National borders do actually have a relevance for Switzerland IMO because it involves serious hurdles, particularly today, for many people to move there so it often isn't just a haven for the best-educated and/or wealthiest people in a region.
Switzerland has relatively strict immigration policies, always maintaining a layer of separation from the EU/EEA and other developed countries though that's less true for EU/EEA countries today, but it still has nowhere near the freedom of movement from other countries that is the case between the rest of the US and Princeton/NY/Boston, or the rest of the UK and London, etc.