Also, If this becomes widespread there may be scams, false advertising, lost investments and possibly cities populated by cults operating effectively as theocracies.
I really like the idea if it could be used to provide semi-sovereign areas to try out new models of government or economics.
However, I worry that it will follow the process of neo-liberal globalisation which has destroyed social democracy - an emphasis on cutting taxes and regulation to compete with other jurisdictions.
I liked it except for the end. I don't understand what that was about and why it was necessary. However a really good economic model/proposal brought to our attention in understandable language to most everyone.
I was mainly thinking about economic development. And yes, I don´t want to believe in Porters "charter cities for dummies". This exemplary view suggests policy makers and/or RDA´s just have to follow the 15 or whatever steps of setting up a "charter city" and everything will be fine. No it won´t. Regional development depends highly from the specific setting of the region and its actors. example: many regions tried to just imitate the sillicon valley and ended up failing in a "sillicon nowhere".
Romers idea reflects the typical - narrow - mindset of mainstream economists. The world isn´t flat. His models of endogenous growth theory are good for a broader understanding, but they don´t fit to reality. This regional development "off the drawing board" just don´t operate. There is "no best practice policy" or "one-size-fits-all-strategy" for economic growth. Worlds regions, its economies, societes, laws etc. are different and so they need different and specific strategies.
Your comment seems to imply that there are no/very few general rules (or policies) which apply when tackling the issue of urbanisation in poor countries. That the "economies, societies and laws" are so different that, by definition, the economic/social policies and the laws themselves between new (successful) cities will have very little in common. Do you really believe this?
@GrudgyDiablo Why do you think this guy is intent on "a cheap take at re-inventing colonialism"? It may well end up that way and I am not naive enough to discount that possibility, but you are making assumptions about this persons motivations. Can you substantiate such an attack on his integrity?
@GrudgyDiablo Whatever the reason for distrust it is still an emotion. I am not saying that it is necessarily unfounded but it IS an emotion. If you can explain why you are happy with something does that make happyness not an emotion? You should read a little on the subject ofemotions before responding. Trust and distrust are emotions. Don't call me an idiot for pointing this out. And what do you mean by "illustrated". You mentioned but did not illustrate...
@GrudgyDiablo Is distrust not an emotion? Emotions not only hold people back but also help them to move forward. It is a matter of facilitating the appropriate emotions. Look into open source technology and tell me that idea doesn't fill you with hope for the future. Don't let the negatavistic passive agressive nonsense about the NWO and "secret government" stuff get to you. There is no hope in that philosophy. It is important that the people are involved in these things to prevent oppression...
In what way is the idea, as outlined in this video, about exploitation? And when you say beginning of the century do you not mean LAST century. Which century are you living in? Learn from the past, yes. Live in the past, no.
My point about selling montana land to china is that if american citizens didn't like the rules there it would fail. I is about choice. If these people can choose between sets of rules then the market forces of suply and demand will apply to the cities themselves...
Ridiculous. Colonialism for sure. No history is the first stage of slavery. The question is who's is really getting rich while people lose their liberty? What choice do you have? Chinese do not have personal liberties. Sure they are better off then in Mao's era, but that was the bottom of the pit. Montana has a lot of land, how about selling it to chinese wonderful rules!
@DrSpooglemon No he didn't he basically suggested that this was an idea for third world countries. Countries that have space, little rules and less options because they were basically thorn apart by capitalism. Try selling that idea to Montana
@jrlmenezes1 I meant that the general principle of what he said did not rule out that possibility. Montana may not want to play the game, and therein lies the obstacle.
@DrSpooglemon The basic principle is not about choice, it is about exploiting opportunities when people have no choice. Basic fact is that poverty makes an excellent ground for making money. You can take liberty from the poor much easier. It is like USA in the beggining of the century, if there was a strike, you just fired people and hired the poor unemployed avalaible. There are laws that protect american citizen now, but not in china
@jrlmenezes1 Nothing that he said eliminated the possibility of choice for the people on the ground level. Infact it seemed to me he was in favour of that idea...
@DrSpooglemon Now after squandering their land resources or making them too expensive. This is a great idea for the economic powers (USA, Europe) to take new land and continue exploiting the poor.
Way to involved to provide the "Nelsons" of the world a reading light. Sounds like an extension of an economy based on consumption beyond immediate survival need We need to break people free of wage slavery, not enslave more Peter Maurin said something to the effect; the more countries become industrialized, there will be no counties to export goods to. I agree planning is in order but I'm not sure that this is a good plan
Pessimism is what holds us back. I don't like consumerism either but I'd rather be living in a consumerist paradise than be doing my homework under a street light. I used to consider myself a socialist but there is a time for puting ideology aside and reconciling yourself with the fact that other people may not want to do things your way, and try to come to a compromise. That is why I now consider myself a social-liberal. Move with the times man...
This is a brilliant economic system but it leaves behind the problem of food production. We don't have enough land to feed the 7 billion people that are on earth today. If we take up uninhabited land then we're going to likely take up farm land. That means more food shortages, more starvation, fewer people which means less demand which means less money for the production side which means a crippled economy. Less land means higher food prices. Take current cities and transform them into charter.
How so? Do you not think that this would be one of the main topics for discussion when actually planning a project of this nature? He was simply outlining the basic idea. You may have well pointed out that it left behind the problem of sewage treatment. Or of intercity transport. The reason it is difficult to feed everyone is the same reason kids are doing there homework under street lights. That is the point of what he is saying.
@DrSpooglemon You're right, I thought about it after I watched it. This is a good video, one of those topics you really have to think about afterwards to wrap your head around the scale of how huge of an undertaking it is (or at least that's how it was for me). I just don't like the idea of urban development getting rid of one of the remaining carbon absorbing tools we have left. We're already cutting down trees too quickly. It's a good idea though.
@DesignPunkStudios Who's cutting down trees too quickly? All the timbre in your house comes from sustainable forrestry. If you live in country like mine that is. There is no need to cut down any forrest to buil a new city indeed it may require the plantation of new sustainable forrests to supply the timbre. As you say the scope of this thing is huge and I believe most opposition will come from people who simply cannot conceive something on such a scale...
