Renens
Renens is a municipality in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland. It is located in the district of Ouest Lausannois, and is a suburb of the city of Lausanne. It is the fourth largest city in the canton. It is considered a very multiethnic town, as more than 50% of the inhabitants are resident foreign nationals from about a hundred countries.
History
Renens is first mentioned around 888-896 as in villa Runingis. Neolithic tombs and a necropolis from the High Middle Ages have been discovered in the town.In the Middle Ages Renens was owned by the cathedral chapter of Lausanne which created a prebend there between 1233 and 1303. In 1555 Claude de Praroman exchanged his old Vuarrens prebend with Bern against that of Renens for which he obtained the lordship rights. The house he already owned at 'En Plait' becomes his castle. Lausanne bought the seigneury in 1750. The castle, sold in 1752 to Jean Pierre Audibert, passed successively to the Doxat, Sandoz, Sauter and Burckhardt families. There are rumors that Mozart stayed in this castle when he visited Lausanne.
Renens was around that time still a small village where a few families owned the countryside: the castle of 'Renens-sur-Roche' where the Roëlls, Auberjonois and Guyots succeeded each other, and the 'Ferme des Tilleuls', built at the beginning of the 18th century by the Praroman family, where Pierre-Elie Bergier lived.
Renens became a municipality in 1798, attributed to the district of Lausanne with its own municipal legislative Council from 1901. In the 1950s Renens became a city, and in 2006 the capital of the district of West-Lausanne. Since then, Renens continued to grow rapidly. In the 1980s and especially since the 1990s, there has been large-scale immigration to Renens, primarily from Portugal, Kosovo, the Albanian part of Macedonia and Spain. Since the 2000s, there has also been significant non-european immigration, among others from Turkey, Cape Verde, Angola and Vietnam.
Geography
Renens has an area,, of . Of this area, or 3.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 2.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 93.9% is settled.Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 13.9% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 41.6% and transportation infrastructure made up 28.7%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 3.4% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 6.4%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 1.0% is used for growing crops, while 1.7% is used for orchards or vine crops.
The municipality was part of the Lausanne District until it was dissolved on 31 August 2006, and Renens became part of the new district of Ouest Lausannois.
The municipality is the capital of the new district of Ouest lausannois. It is part of the agglomeration of Lausanne, and Lausanne Métro line 1 terminates at Renens railway station. The Swiss Federal Railway line connects Renens to Lausanne more directly, as well as offering some longer-distance trains. Renens is located close to junctions 17 and 18 of the A1 motorway.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is ''Gules, two Pales wavy Argent, Chief of the same.''Demographics
Renens has a population of. , 51.2% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Between 1999 and 2009 the population increased by 14.4%.Most of the population spoke French, with Italian being second most common and Portuguese being third. There were 567 residents who speak German and 11 who spoke Romansh.
Of the population in the municipality 2,992 or about 16.3% were born in Renens and lived there in 2000. There were 4,431 or 24.1% who were born in the same canton, while 2,566 or 13.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 7,854 or 42.7% were born outside of Switzerland.
In, there were 92 live births to Swiss citizens and 141 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 108 deaths of Swiss citizens and 29 non-Swiss citizen deaths. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens decreased by 16 while the foreign population increased by 112. There were 3 Swiss men and 3 Swiss women who immigrated back to Switzerland. At the same time, there were 287 non-Swiss men and 286 non-Swiss women who immigrated from another country to Switzerland. The total Swiss population change in 2008 was an increase of 358 and the non-Swiss population increased by 208 people. This represents a population growth rate of 3.1%.
In 2009 the age distribution in Renens was the following: 2,091 residents or 10.9% of the population were nine years of age or younger; 2,102 were between 10 and 19; 3,103 were between 20 and 29 years old; 3,009 were between 30 and 39; 2,931 were between 40 and 49; 2,201 were between 50 and 59; 1,778 were between 60 and 69; 1,134 were between 70 and 79; 655 were between 80 and 89; and 118 were 90 and older.
In 2000 there were 7,576 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 8,731 married individuals, 913 widows or widowers and 1,186 individuals who are divorced.
In 2000 there were 8,196 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.2 persons per household. There were 3,213 households that consist of only one person and 397 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 8,409 households that answered this question, 38.2% were households made up of just one person and there were 51 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 2,034 married couples without children, 2,245 married couples with children. There were 494 single parents with a child or children. There were 159 households that were made up of unrelated people and 213 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.
In 2000 there were 600 single family homes out of a total of 1,452 inhabited buildings. There were 496 multi-family buildings, along with 248 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing and 108 other use buildings that also had some housing. Of the single family homes 60 were built before 1919, while 83 were built between 1990 and 2000. The greatest number of single family homes were built between 1981 and 1990. The most multi-family homes were built between 1946 and 1960 and the next most were built before 1919. There were 17 multi-family houses built between 1996 and 2000.
In 2000 there were 8,959 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was three rooms, of which there were 3,095. There were 919 single room apartments and 708 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 8,015 apartments were permanently occupied, while 748 apartments were seasonally occupied and 196 apartments were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 0 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality,, was 0.12%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
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bar:1550 from:start till:44
bar:1550 at:54 fontsize:S text: "11 Hearths" shift:
bar:1764 from:start till:226 text:"226"
bar:1850 from:start till:362 text:"362"
bar:1860 from:start till:433 text:"433"
bar:1870 from:start till:463 text:"463"
bar:1880 from:start till:548 text:"548"
bar:1888 from:start till:645 text:"645"
bar:1900 from:start till:1279 text:"1,279"
bar:1910 from:start till:3321 text:"3,321"
bar:1920 from:start till:3743 text:"3,743"
bar:1930 from:start till:4396 text:"4,396"
bar:1941 from:start till:4587 text:"4,587"
bar:1950 from:start till:5698 text:"5,698"
bar:1960 from:start till:10698 text:"10,698"
bar:1970 from:start till:17391 text:"17,391"
bar:1980 from:start till:16977 text:"16,977"
bar:1990 from:start till:18109 text:"18,109"
bar:2000 from:start till:18406 text:"18,406"
Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SP which received 23.9% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP, the PdA Party and the Green Party. In the federal election, a total of 2,897 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 39.7%.Economy
, Renens had an unemployment rate of 7.6%. , there were 8 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 1 business involved in this sector. 2,338 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 153 businesses in this sector. 7,493 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 579 businesses in this sector. There were 9,293 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 43.5% of the workforce., the total number of full-time equivalent jobs was 8,699. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 7, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 2,245 of which 1,048 or were in manufacturing and 855 were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 6,447. In the tertiary sector; 1,795 or 27.8% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 1,452 or 22.5% were in the movement and storage of goods, 244 or 3.8% were in a hotel or restaurant, 470 or 7.3% were in the information industry, 735 or 11.4% were the insurance or financial industry, 390 or 6.0% were technical professionals or scientists, 299 or 4.6% were in education and 500 or 7.8% were in health care.
, there were 7,789 workers who commuted into the municipality and 7,087 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 1.1 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. About 2.2% of the workforce coming into Renens are coming from outside Switzerland. Of the working population, 31.7% used public transportation to get to work, and 49.8% used a private car.