Basel is culturally very non traditioanlly Swiss imho - while the term “a glorified German/French province” might do it injustice, there are just shy over 60% Swiss people in Basel - and among those a large part is naturalized German/French/Balkan workers. The border proximity also gives it an openness that other Swiss cities (imho luckily) don’t have.
And it’s the only real left leaning German Canton in Switzerland.
People commute where the jobs are - and cities is where a lot of service sector companies have their headquarters. Nothing wrong with that - nothing wrong with Basels (imho self destructive) political direction either, we have a federal system and can always get rid of them if we want to 
Not only that, making life more convenient for irresponsible people makes them MORE, not LESS irresponsible. It’s your duty to manage your money (and taxes are a part of that) as a normal functioning adult - Switzerland has a very high fiscal discipline, even among private households (on avg. at least).
I call my Gemeinde in November and tell them my new income. they then adjust the provisional tax bill for the next year and send me an E-Mail. But people here acting like idiots who get into tax debt, due to overspending, will have an easier life… lol
We need way more competetiveness in our society. If we make everything soft and easy, you’ll end up with a soft and lazy populous and that’s precisely why it’s no wonder out of all Cantons Basel has done this, they’re very far into this “soft and lazy” development. But ofc, they are still Swiss, so the local SP is very much sucking it up to Pharma companies - as expected.