@DrSpooglemon Have you ever heard of deforestation? Most of our timber doesn't come from America, it comes from Africa. I love this idea, I just don't like the impact it'll have on the climate. I think we would be much better off turning our current cities into charter cities and turning the villages into small towns. Current economic conditions wouldn't allow for new cities to be built anyway. Most countries just don't have enough to cover the short term costs.
@DesignPunkStudios I have heard of deforrestation and most deforrestation is land clearance for farming(usually livestock). A lot of it is also due to mining for gold, etc. I don't kow what dat you are basing your assertion on but just consider the logistics of importing timber from africa. The fact is that timber used in construction comes from sustainable forrestry. Why sustainble? Because it makes good business sense. Tropical timber for designer furniture, etc. may be a different matter...
@DesignPunkStudios On economics; the idea is that the land is sold to developers. As much as I am warey of such parties this is the structure that we have and the one that most people are accustomed to and it is important that we get the best we can from it. Hence; rules. I just looked at your channel and I can't help thinking that people like you that need to be involved in this. Creative people. I will be following this idea with great interest. I think others should too. It is our future...
The problem with these 'opt-in' cities is that it attracts the people that have no other options or are desperate for work...thus things close to slave labor are developed. As long as the people work furiously, they will be taken care of by the company...however, it's still very similar to slavery.
@Slyvr18 That's an enormous assumption. A charter city attracts investors and big business just as much as it does lower class workers, middle class skilled labor, or poverty stricken homeless.
@Slyvr18 Did he not talk about rules? Rules about how to make the city a good place to so that the people would want to live there instead of going to another country. It is possible that lessons can be learned from the past. Your view is very pessimistic and I don't think there is a place for voices such as yours in a progressive society. Yes these are real issues, but you do you assume that it is unavoidable? If so: on what grounds?
Where is this brilliant? Sorry but he's over complicating things. He uses "profit" as the key and there lies the problem because he's trying to create "rules" in order to fix a System that is in its concept flawed since it was created. As long as we come up with "solutions" within these corrupted systems, it will never work. Brilliant would be to have an idea, not based on existing parameters but create a whole new system not based on gain or profit.
That statistic where another 1 billion people only take up 1% of the arable land doesn't sound right. How many times have we heard that the population reaching 9 billion people in the near future will cause immense stress on resources, and this info seems to be saying that we have room for 10's of billions of more people. Maybe I'm simply extrapolating info about statistics that I don't have a firm grasp on, but that is the impression that I got.
First, and not very related with the main point of the talk. Resources. It's very obvious today that space is not a problem. But what about resources? what about energetic resources? what about pollution? Of course, technology will have a lot to say about this. But I can't avoid being very worried about this.
Second, how to guarantee the atractive of this? how to incentivate a company to get instalate at the middle of nowhere in Africa? .. I'm not very sure..
I love how he describes N. and S. Korea as being different due to changes in rules _after_ splitting -- before, they had the same rules and everthing was hunky-dory, apparently. I mean, it couldn't be that their rules created haves and have-nots and therefore created strife, right?
Rules aren't the problem in N. Korea. The mfker's with guns in N. Korea are the problem.
Oh, so Haiti's government was too weak, not too oppressive.. of course! Duvalier father and son didn't have a strong enough government. that's why Haiti underdeveloped for the better half of a century...
wow.
makes sense that he would find Honduras to be the perfect place for this. i mean heck, it got rid of its weak government with an exchanged it with an oppressiv... i mean "strong" one that will welcome foreign investment.
How is it that Mr. Romer has access to cutting edge technology like powerpoint, but does not have access to a 200 year old technology like a belt for his jeans?
Right now Paul Romer, together with the National Congress and the President of Honduras are trying to start a charter city here. If there's anyone open to discuss with me the pro and cons etc, please email me: economyhn@gmail.com
California has 120 Charter cities, may be is the difference in economic development with other states in the nation. Charter cities are a good choice to introduce new economic systems and to create experience. Better than socialism and communism , right Lefties?.
If a country is so "enlightened " as to "give" land for a charter city would they not also be so enlightened as to be able to create one without the need for multinationals and banks paying Romer's consulting fees? When people do not have the means to participate THERE IS NO CHOICE!
This is certainly not a new idea. About individual freedom, rule of law and objectivism, and its correlation to happiness, wealth and progress many things have been written. More influential are the writings of Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand. Strongly recommended to check them up! Great video.
Mexico is trying to build one in Baja, named Valle San Pedro, it's built by a construction firm known by their small sized houses and neighborhoods. People live worse than cattle in those projects.
The government industry has very high customer lock-in (have to move physically) and very high barriers to entry (win a war, revolution, ...). Sure, Mr. Romers idea solves the former, but the latter stays untouched as long as we don't question the monopoly on violence which the government essentially is.
In reply to the currently 2 highest rated comments on this video, after the 'Opium Wars' Hong Kong was 'lent' to Britain, it then proceeded to flourish; by the mid 20th century, the average resident was ten times richer than their Chinese counterparts and 4/5ths as wealthy as the average British citizen. That's pretty phenomenal economic progress.
In reply to the other, in poorer countries, people DO flock to cities, for whatever reasons (Dick Whittington ring any bells?) its an observable fact
When this guy talks about rules he means laws and contracts. The question is, what laws are good? Law should be studied as a science of ethical principles that are universal for all individuals. Take for example the libertarian principles: no murder, no theft and no coercion. He also mentions that ideas are not property, so copying ideas in not theft. Democratic principles would be present in the form of the market (voting with money). Since law becomes a science, justice can be privatized.
The company he mentioned in Shezhen, Foxconn, is now facing an internal crisis in China because of the huge amount of orders from Apple which, until now cause 16 of their workers to kill themselves because they couldn't stand the pressure.
A small price of human lives that is included in each and everyone of the Apple's techtoys being sold now in the developed countries. Think about it when you consider buying an Apple product.
He has eurocentric not Chinese thinking. I think he wants "good rules" but he wains. He has Hong Kong thinking not the idea of China. You cannot replicate Hong Kong ideals without Western consumerism. China wants ideals like him, but has different ways to do it. I dare people to use Chinese thinking. There is something to be said there. The Chinese were living fine even before Mao.
