Onex, Switzerland

Onex is a municipality of about 18,900 inhabitants in the canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It is first mentioned in 1292 as Onay, and it became an independent municipality in 1851 when the municipality of Onex-Confignon split into Onex and Confignon. Until the 1960s it remained a relatively small agricultural village. That changed when, at the urging of the canton, it sold about 11 hectares to the Cité-Nouvelle Foundation to build public housing; the foundation put up a number of apartment blocks of nine to fifteen storeys to relieve a housing shortfall in Geneva, among the first high-density housing blocks on the outskirts of the city. Between 1950 and 1970 the population increased from under 1,000 to over 13,000, and the village economy changed from primarily agricultural to a commuter and service economy.