"La Chaux-de-Fonds is the capital city of the district of La Chaux-de-Fonds in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.
"The watch making cities of La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle have jointly received recognition from UNESCO for their exceptional universal value. The Site's planning consists of two small cities located close to each other in the mountainous environment of the Swiss Jura. Due to the altitude (1'000 meters up) and the lack of water (porous sandstone underground) the land is ill suited to farming. Planning and buildings reflect the watch making artisans need of rational organization. Rebuilt in the early 19th Century, after extensive fires, both towns owe their survival to the manufacturing and exports of watches, to which, in the 20th Century, was added the minute micromechanical industry.
Along an open-ended scheme of parallel strips on which residential housing and workshops are intermingled, their town planning reflects the needs of the local watch making culture that dates back to the 17th century, which still alive today. Both agglomerations present outstanding examples of mono-industrial manufacturing-towns, which are still well preserved and active. Their urban planning has accommodated the transition from the artisans’ production of a cottage industry to the more concentrated factory production of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Already Karl Marx described La Chaux-de-Fonds as a “huge factory-town” in Das Kapital, where he analyzed the division of labour in the watch making industry of the Jura." - in: wikipedia
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