Bloomberg: Inside Pictet, the Secretive Swiss Bank for the World’s Richest People

Interviews with a dozen people familiar with Pictet’s private-wealth arm reveal a business at a crossroads, confronted with the reality that, in order to stay ahead, Switzerland’s preeminent private bank must adapt. That means embracing more risk and changing the client relationship — away from the concierge-like approach that endured for generations toward a more transactional model. [...]

The challenge facing the partners is that in order to grow, they need to aggressively target Asia, the epicenter of wealth creation. But that requires the embrace of new — and potentially riskier — investment assets, chief among them structured products, which use derivatives to track the performance of an underlying asset. [...]

Suddenly, Pictet was forced to reckon with its haphazard organization that often put personal relationships before a systematic structure. Until then, it wasn’t unusual for bankers to act independently with no uniform approach to clients, for example sending out correspondence using their own fonts and letterheads. Among historic quirks, some employees didn’t have a formal work contract — joining the bank was a social compact with a benevolent patriarchy holding a protective hand over its flock.

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New Statesman: Capitalism after coronavirus

We should remind ourselves that only a year ago we faced the daily nightmare of Jeremy Corbyn versus Theresa May: the two worst party leaders since 1940. The transformation for the better in British politics is extraordinary. In the Labour Party, the hard left could not avoid responsibility for Labour’s crushing electoral defeat, and its ringmasters have been swept away. Not only is the party expecting change, but with his decisive leadership victory, Keir Starmer has the power to deliver it. Similarly, the Conservatives first ejected Theresa May, followed by Boris Johnson’s high-risk strategy of ousting the established order of Philip Hammond and Jeremy Hunt, which was rewarded with a decisive election victory. Both parties had been bitterly divided, and in both, the internal opposition has won an election. [...]

To guard against the strong tendency to interpret the crisis through a lens of understanding that inevitably reinforces existing beliefs, a good discipline is to start by asking: “In what ways have events not been consistent with what I would have predicted given my prior beliefs?” Applying this discipline, I think one awkward fact really does bear political attention and, as it happens, it is deeply rooted in both left and right. While it can doubtless be spun away into the deep grass, it is sufficiently surprising to mainstream thought that it should shift ideas: Britain is heavily over-invested in its belief in the efficacy of centralised state direction. Underpinning this belief are two fallacies. One is that the top knows what to do. It knows best, because it is staffed by those of the highest calibre and they draw on the finest expertise. The other is that central control is necessary for coordination. These sound – at least to the people to whom they are congenial – obvious. Indeed, anyone hearing them would judge them to be common sense. How could either possibly be wrong? [...]

When Britain’s health outcomes are properly measured beyond the privileged zone of London and its region, its health system is not even ranked within the Western European pack – according to medical journal the Lancet, British outcomes look more like those of eastern Europe. The rest of western Europe has “the best health systems in the world”. Why don’t we learn from them? And no, it isn’t just a matter of money. Coronavirus fitted this pattern: we could have learnt from the responses in east Asia, but instead, public policy – though set by scientists – was based on a British model with assumptions about critical unknowns. [...]

We need compromise, mutuality, long-term perspectives and mediators: exactly the properties that bonus-hungry bankers and aggression-fuelled lawyers are trained not to possess. Returning to the unrepresentative nature of our political parties: depressingly the Tories are overloaded with bankers, and Labour with lawyers. We need to devolve the power of decision from Whitehall, but to where and what? To communities. The right political community, at which many decisions should be exercised, is the region. Whitehall, staffed by people whose daily life is the weirdly atypical experience of professional London, is both too remote and too exceptional to be the locus of many decisions. London is less “the capital” than “the outlier”. But the term “region” begs the question of appropriate boundaries, especially after what coronavirus will do to our economy.

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euronews: Swiss election: Greens gain while far-right loses ground

As climate change and the country's relationship with the European Union were the main focuses of the political campaign, the Greens rode on voters' climate concerns in the parliamentary election. [...]

According to final results, the Greens (left) are now the fourth party in the National Council (lower house) ahead of the Christian Democratic Party, and trailing the right-wing Liberal-Radical Party by just one seat. [...]

Cabinet seats have been divvied up among the SVP, SP, FDP and CVP in nearly the same way since 1959. The three biggest parties get two seats and the fourth-biggest gets one under the informal "magic formula" system. [...]