I lived in China. This is a farce... the previous breasted a situation that doesn't work directly with subsidy. I live in Thailand. Do not listen to this BS. He seems articulate. He is not.
Dude...it's called Miami. Miami is Cuba's Hong Kong. And what makes you think Castro would freely allow his people to leave to their new Canadian built Hong Kong? The whole country would move there.
Castro has spent the past 50 years keeping his people within the confines of Cuba's borders. I don't think he'd be too into this 'Charter Idea' exactly BECAUSE it gives the people choices. Not sure if you got the memo, but Communism sort of operates completely antithetical to this notion here.
Why didn't PRC invade to reoccupy British Hong Kong after 1949?
PRC obviously rejected British soverignty over Hong Kong, but only recognized British administration of the Chinese territory. W/e, China needed HK as a "Gateway to the rest of the world", and HK acted as a "Gateway to China"
International trade is good. China is a gleaming example of miniature SEZ zones which are basically "little scaled down versions of Hong Kong" along the coast of Eastern china.
This is a dangerous assumption that people make: comparing apples to oranges, so to speak. Your assertion implies a total disregard for an anthropological understanding of Cuba.
Cuba is COMPLETELY different that China. Though they both may be characterized as "communist," China has a wildly different economy/culture than Cuba. There has been no interest, under the rule of Fidel Castro, for Cuba to become a manufacturing powerhouse. He's quite content on keeping the country stuck in 1955.
China is also a gleaming example of what unregulated international trade can do on a society.
Swarms of previously rural inhabitants moving into increasingly industrialized zones to work for manufacturers who treat them like robots. Consequently, China has a dwindling rural community, reducing food production for a rapidly increasing population forcing them to start importing. DANGEROUS.
You have to look deeper for the real solution. This is a surface solution.
The guy has some nice ideas, that could even work if people worked together honestly and shared things,but we all know that isnt gonna happen anytime soon.
The economy is starting to suffer,but greed,selfishness and corruption still thrive.
So your premise was 'China [has] unregulated international trade'?
That is blatantly false.
Even if that were true in some parallel universe, local-state 'regulations' corruption, coercion; and taxation, as well as the growth in despotism globally, make the question of 'international' regulation less significant
It's a fine idea and it could work in certain situations. But Cuba is not one of them. At least not while Fidel is alive. Though Raul does show some decidedly different opinions for the future of Cuba, I don't think it's a good idea to employ the rational that "if it's good for China, it's good for Cuba."
Additionally, we're not even discussing the fact of what has become of China: an over-polluted modern indentured servitude community. Is that what we really want?
when new rules are imposed upon people they ignore them or fight them and then the police in black are dispatched... ext... ext
We see that now and electricity was used as an example of the people resisting..
An opt in city solves the problems as people except the rules as a prerequisite.
Also a mindset for better cities.. With all the new communication technology we no longer need to cram people with conflicting personal rule sets into a one size fits all system.
Man this is silly stuff. Forget everything TED speakers have been saying about the environment. Let's build more cities! Which will obviously give us better rules. Which will obviously give us more choices.
Why are so many economists living on a different planet? And yes this idea is absolutely colonialism. Try innovating first before you come to TED to speak.
So true. With 3% occupied land we've already torn our enviroment into a trash can (as incountable TED talkers said, as you put it). And the guy thinks growing another ~30% will help!!!
in my opinion his generalizations are a call out for action and thought from us. which is nice. I liek this idea and i dont find it a bad idea in any way.
Why would Nelson want to wait until the charter cities are implemented with the good rules so that he can study his lessons inside of his home? I think think arguement put forth lacks depthness in its analysis.
Boring and not a good idea. Too much generalization - "we can change rules" - who? how? other people will resist changes, what to do about that? humans are not machines than can just change on command.
There is no such thing as exploiting poor foreign labor. I am from India. Leftwing idiots like yourself, who are dumb enough to support minimum wage laws and child labor laws, are the biggest threat to poor workers. It is the progress of Americans businesses in these third world nations which will ultimately help them.
a) This is an argument for a slow transition via a mixed economy towards one that is ultimately more liberal. Libertarians want immediate shock therapy for everyone, with a laissez-faire end-state.
b) What a closed minded comment. Open your mind, Quaid, open your mind.
I know it sounds great, but using a "charter city" in China sounds like impossible because chinese don't have the freedom of movement to one city to others. For example: a 25 yrs man from the in land is impossible to move to those "special zone" unless he pay under table money to the police and state gov to get a permit to walk pass the state border.
It doesn't work at all!!!! The only way is to set people in undeveloped countries free by destroying their existing power in war. NUKE rock!
I recon this guys really smart, the west used to have something similar in China where each european empire: Britain; France; Holland; Russia had specific areas of influence over commerce. It was capitalism imposed by force though and was deeply unpopulour however it proves that these radical ideas have a good economic base in colonialism. To use nations as a means to finance is a truly remarkable idea but not a revolutionary one and why should the people of earth gain from each other developing
14:00 wow holy shit buy your own city in africa? huh think about it, it might be the only good one in the whole country, maybe become the capital in 50 years? then by deduction you own a country?
When British created Hong Kong they had Worlds best military to protect it... A charter city sound like a good idea only if there is a Supper Power to back it up. I cannot imagine even the poorest African nation to give up its control of an inhibited land and then just watch how newly rich inhabitants make iPods.
Actually, technology will save us - but we must harness it entirely in order to.
Think about it....We're the only species that has the capability and diversity of capability to potentially take ALL life on this planet somewhere new when this world ends.
Do you think life is aware of its own, inevitable demise? It's already dealt with several mass extinctions, why wouldn't it influence the evolution/creation of us in order to save itself before the next one? ;)
He is so worried about people's opinion of him that he can't even be intellectually honest about this topic. Its simple! Throw all the 'rule' talk out of the window. I know I am going to ruffle some feathers but here it comes... Freedom + capitalism = prosperity. Watch 'Hans Rosling: New insights on poverty and life around the world' ted talk before you respond to me or freak out.
