If you include rent (which is high but not as insane as in SF), it's comparable to SF: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

Zurich can draw from around 1.6M people, which is its metropolitan area with >8.3% people commuting to the center. So yeah, >4M more people is probably underselling how small Zurich is in comparison to London and SF. Nevertheless, it's not a world capital, but with its concentration of highly qualified students and graduates from two of the top universities I think it is quite competitive. Plus it helps that it's not 1.6M people isolated somewhere in a desert, rather it's a continuation of Europe's most densely populated stretch of land (London-Netherlands-Ruhr-SW-Germany-Milano), which helps at getting lots of business/talent in neighboring countries.

> Zurich also has a high cost of living and well above any US cities.

SF and NYC are a lot more expensive.

You're right about the size of the job market though, it's tiny, even relative to the population size.

It depends on how you calculate the cost.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_citie...

https://www.atlasandboots.com/remote-jobs/most-expensive-cit...

https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/index

If you calculate unrealistically, yes, sure :)

Day-to-day expenses are a tiny part of a typical budget. In most scenarios, housing, income taxes and transportation alone will easily cost you twice as much in SF compared to Zürich.

As a software engineer, the salary difference should make up for it, or even reach levels that are unlikely in Switzerland. That's great, but for most people, I can guarantee you, Zürich is a lot cheaper.

I don’t argue that Zurich can be affordable (mostly because salaries are higher in general). But the median single family home seems to go for $1.5mn both in Switzerland and Zurich. I don’t think transportation is cheaper in Zurich but I guess income taxes alone can make a difference.

The point is that many things, including many things that “rich foreigners” use to do, are more expensive in Zurich than in San Francisco. For example [1] a hair cut is twice as much ($62 vs $30), a basic dinner at a neighborhood pub for two is 50% more ($74 vs $50), going to the cinema is 30% more ($18 vs $14), a gym membership is 30% more ($118 vs 91$), etc.

[1] https://www.finews.ch/images/download/Mapping.the.worlds.pri...

edit: in the linked document, monthly rent for a mid-range 2-bedroom apartment is 37% higher in San Francisco ($3449 vs $2520). However, the cost of transportation in its different forms is higher in Zurich.

> the median single family home seems to go for $1.5mn both in Switzerland and Zurich.

I meant both in SF an Zurich.