Analysts caution against expecting too radical a shift after a campaign that was light on typical hot-button issues such as migration and Swiss ties with the European Union that have given the anti-EU SVP a boost in the past.

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BBC: Germany’s tiny geographic oddity

The village’s eastern border lies a mere 700m from the rest of the Federal Republic of Germany. And while politically this town of about 1,450 inhabitants belongs to Germany, economically it’s part of Switzerland. [...]

Still, for residents, living a binational life brings up daily contradictions and choices. Although commerce is typically conducted in Swiss francs and most residents work in nearby, larger Swiss towns, they still must pay the higher German income taxes. Children go to a local (German) primary school, but parents decide in which country they’ll attend high school. Likewise, Büsingen locals have both German and Swiss postal and international telephone codes: callers can dial either Germany’s +49 or Switzerland’s +41, and still ring a resident. And perhaps most notably, the town’s football club is the only German team allowed to play in the Swiss league. [...]

Others have discovered that too. Because Germany offers a tax break for pensioners, Büsingen attracts retired Swiss residents. The result: “The young people go to Switzerland, and the old people come here. The village gets older every day,” said Rainer Krause, whose daughter runs Restaurant Waldheim on the international border.

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TLDR Explains: Why Don't We Vote Online in Elections?

Voting can be complicated a time consuming, and having your say in an election can take its toll. That's why many have discussed taking voting online to make engaging in democracy quicker and easier. However, Estonia is the only country to take it super seriously, using online i-voting in every election for the last 14 years. We discuss why Estonia uses it, and why other countries have been so cautious to follow in their footsteps.

TLDR News: Have May's Red Lines Made Getting a Deal Impossible? - Brexit Explained

May has been talking about red lines for months, her hard limits when it comes to Brexit negotiations. However, there's a case to be made that these red lines are exactly what's sabotaged the Brexit process. We discuss why the red lines have limited the chances of getting a deal and how the EU sees the process.

Scientific American: Abortion Is a Problem to Be Solved, Not a Moral Issue (September 1, 2018)

Abstinence would obviate abortions just as starvation would forestall obesity. There is a reason no one has proposed chastity as a solution to overpopulation. Sexual asceticism doesn't work, because physical desire is nearly as fundamental as food to our survival and flourishing. A 2008 study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health entitled “Abstinence-Only and Comprehensive Sex Education and the Initiation of Sexual Activity and Teen Pregnancy” found that among American adolescents ages 15 to 19, “abstinence-only education did not reduce the likelihood of engaging in vaginal intercourse” and that “adolescents who received comprehensive sex education had a lower risk of pregnancy than adolescents who received abstinence-only or no sex education.” A 2011 PLOS ONE paper analyzing “Abstinence-Only Education and Teen Pregnancy Rates” in 48 U.S. states concluded that “increasing emphasis on abstinence education is positively correlated with teenage pregnancy and birth rates,” controlling for socioeconomic status, educational attainment and ethnicity.

Most telling, a 2013 paper entitled “Like a Virgin (Mother): Analysis of Data from a Longitudinal, US Population Representative Sample Survey,” published in BMJ reported that 45 of the 7,870 American women studied between 1995 and 2009 said they become pregnant without sex. Who were these immaculately conceiving parthenogenetic Marys? They were twice as likely as other pregnant women to have signed a chastity pledge, and they were significantly more likely to report that their parents had difficulties discussing sex or birth control with them.

When women are educated and have access to birth-control technologies, pregnancies and, eventually, abortions decrease. A 2003 study on the “Relationships between Contraception and Abortion,” published in International Family Planning Perspectives, concluded that abortion rates declined as contraceptive use increased in seven countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Turkey, Tunisia and Switzerland). In six other nations (Cuba, Denmark, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea and the U.S.), contraceptive use and abortion rates rose simultaneously, but overall levels of fertility were falling during the period studied. After fertility levels stabilized, contraceptive use continued to increase, and abortion rates fell.

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CityLab: How the Tuberculosis Epidemic Influenced Modernist Architecture

Death rates from TB peaked in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, exacerbated by overcrowding, lack of sanitation, and poor nutrition. Between 1810 and 1815, the disease accounted for more than 25 percent of deaths in New York City. In 1900, it was still the country’s third most common cause of death.[...]

