Good morning, Quartz readers!
Come with us to 2057, where no life has been untouched by the realities of a warming globe. At the dawn of the 21st century, Americans were only just waking to this truth. But over the following decades, rising seas, powerful storms, and raging fires destroyed cities, rendered homes uninhabitable, and dismantled livelihoods.
Presenting Leeside. It’s a city in the former US Rust Belt that became a destination for many people forced to leave their homes due to climate change. It also doesn’t exist—except in the minds of Quartz’s newsroom, who wanted to think through how a climate haven might work in practice.
Forward-thinking policymakers prepared the city for a massive influx of migrants, and the newcomers brought industry and renewed vitality. Over three decades, migrants arrived with neatly organized moving vans, tossed-together cars, and the packs on their backs. They came on trains with meager suitcases, after hours-long bus rides. Many were distraught at having to leave their homes and communities—land held by the family for generations, the houses they grew up in, the graves of their loved ones. As they arrived in Leeside, they were just some of millions in flux around the country.
Though Leeside had prepared for and encouraged migrants to come, it wasn’t a smooth transition. The influx of residents drove up housing prices. In some areas, the cost of home ownership was higher than the city had seen in half a century, and longtime residents quickly found themselves priced out. Some left for the flood-prone lowlands on the edge of the city; the population in the poorly-connected area doubled in five years. Others sold their family homes to condo developers.
Population surges that followed natural disasters strained Leeside’s resources—not to mention tensions between newcomers and increasingly xenophobic groups, particularly as the national and global conversations heated up alongside rising temperatures.
Our fictional model isn’t perfect, just like real-world climate havens won’t be. Hopefully, Leeside can help cities currently planning for the future to think through the impacts of climate migration, before it’s too late. —Amanda Shendruk and Alex Ossola
Learn more about Leeside, its transformation into a climate haven, and the very real effects of climate change on migration in our latest special project, Welcome to Green Haven.
Five things on Quartz we especially liked
America’s foreign-born electorate is growing. The biggest concentration of immigrants eligible to vote in the US hail from Mexico, the Philippines, India, China, and Vietnam. Dan Kopf shows why their numbers are increasing, and what it might mean come November: “With the 2020 presidential election likely to be close,” he notes, “foreign-born voters could make a difference, if they vote.” —Heather Landy, executive editor
Fairweather friends. Thomas Piketty’s ideas continue to resonate around the world but, as Mary Hui explains, his influence in China isn’t what it used to be. The French economist’s theories were welcomed there when he was writing about rampant inequality in the US. But his latest book, Capital and Ideology, won’t be published in China because the author refused to remove sections documenting that inequality has risen sharply there, too. —Walter Frick, membership editor
What if no one buys TikTok? This week, Jane Li reported on China’s expanded technology export controls, which could prevent any foreign company from acquiring the algorithms considered core to TikTok’s success. This rule change raises questions about where TikTok’s true value lies: the network, or the tech? If it’s the latter, TikTok may not be worth saving. And without the right buyer, it’s possible that the app just goes away. —Max Lockie, deputy news editor
A lesson from 1918. Between 10 million and 20 million Indians died during the Spanish flu pandemic. As Manavi Kapur reports, some areas fared better than others: Up to 15% fewer people died in districts led by Indian officials than in those run by British officers. Local leaders better understood their residents, and they increased spending on relief efforts by twice as much during the pandemic’s brutal second wave. It’s a lesson for the US, where Black and Hispanic Americans, who are underrepresented in government, have died at much higher rates than white Americans. —Katherine Bell, editor in chief
Poop gives us hope. A number of cities in the US are testing for Covid-19 in their sewage systems, reports Katherine Foley, hoping to get data on community-wide infections in their community without having to conduct thousands of individual tests. It’s not likely to head off outbreaks—that’s only possible for small, contained communities, like a university—but it could help get resources where they’re needed, sooner. —Katie Palmer, science and health editor
Pop quiz
Which city is expected to be at least partially underwater by 2050?
🇪🇬 Alexandria, Egypt
🇮🇳 Mumbai, India
🇺🇸 New York City, US
We are very sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the future isn’t particularly rosy for any of those cities. In the next century, humans are expected to move by the millions to places where the effects of climate change aren’t so dire. But will those places be ready? Read more in the latest Quartz Weekly Obsession.
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History lesson
Europe’s War of Spanish Succession began in 1701 and lasted more than a decade. It was extremely expensive, leaving world powers stuck deep in debt. France’s ratio of government borrowing to gross domestic product was among the most worrisome—somewhere around 83% or much more. The usual tricks for reducing liabilities weren’t getting the job done.
France needed financial innovation. It got it from John Law, a Scotsman, a keen gambler, and a brilliant financial theorist. The French government allowed Law to charter the Mississippi Company, a massive conglomerate with trading privileges in French North American colonies and elsewhere. Law was also the architect of France’s own proto-central bank, which provided an innovation—paper money that pumped up the money supply.
Find out what happened in our latest guide to the next bubble, where we explore what centuries of booms and busts tell us about what we’re in for next.
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Five things from elsewhere that made us smarter
From red and blue to green and gray. America’s traditional political split, Democrat and Republican, is visible in the colors of the built and natural landscapes. Tim Wallace and Krishna Karra at The New York Times took aerial images from around the country, sorted them by pixel color and brightness, and categorized them by the area’s voting preferences. Their visual analysis is a unique and beautiful way of looking at the urban-rural political divide in the US. —Amanda Shendruk, Things reporter
Is there an economic slowdown? If you’re following the upward trajectory of global equities, you could be forgiven for thinking no. For many, now is a time to celebrate. But for a value investor like Warren Buffet, it’s a time to be cautious and enter markets where value is “fair.” In this short and crisp article, Wall Street Journal’s Mike Bird explains why the Oracle of Omaha is increasing his exposure to Japanese stock markets, which aren’t popular with global investors at the moment, despite the stocks’ relative valuations and tendency to be cash-rich. —Prathamesh Mulye, Quartz India reporter
Righteous indignation. John Boyega has done what few actors have dared do before—publicly criticize Disney. In this British GQ profile, Boyega conveys his experience as a young Black actor in Disney’s Star Wars trilogy, calling out the studio for its mishandling of non-white characters, especially his own, an ex-Stormtrooper who was marketed as a much bigger part of the trilogy than he ended up being. Hollywood should take notice when Boyega bravely (and correctly) denounces his powerful former employer. —Adam Epstein, entertainment reporter
They protested too much. Writing for the Financial Times, Dan McCrum tells the extraordinary backstory to his series of articles that first cast doubt on German payments firm Wirecard’s financials and ultimately revealed that half the company’s business did not exist. McCrum describes being investigated by the German financial regulator, surveilled by a former Libyan intelligence officer, and helped by three colleagues carrying a high-tech reporting handbag to a London restaurant, showing just how far Wirecard went to try to stop him. —Jane Li, China tech reporter
Do-gooders exposed. On the surface, this Brooklyn couple were green, vaguely spiritual, yoga aficionados. Under the surface, they were taking out millions of dollars in mortgages to illegally house tenants in derelict buildings and refusing to provide their employees benefits. This New York Magazine chronicle of how they moved into a house where their tenants—including one woman recovering from brain surgery—were still living, exposes so many of the structural inequalities behind Brooklyn’s faux-progressive facade. —Olivia Goldhill, reporter
Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, banned books, and fake mayoral speeches to hi@qz.com. Get the most out of Quartz by downloading our app and becoming a member. Today’s Weekend Brief was brought to you by Amanda Shendruk, Alex Ossola, and Susan Howson.