Charter Cities – Paul Romer
// August 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // TED Talk
This is an interesting talk by Paul Romer and there are a few things that I do agree – building cities is profitable and environment-friendly and political leaders should decide to usher changes slowly and smartly. A change that shakes the entire nation is a revolution – and to prosper without harming others during a political revolution is extremely difficult. Revolutions breed anti-revolutions and counter-revolutions. There is no denying that Hong Kong became Hong Kong because it was a singularly odd setup. I don’t agree that Hong Kong was safe or crime-free. One of the primary reasons that HKG turned into a thriving city was the true capitalist nature of all enterprises - public or private; including police, customs and immigration. The SEZs did not have that independence, ever. Even at shenzhen, the initial movement of labour was highly restricted.
The world map at night is an visually appealing barometer of prosperity, but I think putting all the world in darkness at the same time stops one from imagining great economic potential(call centres).
Writing up a charter is a good place to start. Footnotes like “Glasnost without Perestroika” would help political leaders from not falling into international calamities. But I disagree with working as countries to build new cities that would be new centres of prosperity. Maybe think of a township authority working with international companies. A top-down mega-project of development could be disastrous and only such projects need ‘to make room for people to be left behind’.
Why not work closely with squatter cities ? Leverage the innovation and entrepreneurship that’s one face of every squatter community. The unemployed or unemployed who have migrated to cities are exactly the labour force that are needed by such charter cities. So instead a charter for creation of the huge city with a swarm of industries granting a special legal and administrative rights to squatters and inviting corporations using instruments like tax-breaks and cheaper resources to build out the squatter city into a satellite city with better sanitation, health care and education may be a viral idea.