The sanatorium movement began in Europe in the mid-19th century, with resorts in Silesia (now Poland), Germany, and Switzerland. (Davos was once “the tuberculosis capital” of Europe.) Although they began as collections of cottages in mountainous locales, sanatoria evolved into purpose-designed buildings, intended to limit the spread of germs while providing key ingredients for recovery: dry, fresh air and sunshine.[...]

The design and construction of specialized sanatoria coincided with the advent of Modernism. Architectural elements like flat roofs, terraces and balconies, and white- or light-painted rooms spread across Europe. Not unlike the sanatorium, the new architecture was intended to cure the perceived physical, nervous, and moral ailments brought on by crowded cities. Part of the appeal of flat roofs was the extra outdoor space they created, which could be used for sunbathing—then known as heliotherapy—and other healthful activities. In 1925, the Swiss architect Le Corbusier dreamed of a city where every citizen’s house was whitewashed and hygienic. “There are no more dirty, dark corners. Everything is shown as it is. Then comes inner cleanliness … .”[...]

The overlap between Modernism and sanatorium design is one reason for the movement’s association with sterility—the Modernist obsession with hygiene was real. But this overlap also complicates the notion that Modernism was coldly indifferent to human concerns. Modernists like Alto and the Eameses appealed to the senses and paid close attention to the dimensions and comfort of the human body. Those qualities inspire architects working today.

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Vox:Sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere, explained

The good news is we already know how to bring carbon back down to earth, from smart land management to high-tech plants that capturing it straight from the air. In fact, nature already soaks up almost one-third of the carbon dioxide we emit.[...]

The field is full of jargon, and there’s confusion around when you can count carbon as truly “removed” or “negative.” To wit: “Carbon capture” typically refers to grabbing the carbon as it’s being emitted, like the flue gas of a coal power plant. “Carbon removal” usually means getting carbon dioxide after it has already reached the atmosphere. And there isn’t enough beer or soda in the world to use all those bubbles, so the captured carbon has to find new uses or get stored away forever.[...]

Every acre of restored temperate forest can sequester 3 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. In the US, forests already offset about 13 percent of the country’s carbon emissions. Globally, forests absorb 30 percent of humanity’s emissions. So restoring forests can be an effective way to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air.[...]

Nonetheless, there are companies that have already pulled this off. Carbon Engineering in Canada has built a plant that captures about 1 ton of carbon dioxide per day. Meanwhile Climeworks is running three direct air capture plants — in Iceland, Switzerland, and Italy — together capturing 1,100 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

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openDemocracy: Everything that is wrong is the fault of '68: regaining cultural hegemony by trashing the left

All this changed once Christoph Blocher (SVP Zürich), one of Switzerland's richest entrepreneurs, established himself as Switzerland's leading – and most controversial – politician. Under his leadership, the SVP morphed into a right-wing populist party, promoting itself as a the defender of Swiss sovereignty (against the EU) and national pride (against foreign and domestic detractors questioning Switzerland's less than stellar role during the Second World War). But above all, the party made its mark as a staunch critic of Switzerland's migration policy. Charging that the country had lost control over immigration, the SVP called for "measured immigration" by severely curtailing the influx of migrants of all provenance, but particularly Muslim countries. Claiming that Islam was incompatible with Switzerland's constitution and Rechtsstaat, the party made it its avowed goal to strictly limit Islam's impact on Swiss society and culture. It was in this spirit that the party – initially rather reluctantly -– supported the anti-minaret initiative, which Swiss voters passed by a slim majority in 2009. [...]

The Swiss case suggests that the right-wing populist insurgency that has occurred throughout western liberal democracies over the past several decades has little to do with promoting "more democracy" – a legitimate demand given the pervasiveness of technocracy and TINA; rather, it has a lot to do with reversing, once and for all, what the right considers the nefarious influence of 1968, which in their view has undermined traditions and poisoned the moral fabric of western democracies. The objective is once and for all to defeat the post-68 left and regain the strategic heights with respect to the production of meaning – what the Italian Marxist intellectual Antonio Gramsci (persecuted and imprisoned under Mussolini) once referred to as "cultural hegemony" and what in German is known as Deutungshoheit (power of interpretation).

In recent years, it has become blatantly obvious that meaning is subject to profound struggles and conflicts. The spectacular career of the notion of "fake news" as a major new field of contestation is perhaps the clearest reflection of the central importance of interpretation in contemporary politics. Recent studies on the latest wave of the right-wing populist upsurge suggest that culture rather than economics is at the center of contemporary right-wing populist mobilizations. Right-wing populist voters are less concerned about unemployment, cheap imports from emerging economies such as China or having to compete with low-wage workers than about the dissolution of familiar life-worlds and a shared identity. What gets them riled up are not so much T-shirts made in Vietnam and hawked in neighborhood shopping malls as mosques and minarets disturbing the idyllic skyline of small-town Switzerland, Austria, and elsewhere. [...]