You're correct. But capitalism is an idea with a PR problem. When you use the old language, you preach to the choir and alienate everyone else. I like what Romer is doing here, providing new ways to think about older ideas that are actually good, but people are afraid to to return to with a fresh perspective.
The opt-in model is good, because it doesn't force anything on anyone. A socialist model has more problems because it DOES require compliance from those who may not agree with it.
I think it's more that he finds Cities to be the right size for the experiment, and if those work then it can be expanded outward, as with his example in China.
Even if they did create the charter laws for a rural area, if the rules were good it would attract enough people to be considered a city I would think.
@burn70u7 Most people don't have a choice. They are being pushed out of rural lands by things like the lack of economic opportunity and lack of access health care. Urbanization is going to continue rapidly and forcefully in the global south in the coming years. It's hard to envision any scenario where this process can be reversed. You can try to stop buying food from multinational agricultural conglomerates, but third world farmers have already been fucked in the ass by the global economy.
in addition to all the problems here in the comments,this extreme urbanization requires mass industrial agriculture which means more chemicals. we need smaller city/town communities (which could be close but interspersed with farmland) using Permaculture "rules". reminds of the 150 "rule" in Tipping Point for better interpersonal relationships in groups. calculate how much food 150 (or so) people need for food each year and make space between each community for farming.
Best win-win situation is to make it all free and available to all without any cost. This is totally possible if we change the rules completely. The rules we have today is there coz we think they are necessary, but they are not. They exists for the sole purpose that there are a few people in this world that wants to own everything and charge the rest for it. We can build any society we want and so far we have done a pretty lame job.
Wow just wow, I would love to shit gold and fly as well. But well there is more to setting up cities then political approval.... condensing people into even more cities is what will cause an increased demand upon resources, spreading out instead of condensing into cities... his example showed a chunk of desert coast...... I hope no one is listening to this fool..
Earht's population will urbanise whether you want it or not. There's no stopping it.
Though if the growth goes naturally, it be much more polluting and resource demanding then if you use the policies he proposes.
Look how the western world developped, it went trough a resource inefficient peak before we had the technology (and ideas, like he said) to make us more inefficient.
Growth is unstoppable, we better have a framework in place to let it grow the right way.
this isn't entirely true nor is it entirely wrong. If artificially constructed cities are the aim they should not look to emulate the traditional city designs that are failing the world over.
Rather then condensing everyone into an artificial cities, connecting the villages and towns into massive sprawls that contain farms and industry is the much more intelligent way to design.
The distance is an advantage, transportation is the problem. Condensing will only result in a condensed problem.
Creating more efficient cities is useless if it is not accompanied by de-urbanization motive. What happens when everyone is living in cities dependent on huge, expensive, oil dependent infrastructures? How are cities going to replace skyscrapers (high material/energy intensity per unit of service) in 50-100 years?? If future generations cant breath the air, drink the water and eat the food they are fucked.....
What if we walk in our bare hands instead of the feet? Many people succeeded in life because of that factor, they changed the rules. Let's walk upside down!!
I say that it is crap because in mi country (Argentina) this "rules" he is talking about were installed firmly by a military dictatorship (orchestrated by the US) to avoid the (not quite) socialist route the country and the people were, is easier to see it in Chile where the army attacked it´s first and recently voted democratic socialist president.
These rules (AKA monetary neo liberalism) continued for over 15 years after the dictatorship, and in this period almost every industry created before where closed, leaving millions of people unemployed and the ones who did conserve their jobs, had their rights diminished to squat. The "rules" are good for some people, yes. Specially if they involve cheap labor for monopolist corporations, like in china. But I don´t think that is a really good for anybody but for rich people getting richer.
Right because everyone knows corporations really care about people. Of course nelson and his friends wouldn't be studying under street lights. They'd be in the well lit apple factory putting together iphones for puffed up people that think that everyone is really nice on the inside and that capital venturists would invest in cities that weren't slanted towards their personal interests.
Free choice is bogus in the sense this guy is talking about. His emphasis on populating charter cities without the use of "coercion" is false because economic coercion would be the direct result of switching to a capitalist system within proximity to undeveloped regions.
I see what this guy is talking about. If I were to design a special zone it would be a car-free city with locally produced food and solar electricity and local production of goods. That is what Americans need as a model.
Yeah. I have to say his sleight of hand there was a bit off-putting. His display assumes that every hectare of every continent (excluding Antarctica) is arable. That's obviously false. While there could be some reclamation of desert land, he doesn't address the expense at all. Not to say he couldn't, but he didn't.
The problem with Romers means is that he forgets that economies are emergent from the bottom up. He seems to think these enclaves of good rules can be developed and enforced. It is this concept that has us where we are ... with warehouses full of stupid rules no one understands. Allow freedom in a framework of property rights and people get stuff done.
People don't just need land for big super cities. Cities require huge tracts of land for agriculture. For ever inch of urbana there is neccessary agriculture, preferably geographically near the city. Also, Cities can't be built in many places on earth because of how remote, high, low, rocky, cold, or swampy (etc) that they are.
Interesting, but it reminds me of the "modern" cities of Le Corbussier, such as Brasilia and that one Indian city. They're both built from scratch, and they're both nasty places to live, or so I've been told
this seems like a really slow, and self glorifying form of imperialism. it wont be though, as long as the nations funding these cities are benevolant, and the history of global super powers isnt too promising.
yeah for one thing, he is at least bringign up special administrative zones for a good reason in that they create many ideas and possibilities. What matters i think is clsoe to how you say it, a history. the achilles heel of development is when balance is lost -when "higher incomes and land value" in trading and individualistic freedom logic is instantly equated with good. Creation of courts and social services is good, but administrative and cultural capacity should be addressed in detail.
i think in a lot of ways its just a way for superpower nations to get their hands in all these poorer nations, so if they do succeed their hands remain somewhat involved and their monopoly of power is never questioned. Imperialism.
he is really simplifiying territorial electricity use and consumerism with an unarticulated concept of 'good', ignoring the economic chaos created by the special zones he lsits, and that each of them was negotiated by military situations by the US - e.g. North Korea and Hong Kong -both caused by aggression to suck resources, coastline, and low-cost labor out of high population areas. funny how the detail he leaves out is the moral and administrative imperfection of the West's economic invasions
He doesn't explain how we would have 1% more land space taken up by cities, and at the same time less of a carbon footprint. Great idea though, I'd love to see experimental communities. It should be mandatory for them to be self-sustaining.
