Good morning people.
A few months ago I saw a Ted Talks video on a visionary concept written by academic Paul Romer, who he called Charter City, and even though he teaches at Stanford (Go Bears!), I felt the idea had tremendous potential to help developing nations to develop. However, as I researched sustainability more recently, I realized that this concept can easily be adapted to the Green Movement.
Romer’s main thesis is that many of the poor conditions in cities in developing countries are the result of poor regulations. The bylaws and codes ingrained in these metropolises discourage efforts to achieve meaningful change. As an example, he cites North 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, backward cult disguised 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 experience from international sources who have experience working and building successful market economies. As a successful example of this, Romer offers Hong Kong. For many years, this canton was administered by Great Britain and thrived as a free market economy, particularly compared to most other Chinese cities before China’s opening 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 fueling China’s tremendous economic boom.
If you abstract the idea of Charter Cities a step back, you are essentially setting up a sample region, which could be of any size, that acts as a catalyst for change for its neighbors. These sample regions put new ideas into action with fresh minds.
In many respects, the United States was an “autonomous nation” that served as We The People’s governance example 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 express far better than the United States the principles on which it was originally founded.
I believe that an autonomous city, founded on sustainable principles such as permaculture, zero waste and local self-sufficiency, would be of enormous benefit. Romer points out that a community the size of a village would not have the necessary impact to bring about sufficient business change as usual. It may be necessary to have a Charter City to change a country, but we can establish 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 periphery of our cities can show how much smarter a sustainable city can be.
I hope my reader will consider this idea as I am certainly open to hearing about the ways this could happen. Remember everyone, buy local produce or grow it yourself!
Love to all,
Millard