None of these developments has anything to do with the ‘68 generation. They are rather the result of local governments and administrations eager to attract companies and international organizations in order to increase their revenue base by offering them all kinds of tax incentives. SVP politicians have been as complicit in promoting excessive development with all of its negative consequences as have been the politicians of other parties. The frustration, anger, indignation and resentment provoked by the results, however, have primarily benefited the SVP, which in turn has used its electoral capital not to address the country's real problems, largely linked to excessive development, but to promoting anti-‘68 nostalgia for a world that seems irretrievably lost.

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The Guardian: Psychedelic drugs: Michael Pollan on the history, science and experience of taking them – books podcast

On this week’s show, we’re talking to Michael Pollan. You may know him from his food writing - books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Botany of Desire, or Cooked, which is also now a Netflix show. His latest focus, however, is something quite different – still something consumable – it’s psychedelic drugs.

Famous for being a very hands-on journalist, Michael tried psychedelics himself, including LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca and the venom of the Sonoran desert toad, resulting in a truly astonishing book: How to Change Your Mind, The New Science of Psychedelics.

When he came into the studio, he spoke to Sian about the early groundbreaking medical experiments performed in the 1950s to treat conditions like depression, addiction and PTSD, how that progress was almost killed by political pressure in the 1970s, and the struggle to convey his own experiences on the drugs in writing, when ineffability is a common trait of tripping.  

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VisualPolitik: How does DIRECT DEMOCRACY work in LIECHTENSTEIN?

Despite being a constitutional monarchy, most of the political decisions in this Principality are done through referendums. This includes economic policy, social spending and even… Citizenship!

Even the right to self-determination can be guaranteed by referendum. This means that any of the 11 municipalities inside of Liechtenstein can hold a popular vote to decide whether they want to stay in the country or become an independent nation. Sounds pretty crazy, right?

How is all of this possible? How can you manage to guarantee such a stable political system when people can vote in any crazy law they want with a referendum? Well… This is what we were wondering here at VisualPolitik...

And we figured the best way to answer these questions is by going to the country and asking. So, we did just that!

Aeon: How nations stay together

Effective nation-building brings important and positive consequences. Alliances that cut across the entire territory of a country depoliticise ethnic divisions. Politics is not perceived as a zero-sum game in which ethnic groups struggle for control of the state. Instead, more substantial policy issues concerning what the state should actually do come to the foreground of the debate. Inclusive political coalitions also foster a sense of ownership of the state and promote the ideal of a collective purpose beyond one’s family, village, clan or profession. Conformingly, citizens who identify with their nation are less resistant to paying taxes, more likely to support welfare policies, and are governed by more effective states. We also know that inclusive coalitions comprising ethnic minorities and majorities alike greatly reduce the risk of civil war and promote economic growth. [...]

A comparison between Switzerland and Belgium, two countries of similar size, with a similar linguistic composition of the population, and comparable levels of economic development, provides an example. In Switzerland, civil society organisations – such as shooting clubs, reading circles and choral societies – developed throughout the territory during the late 18th and first half of the 19th century. They spread evenly throughout the country because modern industries emerged across all the major regions, and because Switzerland’s city-states lacked both the capacity and the motivation to suppress them. In Belgium, by contrast, Napoleon, as well as the Dutch king who succeeded him, recognised the revolutionary potential of such voluntary associations, and suppressed them. Even more importantly, the associations that did exist in Belgium were confined to the more economically developed and more educated French-speaking regions and segments of the population. [...]

The examples I’ve singled out don’t account for how voluntary associations, public goods provision, and communication interact with each other or substitute for each other. Somalians, for example, all speak the same language, while Switzerland is linguistically more diverse – and yet the two histories of nation-building diverge in opposite directions. There are also additional factors that could hinder or foster nation-building. Many historians would argue that the colonial experience makes a difference. Somalia and Botswana both suffered from the divide-and-rule policies of colonial powers, which should make the task of national political integration more difficult once the colonial powers leave. Neither Russia nor Switzerland were ever under foreign rule during the past centuries. [...]