Yeah he didn't specifically say how it'll reduce carbon emissions but i think he may have meant that if everyone is going to be provided for, having cities would reduce the CO2 emissions because they're more efficient as the guy above said.
What is tempermonkey talking about? There is no wealth normalization "law" in the world. For some people to get money they don't have to take it away from other people.
If that were so, how would you explain the dramatic increase in per capita wealth the world has seen in the past several centuries?
on top of printing money, they can have fun with creating urban areas with no food production, to exploit the 20th century's new int'l legal and monetary system to extract food and labor from surroundign areas and introduce heightened class tension in a new racist/modernist duality culture (old and new).
As long as we live in a capatalistic money-based economy, nothing will change for the better in the long-term sense. If profit is the primary concern, we will never have equality, and really, equality is not the point. This is a nice idea, but urbanism is a disgusting parasite and we're not even sure what the true effects of the rise of the city even is.
Good video that makes the elementary point (though he hesitates to say it to the TED crowd): capitalism works, socialism doesn't.
Basically, these are transnational enterprise zones a la Jack Kemp. A very good idea.
However, I wouldn't get a senescent welfare state like Canada to run one in Cuba. Doomed to fail. Canadians would propose all kinds of inappropriate environmental and labor laws that would defeat the purpose.
No, let Chinese capitalists run it in Cuba and in Africa.
What all the dreamers like this guy forget is that cities thrive because of poor areas in the world. If these other countries started doing well, then the standard of living would go down in the entire world. I dont know if the worlds population could even live half as good as it is in the US.
Charter cites are a good idea, but for them to really do well, they need crappy cities and villages to support them.
Sure...why doesn't the west rape the world for another 500 years :-)
crudhousefull 1 month ago in playlist More videos from TEDtalksDirector
Also, If this becomes widespread there may be scams, false advertising, lost investments and possibly cities populated by cults operating effectively as theocracies.
discipleoftheteapot 1 month ago
I really like the idea if it could be used to provide semi-sovereign areas to try out new models of government or economics.
However, I worry that it will follow the process of neo-liberal globalisation which has destroyed social democracy - an emphasis on cutting taxes and regulation to compete with other jurisdictions.
discipleoftheteapot 1 month ago
I am wondering if a charter city could help bring the UK economy out of the slump that it is in...
DrSpooglemon 1 month ago
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watch this video, and know how many questions Paul Romer can't answer to Carlos Sabillon about the true of charters cities..
search it with this name
Stanford University professor and Nobel Prize candidate Paul Romer debating with Dr. Carlos Sabillon
guitarventura 3 months ago
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guitarventura 3 months ago
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guitarventura 3 months ago
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guitarventura 3 months ago
I liked it except for the end. I don't understand what that was about and why it was necessary. However a really good economic model/proposal brought to our attention in understandable language to most everyone.
whitejellyfungus 3 months ago
I was mainly thinking about economic development. And yes, I don´t want to believe in Porters "charter cities for dummies". This exemplary view suggests policy makers and/or RDA´s just have to follow the 15 or whatever steps of setting up a "charter city" and everything will be fine. No it won´t. Regional development depends highly from the specific setting of the region and its actors. example: many regions tried to just imitate the sillicon valley and ended up failing in a "sillicon nowhere".
pred09ale 5 months ago 2
Romers idea reflects the typical - narrow - mindset of mainstream economists. The world isn´t flat. His models of endogenous growth theory are good for a broader understanding, but they don´t fit to reality. This regional development "off the drawing board" just don´t operate. There is "no best practice policy" or "one-size-fits-all-strategy" for economic growth. Worlds regions, its economies, societes, laws etc. are different and so they need different and specific strategies.
pred09ale 6 months ago
@pred09ale
Your comment seems to imply that there are no/very few general rules (or policies) which apply when tackling the issue of urbanisation in poor countries. That the "economies, societies and laws" are so different that, by definition, the economic/social policies and the laws themselves between new (successful) cities will have very little in common. Do you really believe this?
Overtime123 5 months ago
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pred09ale 6 months ago
There is a link on my channel to your channel - please accept my video response series.
All the best
David
infokemp 6 months ago
Built RAPTURE!!! Andrew Ryan Rules!
racpembertondual 7 months ago
@GrudgyDiablo Why do you think this guy is intent on "a cheap take at re-inventing colonialism"? It may well end up that way and I am not naive enough to discount that possibility, but you are making assumptions about this persons motivations. Can you substantiate such an attack on his integrity?
DrSpooglemon 7 months ago
@GrudgyDiablo Whatever the reason for distrust it is still an emotion. I am not saying that it is necessarily unfounded but it IS an emotion. If you can explain why you are happy with something does that make happyness not an emotion? You should read a little on the subject ofemotions before responding. Trust and distrust are emotions. Don't call me an idiot for pointing this out. And what do you mean by "illustrated". You mentioned but did not illustrate...
DrSpooglemon 7 months ago
@GrudgyDiablo Is distrust not an emotion? Emotions not only hold people back but also help them to move forward. It is a matter of facilitating the appropriate emotions. Look into open source technology and tell me that idea doesn't fill you with hope for the future. Don't let the negatavistic passive agressive nonsense about the NWO and "secret government" stuff get to you. There is no hope in that philosophy. It is important that the people are involved in these things to prevent oppression...
DrSpooglemon 7 months ago
In what way is the idea, as outlined in this video, about exploitation? And when you say beginning of the century do you not mean LAST century. Which century are you living in? Learn from the past, yes. Live in the past, no.
My point about selling montana land to china is that if american citizens didn't like the rules there it would fail. I is about choice. If these people can choose between sets of rules then the market forces of suply and demand will apply to the cities themselves...
