being approached with “sugar, coci”, as well). The police shows a high profile here and does strip-searches several times a day (on the same people over and over again), but most addicts seem not to care a lot (and the dealers, they don't catch here anyway). I know, those people have to be somewhere and they need to get their addictions satisfied somehow and Switzerland or at least Zurich has one of the most liberal drug policies in the world (which I completely agree with, resp. could be relaxed even more), but on some days it's just too much. When you have two junkies arguing for half an hour in front of your office about who cheated who. Or when your potential client has to talk to 3 alcoholics before he even can reach your door bell, or when you have to close down your toilet, because there was someone in there when you come into your office in the morning. Then you're somehow sick of the whole story. (But i think, I never lost a client, because of that, by the way)
I don't know a solution to the problem. It's certainly not chasing “them”, locking “them” down and trying to get “them” clean by force. I accept the fact, that “they” have to be somewhere and if that's in my quarter, so be it. I really like to live here, it's very lively, you get food almost 24 hours a day and there are some really nice bars and restaurants around here (and it's in the middle of Zurich, after all, so everything is pretty close). I certainly will stay here and not move away. But when I hear politicians talking about how this problems has to be solved in 3 years and they will solve it, I just ridicule them. The city of Zurich is certainly on the right track and they really try hard to make it better for everyone and in a non-oppressive way. But I doubt they can ease the drug-problem situation somehow, it needs a complete different approach, which I don't know either (and to stress it again, I'm really not supporting more oppressive/restrictive laws on that matter).