Finally, we might take a more sober perspective and consider that nation-building succeeds where countries have fought many wars with other countries, binding their populations together through shared sacrifice. Similarly, it could be that European governments could build their nations more easily because centuries of boundary adjustments and ethnic cleansings led to more homogenous populations, easier to integrate into a national polity.

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Aeon: Die like a dog

In human medicine, we’re used to implementing any and every life-saving intervention right up to the very end. As a medical intern 20 years ago, I remember thinking about the futility of that approach with patients in pain and suffering from multisystem organ failure, sustained only by machines and a regimen of some 30 or 40 medications, and unlikely to ever make it out of the hospital. What was the point? Whatever happened to quality of life? But those reservations be damned, we never gave up, and among the interns who transferred care to each other from shift to shift, the dictum of patients ‘not dying on my watch’ was something to which we all held fast. [...]

As a veterinarian, my wife viewed things altogether differently. To her, putting our dog to sleep didn’t represent throwing in the towel as it seemed to me, but a compassionate way to preempt unnecessary but inevitable pain and suffering down the line. As she saw it, we owe this option to our pets as stewards of their care, especially given that animals can’t understand pain or decide for themselves just how much suffering they are willing to tolerate. [...]

In 2009, US legislation that would have allowed physicians to be compensated by Medicare for providing voluntary counselling to patients about options for end-of-life care was defeated due to political uproar over ‘death panels’. And yet, as I discuss in the World Journal of Psychiatry in 2015, human euthanasia is being increasingly considered and sanctioned both in the US and abroad. As life-extending medical advances over the past 50 years have fuelled growing concerns about prolongation of suffering and loss of autonomy, the euthanasia movement of the 1930s has gained momentum, evolving into the modern ‘right to die’ and ‘death with dignity’ movements that challenge us to consider what constitutes a ‘good death’. Today, some form of voluntary active euthanasia – death by administration of a lethal dose of medication to avoid pain and suffering – is legal in several states in the US, as well as in Japan and parts of Europe including Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Netherlands.  

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Slate: What Living off the Grid in Europe Looks Like

Bruy, who grew up in urban France, became fascinated by the self-sufficient, off-the-grid lifestyle he experienced and resolved to see more of it while documenting it with his camera. Using the WWOOF network, Bruy has lived on remote farms all across Europe, from Spain to Switzerland to Romania, staying anywhere from two weeks to three months at a time. “Most of the farmers had been living in big cities and I really respect their decision to say, ‘This is not my thing and I can't live this way anymore.’ I think there are a lot of people thinking this way but few making the steps to change. I was interested in how they managed to live another way,” he said.

While they all aspire to some degree of self-sufficiency, Bruy’s subjects represent a range of experiences. Some live without electricity or running water, while others are equipped with most modern conveniences. Bruy isn’t necessarily concerned with finding the most extreme cases. Instead, he’s interested in capturing a variety of people who have chosen alternative lifestyles. “Some of them would say they’re 30 percent self-sufficient or they’re 60 percent self-sufficient. It's very hard to check those numbers. The most important thing, for me, was the intention,” he said.

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statista: Where Corruption Is Raging Around The World

On Wednesday, Transparency International released its 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index which measured perceived public sector corruption in 180 countries and territories on a scale of 0 to 100. The research found that most countries across the world are making little or no progress in ending corruption. The ones scoring close to 100 are successfully containing corruption while those scoring 50 or lower have serious problems. The average global score was only 43.

Some governments have seen noticeable improvements in their scores over the past six years with the Ivory Coast, Senegal and the UK all making progress. Others had to endure a slide with Syria, Yemen, Australia and Hungary all deteriorating. The latter in partcular saw its score fall ten points over the last six years. It could fall even further in the future if draft legistlation is enacted that could restrict NGOs and revoke their charitable status.

New Zealand was ranked the world's least corrupt nation in 2017 with a score of 89, ahead of Denmark with 88. Third position was a three way tie between Finland, Norway and Switzerland who all scored 85. Syria, South Suda, and Somalia were at the bottom of the index with all three scoring lower than 15. Along with Austria and Belgium, the United States came 16th with a score of 75.