DrSpooglemon 7 months ago
Ridiculous. Colonialism for sure. No history is the first stage of slavery. The question is who's is really getting rich while people lose their liberty? What choice do you have? Chinese do not have personal liberties. Sure they are better off then in Mao's era, but that was the bottom of the pit. Montana has a lot of land, how about selling it to chinese wonderful rules!
jrlmenezes1 7 months ago
@jrlmenezes1 "Montana has a lot of land, how about selling it to chinese wonderful rules!"
Sure. Why not? Then you will see how many americans would rather live and work under those conditions. Did he not cover that idea in his talk?
DrSpooglemon 7 months ago
@DrSpooglemon No he didn't he basically suggested that this was an idea for third world countries. Countries that have space, little rules and less options because they were basically thorn apart by capitalism. Try selling that idea to Montana
jrlmenezes1 7 months ago
@jrlmenezes1 I meant that the general principle of what he said did not rule out that possibility. Montana may not want to play the game, and therein lies the obstacle.
DrSpooglemon 7 months ago
@DrSpooglemon The basic principle is not about choice, it is about exploiting opportunities when people have no choice. Basic fact is that poverty makes an excellent ground for making money. You can take liberty from the poor much easier. It is like USA in the beggining of the century, if there was a strike, you just fired people and hired the poor unemployed avalaible. There are laws that protect american citizen now, but not in china
jrlmenezes1 7 months ago
@jrlmenezes1 Nothing that he said eliminated the possibility of choice for the people on the ground level. Infact it seemed to me he was in favour of that idea...
DrSpooglemon 7 months ago
@DrSpooglemon Now after squandering their land resources or making them too expensive. This is a great idea for the economic powers (USA, Europe) to take new land and continue exploiting the poor.
jrlmenezes1 7 months ago
Way to involved to provide the "Nelsons" of the world a reading light. Sounds like an extension of an economy based on consumption beyond immediate survival need We need to break people free of wage slavery, not enslave more Peter Maurin said something to the effect; the more countries become industrialized, there will be no counties to export goods to. I agree planning is in order but I'm not sure that this is a good plan
5lkk 7 months ago
@5lkk Jesus! Is this the 20th century already?
Pessimism is what holds us back. I don't like consumerism either but I'd rather be living in a consumerist paradise than be doing my homework under a street light. I used to consider myself a socialist but there is a time for puting ideology aside and reconciling yourself with the fact that other people may not want to do things your way, and try to come to a compromise. That is why I now consider myself a social-liberal. Move with the times man...
DrSpooglemon 7 months ago
This is a brilliant economic system but it leaves behind the problem of food production. We don't have enough land to feed the 7 billion people that are on earth today. If we take up uninhabited land then we're going to likely take up farm land. That means more food shortages, more starvation, fewer people which means less demand which means less money for the production side which means a crippled economy. Less land means higher food prices. Take current cities and transform them into charter.
DesignPunkStudios 7 months ago
@DesignPunkStudios Leaves behind the problem of food production?
How so? Do you not think that this would be one of the main topics for discussion when actually planning a project of this nature? He was simply outlining the basic idea. You may have well pointed out that it left behind the problem of sewage treatment. Or of intercity transport. The reason it is difficult to feed everyone is the same reason kids are doing there homework under street lights. That is the point of what he is saying.
DrSpooglemon 7 months ago
@DrSpooglemon You're right, I thought about it after I watched it. This is a good video, one of those topics you really have to think about afterwards to wrap your head around the scale of how huge of an undertaking it is (or at least that's how it was for me). I just don't like the idea of urban development getting rid of one of the remaining carbon absorbing tools we have left. We're already cutting down trees too quickly. It's a good idea though.
DesignPunkStudios 7 months ago
@DesignPunkStudios Who's cutting down trees too quickly? All the timbre in your house comes from sustainable forrestry. If you live in country like mine that is. There is no need to cut down any forrest to buil a new city indeed it may require the plantation of new sustainable forrests to supply the timbre. As you say the scope of this thing is huge and I believe most opposition will come from people who simply cannot conceive something on such a scale...
DrSpooglemon 7 months ago
@DrSpooglemon Have you ever heard of deforestation? Most of our timber doesn't come from America, it comes from Africa. I love this idea, I just don't like the impact it'll have on the climate. I think we would be much better off turning our current cities into charter cities and turning the villages into small towns. Current economic conditions wouldn't allow for new cities to be built anyway. Most countries just don't have enough to cover the short term costs.
DesignPunkStudios 7 months ago
@DesignPunkStudios I have heard of deforrestation and most deforrestation is land clearance for farming(usually livestock). A lot of it is also due to mining for gold, etc. I don't kow what dat you are basing your assertion on but just consider the logistics of importing timber from africa. The fact is that timber used in construction comes from sustainable forrestry. Why sustainble? Because it makes good business sense. Tropical timber for designer furniture, etc. may be a different matter...
DrSpooglemon 7 months ago
@DesignPunkStudios On economics; the idea is that the land is sold to developers. As much as I am warey of such parties this is the structure that we have and the one that most people are accustomed to and it is important that we get the best we can from it. Hence; rules. I just looked at your channel and I can't help thinking that people like you that need to be involved in this. Creative people. I will be following this idea with great interest. I think others should too. It is our future...
DrSpooglemon 7 months ago
The problem with these 'opt-in' cities is that it attracts the people that have no other options or are desperate for work...thus things close to slave labor are developed. As long as the people work furiously, they will be taken care of by the company...however, it's still very similar to slavery.
Slyvr18 7 months ago
@Slyvr18 That's an enormous assumption. A charter city attracts investors and big business just as much as it does lower class workers, middle class skilled labor, or poverty stricken homeless.
dreapster 7 months ago
@Slyvr18 Did he not talk about rules? Rules about how to make the city a good place to so that the people would want to live there instead of going to another country. It is possible that lessons can be learned from the past. Your view is very pessimistic and I don't think there is a place for voices such as yours in a progressive society. Yes these are real issues, but you do you assume that it is unavoidable? If so: on what grounds?
