Onex, Switzerland

Onex is first mentioned in 1292 as Onay. Until the 1960s the municipality remained a relatively small agricultural village. This changed when, at the urging of the canton, it sold approximately to the Cité-Nouvelle Foundation to build public housing. The Foundation built a number of nine to fifteen story apartment blocks on the land to help relieve a housing shortfall in Geneva. The Cité-Nouvelle was one of the first high density housing blocks on the outskirts of Geneva. Between 1950 and 1970 the population increased from less than 1000 to over 13,000. With the population growth, the village economy changed from primarily agricultural to a commuter and service economy. In 2000 about 90% of the population commuted to jobs outside the municipality and by 2005 about 90% of the jobs in the municipality were in the service sector. ==Geography==

Onex has an area, , of . Of this area, or 6.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 13.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 77.7% is settled (buildings or roads), or 3.5% is either rivers or lakes. Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 51.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 13.5%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 12.8%. Out of the forested land, 12.1% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.1% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 1.1% is used for growing crops and 3.9% is pastures, while 1.1% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. ==Demographics==

Onex has a population () of . , 33.7% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 6.2%. It has changed at a rate of 1.8% due to migration and at a rate of 3.9% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks French (13,064 or 79.6%), with Italian being second most common (767 or 4.7%) and Portuguese being third (692 or 4.2%). There are 538 people who speak German and 8 people who speak Romansh. Of the population in the municipality 2,810 or about 17.1% were born in Onex and lived there in 2000. There were 4,177 or 25.4% who were born in the same canton, while 2,565 or 15.6% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 6,156 or 37.5% were born outside of Switzerland. , there were 7,236 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.2 persons per household. there were 7,525 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 3 rooms of which there were 2,406. There were 887 single room apartments and 1,078 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 7,109 apartments (94.5% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 364 apartments (4.8%) were seasonally occupied and 52 apartments (0.7%) were empty. Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8) ImageSize = width:960 height:210 PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:17000 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:3000 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:600 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1860 from:start till:261 text:"261" bar:1870 from:start till:227 text:"227" bar:1880 from:start till:247 text:"247" bar:1888 from:start till:271 text:"271" bar:1900 from:start till:279 text:"279" bar:1910 from:start till:306 text:"306" bar:1920 from:start till:404 text:"404" bar:1930 from:start till:687 text:"687" bar:1941 from:start till:876 text:"876" bar:1950 from:start till:958 text:"958" bar:1960 from:start till:2128 text:"2,128" bar:1970 from:start till:13524 text:"13,524" bar:1980 from:start till:16956 text:"16,956" bar:1990 from:start till:15736 text:"15,736" bar:2000 from:start till:16419 text:"16,419" ==Sights==

The entire village of Onex is designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites. ==Politics==

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 25.28% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP (20.77%), the Green Party (14.63%) and the LPS Party (10.43%). In the federal election, a total of 4,175 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 45.8%. In the 2009 Grand Conseil election, there were a total of 9,041 registered voters of which 3,415 (37.8%) voted. The most popular party in the municipality for this election was the MCG with 20.1% of the ballots. In the canton-wide election they received the third highest proportion of votes. The second most popular party was the Les Socialistes (with 12.7%), they were fourth in the canton-wide election, while the third most popular party was the Les Verts (with 12.6%), they were second in the canton-wide election. For the 2009 Conseil d'État election, there were a total of 9,048 registered voters of which 4,168 (46.1%) voted. In 2011, all the municipalities held local elections, and in Onex there were 29 spots open on the municipal council. There were a total of 12,535 registered voters of which 4,855 (38.7%) voted. Out of the 4,855 votes, there were 37 blank votes, 52 null or unreadable votes and 354 votes with a name that was not on the list. ==Economy==

, Onex had an unemployment rate of 6.8%. , there were 23 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 4 businesses involved in this sector. 665 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 75 businesses in this sector. 2,238 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 263 businesses in this sector. , there were 1,271 workers who commuted into the municipality and 6,913 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 5.4 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. About 7.0% of the workforce coming into Onex are coming from outside Switzerland, while 0.0% of the locals commute out of Switzerland for work. Of the working population, 31% used public transportation to get to work, and 51.8% used a private car. The canton of Onex is served by the 14 tram in the Genevan tram system. ==Religion==

From the , 7,397 or 45.1% were Roman Catholic, while 2,599 or 15.8% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 118 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.72% of the population), there were 22 individuals (or about 0.13% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 330 individuals (or about 2.01% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There are one congregation in the city of the Evangelical Free Church of Geneva. There were 43 individuals (or about 0.26% of the population) who were Jewish, and 695 (or about 4.23% of the population) who were Islamic. There were 44 individuals who were Buddhist, 23 individuals who were Hindu and 28 individuals who belonged to another church. 3,665 (or about 22.32% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 1,455 individuals (or about 8.86% of the population) did not answer the question. ==Education==

In Onex about 5,295 or (32.2%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 2,131 or (13.0%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule). Of the 2,131 who completed tertiary schooling, 41.0% were Swiss men, 34.0% were Swiss women, 15.7% were non-Swiss men and 9.3% were non-Swiss women. During that school year, there were 276 children who were in a pre-kindergarten class. The canton's school system provides two years of non-mandatory kindergarten and requires students to attend six years of primary school, with some of the children attending smaller, specialized classes. In Onex there were 579 students in kindergarten or primary school and 98 students were in the special, smaller classes. The secondary school program consists of three lower, obligatory years of schooling, followed by three to five years of optional, advanced schools. There were 579 lower secondary students who attended school in Onex. There were 820 upper secondary students from the municipality along with 155 students who were in a professional, non-university track program. An additional 162 students attended a private school. , there were 349 students in Onex who came from another municipality, while 1,048 residents attended schools outside the municipality. == Notable people ==

• William Lescaze (1896 in Onex – 1969 in New York) was a Swiss-born American architect, a pioneer of modernism in American architecture • Walmar Wladimir Schwab (1902 in Moscow - 2000 in Onex) painter and print-maker in Paris during the 1920s • Xavier Hochstrasser (born 1988 in Onex) a Swiss footballer who currently plays for FC Onex ==International relations==

Onex is twinned with: ==Gallery==