Back in 2009, Paul Romer unveiled the idea for a “charter city”. This year, at TED2011, he tells the story of how such a city might just happen in Honduras … with a little help from his TEDTalk.
From TED.com
A charter city is a place where you start with uninhabited land, a charter that specifies the rules that will apply there and then a chance for people to opt in, to go live under those rules or not. – Paul Romer
Stanford economist Paul Romer believes in the power of ideas. He first studied how to speed up the discovery and implementation of new technologies. But to address the big problems we’ll face this century — insecurity, harm to the environment, global poverty — new technologies will not be enough. We must also speed up the discovery and implementation of new rules, of new ideas about how people interact.
Throughout human history, big improvements in systems of rules took place when new governments entered the scene. In today’s world, this process has been largely shut down. To bring it back to life, Romer proposes that we create new cities where people can go to escape from bad rules and opt in to new and better ones. With better rules, people can be safe, self-interest can protect the environment, and investment can bring families all the resources that the modern world has to offer.
From TED.com
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This Talk on TED.com
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