DrSpooglemon 7 months ago
Thumbs up if his updated talk brought you here.
zassounotsukushi 7 months ago 14
Where is this brilliant? Sorry but he's over complicating things. He uses "profit" as the key and there lies the problem because he's trying to create "rules" in order to fix a System that is in its concept flawed since it was created. As long as we come up with "solutions" within these corrupted systems, it will never work. Brilliant would be to have an idea, not based on existing parameters but create a whole new system not based on gain or profit.
redpenphantom 8 months ago
That statistic where another 1 billion people only take up 1% of the arable land doesn't sound right. How many times have we heard that the population reaching 9 billion people in the near future will cause immense stress on resources, and this info seems to be saying that we have room for 10's of billions of more people. Maybe I'm simply extrapolating info about statistics that I don't have a firm grasp on, but that is the impression that I got.
GreatMeridian 9 months ago
anyone from econ2420?
jhlbjaaa 10 months ago
This blew my mind. I can't stop thinking about how amazing this would be. So many people could be helped.
DenziCloud 10 months ago
Here I see two things:
First, and not very related with the main point of the talk. Resources. It's very obvious today that space is not a problem. But what about resources? what about energetic resources? what about pollution? Of course, technology will have a lot to say about this. But I can't avoid being very worried about this.
Second, how to guarantee the atractive of this? how to incentivate a company to get instalate at the middle of nowhere in Africa? .. I'm not very sure..
joselinbogarra 11 months ago
I love how he describes N. and S. Korea as being different due to changes in rules _after_ splitting -- before, they had the same rules and everthing was hunky-dory, apparently. I mean, it couldn't be that their rules created haves and have-nots and therefore created strife, right?
Rules aren't the problem in N. Korea. The mfker's with guns in N. Korea are the problem.
keserak 11 months ago
Oh, so Haiti's government was too weak, not too oppressive.. of course! Duvalier father and son didn't have a strong enough government. that's why Haiti underdeveloped for the better half of a century...
wow.
makes sense that he would find Honduras to be the perfect place for this. i mean heck, it got rid of its weak government with an exchanged it with an oppressiv... i mean "strong" one that will welcome foreign investment.
valibal 1 year ago 2
This bitch is about to enroll the corrupt Honduran government into this charter city (promise land) HOAX !!!!! biggest scam on the planet
guayacan07 1 year ago 2
How is it that Mr. Romer has access to cutting edge technology like powerpoint, but does not have access to a 200 year old technology like a belt for his jeans?
rwtrail 1 year ago 2
This has been flagged as spam show
Right now Paul Romer, together with the National Congress and the President of Honduras are trying to start a charter city here. If there's anyone open to discuss with me the pro and cons etc, please email me: economyhn@gmail.com
PiggyKlinsmen 1 year ago
California has 120 Charter cities, may be is the difference in economic development with other states in the nation. Charter cities are a good choice to introduce new economic systems and to create experience. Better than socialism and communism , right Lefties?.
PALMBAYISLAND 1 year ago
If a country is so "enlightened " as to "give" land for a charter city would they not also be so enlightened as to be able to create one without the need for multinationals and banks paying Romer's consulting fees? When people do not have the means to participate THERE IS NO CHOICE!
sarahgottliebe 1 year ago
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sarahgottliebe 1 year ago
fail on so many levels. peak oil. critical boundaries. credit collapse...
AnEarthPilot 1 year ago 2
This is certainly not a new idea. About individual freedom, rule of law and objectivism, and its correlation to happiness, wealth and progress many things have been written. More influential are the writings of Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand. Strongly recommended to check them up! Great video.
guillermogg 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Mexico is trying to build one in Baja, named Valle San Pedro, it's built by a construction firm known by their small sized houses and neighborhoods. People live worse than cattle in those projects.
raforther 1 year ago
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raforther 1 year ago
When your new "choice" is predicated on the poverty created less than 100 years ago by colonialism, is that really a good choice?
jamesrumsey 1 year ago
The government industry has very high customer lock-in (have to move physically) and very high barriers to entry (win a war, revolution, ...). Sure, Mr. Romers idea solves the former, but the latter stays untouched as long as we don't question the monopoly on violence which the government essentially is.
PJCelis 1 year ago
The most critical question in this whole talk is suppressed!
The question: "Who makes these peculiar rules?"
The Iraq and Afghani wars are crystal clear examples that Democracy cannot be imposed.
What happened to the common sense definition of democracy, namely government (which makes laws/rules) for the people, by the people?
Did it fade out of the public discourse
because those who now talk of rules
went to a technical college instead of an academic university?
stronkdisselboom 1 year ago
In reply to the currently 2 highest rated comments on this video, after the 'Opium Wars' Hong Kong was 'lent' to Britain, it then proceeded to flourish; by the mid 20th century, the average resident was ten times richer than their Chinese counterparts and 4/5ths as wealthy as the average British citizen. That's pretty phenomenal economic progress.
In reply to the other, in poorer countries, people DO flock to cities, for whatever reasons (Dick Whittington ring any bells?) its an observable fact
Doombug5000 1 year ago
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wormdrink414 1 year ago
When this guy talks about rules he means laws and contracts. The question is, what laws are good? Law should be studied as a science of ethical principles that are universal for all individuals. Take for example the libertarian principles: no murder, no theft and no coercion. He also mentions that ideas are not property, so copying ideas in not theft. Democratic principles would be present in the form of the market (voting with money). Since law becomes a science, justice can be privatized.
alalelalex 1 year ago
The company he mentioned in Shezhen, Foxconn, is now facing an internal crisis in China because of the huge amount of orders from Apple which, until now cause 16 of their workers to kill themselves because they couldn't stand the pressure.
A small price of human lives that is included in each and everyone of the Apple's techtoys being sold now in the developed countries. Think about it when you consider buying an Apple product.
romehalt 1 year ago
He has eurocentric not Chinese thinking. I think he wants "good rules" but he wains. He has Hong Kong thinking not the idea of China. You cannot replicate Hong Kong ideals without Western consumerism. China wants ideals like him, but has different ways to do it. I dare people to use Chinese thinking. There is something to be said there. The Chinese were living fine even before Mao.
tvlife19 2 years ago
I lived in China. This is a farce... the previous breasted a situation that doesn't work directly with subsidy. I live in Thailand. Do not listen to this BS. He seems articulate. He is not.
tvlife19 2 years ago
New World Order.. help us build One World Government.
Yay!