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Quartz: Dear America, here’s how other countries stop mass shootings

Research shows that countries with fewer guns have lower homicide rates. Even US states with fewer guns have fewer homicides; in a landmark 2002 study, analysis of data from 1988 to 1997 showed that states with “high” gun ownership had three times the rate of homicide than states with few guns. A decade later, a 2013 study found that every percentage point increase in gun ownership corresponded to a 0.9% higher risk of gun homicide. Countries and states that legally limit overall gun ownership simply have fewer gun deaths. [...]

The United States stands out among countries for the frequency with which its mass shootings occur. But last year, after the US witnessed its most fatal mass shooting in history at Las vegas, the Trump administration made it easier—not harder—for people with mental illness to buy guns. (That decision rolled back Obama-era restrictions that had been passed in the wake of Sandy Hook.) [...]

Back in 1996, it took only 12 days after a mass shooting for Australia to pass the National Firearms Agreement, which banned automatic and semi-automatic weapon for “personal defense.” The country created a temporary buyback program for guns that had become illegal. Stricter background checks were enforced. As Zeif pointed out yesterday, there have been no school shootings in Australia since.

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Slate: Back to Square One

Following the ratification of the treaty, with the closure of the Macedonian border in northern Greece, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, an estimated 50,000 refugees and migrants from the MENA region became stranded in Greece. Because Macedonia, Albania and other Balkan countries are not part of the EU, they are not required to abide by the EU policy of open borders. They effectively serve as a buffer, blocking refugees progress from member state Greece to the rest of the EU.  [...]

With the Greek–Macedonian border to the north tightly sealed, however, the only way to leave the country was to go via illegal means—people smugglers—either by land or air. Refugees who could afford to spend upward of $3,600 per person, for a fake passport and visa, went by air. Those who couldn’t afford this expense, or who had large families, went by land along the Balkan route, the cost of which was usually half, though the risk usually doubled. [...]

For women traveling alone, oftentimes smugglers pose the greatest threats, asking for sexual favors in return for safe passage to another country. Many women are left with no choice as prices have become so high. [...]

Throughout 2016 and 2017, Oxfam interviewed hundreds of refugees and migrants who were attempting to traverse the Balkans on their way to central and northern Europe. What they found was that “rather than being places of safety, countries on the Western Balkan route have failed to offer protection or due process to many new arrivals.”

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IFLScience: China Is Now The World's Biggest Publisher Of Scientific Articles, Overtaking The United States

The latest news, therefore, might not come as that much of a surprise to many, but China’s rapid rise over the last two decades has been something to behold. The amount of money that China invests in R&D has increased by 18 percent annually, while the number of people graduating with a science bachelor’s degree has risen from 359,000 to 1.65 million between 2000 and 2014, compared to 483,000 to 742,000 in the US.

The latest news, therefore, might not come as that much of a surprise to many, but China’s rapid rise over the last two decades has been something to behold. The amount of money that China invests in R&D has increased by 18 percent annually, while the number of people graduating with a science bachelor’s degree has risen from 359,000 to 1.65 million between 2000 and 2014, compared to 483,000 to 742,000 in the US.  [...]

But it is important to note that this does not mean that the US has lost its importance or influence in scientific research. While China might now be producing more research overall, the US still wracks up more citations, behind only Sweden and Switzerland, and above the EU, which is followed by China. This could reflect that the work being carried out in the US involves more fundamental questions.

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CityLab: Switzerland Just Opened the World's Only Tri-National Streetcar System

The system’s first adventure abroad began three years ago, when it opened stations in the neighboring German city of Weil am Rhein. An existing line, meanwhile, barely crosses into a small section of French territory on its way to serving an outlying Swiss suburb. But the newest addition extends deep into France—including four new stops—creating what must be the most international urban transit network in the world.

It might sound strange, but it makes perfect sense given Basel’s location. Situated in Switzerland’s far northwestern extremity on the banks of the Rhine, it is part of an international metro area of 830,000 people that sprawls naturally along the river’s banks without much regard for political boundaries. This tri-national area itself fits into a larger triangle of cities, as Basel lies within less than 45 miles of the major French and German cities of Mulhouse and Freiburg, with which it shares an airport located on the French side of the border. For Basel, binding this international basin together in an ever-tighter transit system only makes practical, economic sense. [...]

In trying to suture the gash left by the border, Basel is not alone. It’s just the most thorough of several attempts to use transit to knit together communities along the Franco-German-Swiss border. This April, the French city of Strasbourg extended its streetcar system over its Rhine-straddling bridge to the city of Kehl, while the tram system of the Saarbrücken, Germany, has extended to France since 1997.

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