I always love watching new TED talks. If you haven’t heard of TED before, it’s basically a yearly meeting where the brightest minds in the world are given a stage, an audience, and the time they need to express their ideas. The talks are available for everyone to see on the TED website, and this talk by Paul Romer on his ideas for what he calls “charter cities” is one of my favorites.
In this talk, Paul outlines his ideas for a new type of “charter city” – a city with its own laws, rules, and regulations. Paul explains that cities themselves are far more valuable than the amount of money it costs to build them, and that because of this, the people governing these cities would work hard to attract new residents – residents who would bring value in the form of labor.
Charter Cities – The Future of Humanity?
There’s something about this idea that really resonates with me. I really like the thought of dozens or even hundreds of new, state of the art cities springing up around the world. I also like the idea that the people governing these cities would be continually making improvements to them for the sake of attracting new residents. I happen to live in a city that’s rather progressive in its development, but I’ve been to many places where that’s simply not the case. There’s just no incentive for the people writing the cheques. In a chartered city, the incentive would be recruiting more residents to live in said city and pay taxes.
Most of Paul’s ideas sound time-consuming and politically in-viable, but the fact is that the Honduran government is already in the process of creating one such city, with plans for a second. If they’re successful, perhaps other nations will follow suit.
Sounds like he has read Atlas Shrugged! If you haven’t done so, I highly recommend it!
I’ve read it and it’s a fantastic read, but as I tell my friends, reading it can make you an asshole for a while. I agree with a lot of what Ayn Rand says, but there’s something to be said for a certain level of compassion as well.
Right on Chad.