How to change the world – The Charter City and Sustainability

Good morning people.

A few months ago I saw a Ted Talks video about a visionary concept written by academic Paul Romer, which he called Charter City, and even though he teaches at Stanford (Go Bears!), I felt the idea had tremendous potential to help developing countries to develop. However, when I was researching sustainability more recently, I realized that this concept easily fits into the Green Movement.

Romer’s main thesis is that much of the poor conditions in cities in developing countries are the result of poor regulations. Statutes and codes entrenched in these metropolises discourage efforts to bring about meaningful change. As an example, he cites North Korea and South Korea, two countries with the same geographical and cultural backgrounds, which separated 60 years ago and adopted widely divergent rules. The results have been an economically vibrant South Korea and the poor and backward cult masquerading as a nation we know as North Korea. Same culture, same people, different rules.

What Professor Romer proposes as a solution are multinational charter cities, which could be located in now uninhabited regions of poor nations. These cities would start with new rules, ideas and knowledge from international sources that have experience working with and building successful market economies. As a successful example of this, Romer offers Hong Kong. For many years, this canton was administered by Britain and prospered as a free market economy, particularly compared to most other Chinese cities before China opened up to the West in the 1970s. China has learned a lot from Hong Kong and many of its cities have adopted systems similar to those of the former British colony. These cities are driving China’s tremendous economic boom.

If you abstract the idea of ​​Charter Cities a bit, it’s essentially about establishing an example region, which could be of any size, that acts as a catalyst for change for its neighbors. These example regions put fresh ideas into action with fresh minds.

In many ways, the United States was a “Charter Nation” that served as an example of We The People governance to the world. The results have been incredible to say the least and indeed many former and current monarchies whose systems our founders were trying to break are expressing much better than the United States the principles on which it was originally founded.

I think a charter city, based on sustainable principles like permaculture, zero waste and local self-sufficiency, would be of great benefit. Romer points out that a community the size of a village would not have the impact needed to cause enough change in business as usual. It may be necessary to have a Charter City to change countries, but we can set up Charter Zones to change our cities. Like many of the problems facing cities in developing countries, unsustainable practices in most American cities are so ingrained in our municipal codes that meaningful sustainable change is very difficult to achieve. The creation of Charter Zones on the fringes of our cities can show how much smarter a sustainable city can be.

I hope my reader will consider this idea, as I’m certainly open to hearing about ways this could happen. Remember everyone, buy local or grow it yourself!

love to all,
Millard