(All sarcasm.)
complexnothings 2 years ago
didnt they try this in brazil with the city, brasillia? i dont think it worked out well...
calebmoss18 2 years ago
it worked so well that nowadays brasília is the third brazilian city.
lacmgusmao 2 years ago
@lacmgusmao Brasilia is poverty ridden, very bad place to live if you are not rich
jrlmenezes1 7 months ago
@lacmgusmao No important industry in Brasilia, Not a charter city either
jrlmenezes1 7 months ago
Brilliant. I think it's a great vision for the future.
tinosnit 2 years ago 10
It's like Vegas baby.
thedelusionist 2 years ago 2
I don't really believe what this guy is saying. I'm getting a slieght of hand vibe...
papalosopher 2 years ago
America has already done this, the world just hates the american way, if we change the name of our way, all of the sudden the idea is good.
Now any country can be guilt free about wanting to be like america, and no one will hate them for selling out their country.
lynntinymite2 2 years ago
"the world just hates the american way"
lol
JWP321 2 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
You must be American.
titnut4 2 years ago 2
Pretty boring and pretty obvious.
RRGJL 2 years ago 2
Fuck "good rules". The opposition to advancement and alternatives and CHOICE is always the state. Fuck your charter cities... burn down the state.
thorsmitersaw 2 years ago
lol, um. wow. no.
Phead128 2 years ago
yes
thorsmitersaw 2 years ago
Dude...it's called Miami. Miami is Cuba's Hong Kong. And what makes you think Castro would freely allow his people to leave to their new Canadian built Hong Kong? The whole country would move there.
Castro has spent the past 50 years keeping his people within the confines of Cuba's borders. I don't think he'd be too into this 'Charter Idea' exactly BECAUSE it gives the people choices. Not sure if you got the memo, but Communism sort of operates completely antithetical to this notion here.
gthang91582 2 years ago
Why didn't PRC invade to reoccupy British Hong Kong after 1949?
PRC obviously rejected British soverignty over Hong Kong, but only recognized British administration of the Chinese territory. W/e, China needed HK as a "Gateway to the rest of the world", and HK acted as a "Gateway to China"
International trade is good. China is a gleaming example of miniature SEZ zones which are basically "little scaled down versions of Hong Kong" along the coast of Eastern china.
Phead128 2 years ago 2
This is a dangerous assumption that people make: comparing apples to oranges, so to speak. Your assertion implies a total disregard for an anthropological understanding of Cuba.
Cuba is COMPLETELY different that China. Though they both may be characterized as "communist," China has a wildly different economy/culture than Cuba. There has been no interest, under the rule of Fidel Castro, for Cuba to become a manufacturing powerhouse. He's quite content on keeping the country stuck in 1955.
gthang91582 2 years ago
China is also a gleaming example of what unregulated international trade can do on a society.
Swarms of previously rural inhabitants moving into increasingly industrialized zones to work for manufacturers who treat them like robots. Consequently, China has a dwindling rural community, reducing food production for a rapidly increasing population forcing them to start importing. DANGEROUS.
You have to look deeper for the real solution. This is a surface solution.
gthang91582 2 years ago
China doesn't have a unregulated international market. In fact, that's not even possible since the RMB is not fully convertible or internationalized.
China is a gleaming example of what capitalism, greed, and private interest +gov't corruption can do to a society.
Phead128 2 years ago
exactly
The guy has some nice ideas, that could even work if people worked together honestly and shared things,but we all know that isnt gonna happen anytime soon.
The economy is starting to suffer,but greed,selfishness and corruption still thrive.
mrlowdangle 2 years ago
@gthang91582
hysterical.
So your premise was 'China [has] unregulated international trade'?
That is blatantly false.
Even if that were true in some parallel universe, local-state 'regulations' corruption, coercion; and taxation, as well as the growth in despotism globally, make the question of 'international' regulation less significant
FreiheitKampfer 1 year ago
It's a fine idea and it could work in certain situations. But Cuba is not one of them. At least not while Fidel is alive. Though Raul does show some decidedly different opinions for the future of Cuba, I don't think it's a good idea to employ the rational that "if it's good for China, it's good for Cuba."
Additionally, we're not even discussing the fact of what has become of China: an over-polluted modern indentured servitude community. Is that what we really want?
gthang91582 2 years ago
Why is he wearing blue jeans... :S
philg262 2 years ago
why doesn't he have a belt? =)
eshnajizzle 2 years ago
it's not a half bad idea. i can see potential, just needs a lot more thought on it.
TmSmpson 2 years ago
when new rules are imposed upon people they ignore them or fight them and then the police in black are dispatched... ext... ext
We see that now and electricity was used as an example of the people resisting..
An opt in city solves the problems as people except the rules as a prerequisite.
Also a mindset for better cities.. With all the new communication technology we no longer need to cram people with conflicting personal rule sets into a one size fits all system.
abram730 2 years ago
Man this is silly stuff. Forget everything TED speakers have been saying about the environment. Let's build more cities! Which will obviously give us better rules. Which will obviously give us more choices.
Why are so many economists living on a different planet? And yes this idea is absolutely colonialism. Try innovating first before you come to TED to speak.
greeklamb 2 years ago
So true. With 3% occupied land we've already torn our enviroment into a trash can (as incountable TED talkers said, as you put it). And the guy thinks growing another ~30% will help!!!
Would be funny was it not terrifying.
tukkek 2 years ago
Right .. so in a global warming crisis .. this guy wants to use more resources to build more cities...
i don't give his idea my vote.
SebastianGeffen 2 years ago
in my opinion his generalizations are a call out for action and thought from us. which is nice. I liek this idea and i dont find it a bad idea in any way.
FridjiratoR 2 years ago
Let's get to work.
bkjbs762 2 years ago
Why would Nelson want to wait until the charter cities are implemented with the good rules so that he can study his lessons inside of his home? I think think arguement put forth lacks depthness in its analysis.
blessednluvinit 2 years ago
well its not liek he has much else to do in his situation
FridjiratoR 2 years ago
In my opinion, TED become just a series of blah blah conferences.
Perfect example: This guy is good at taking funds, but the output is just a compilation of positive truisms.
petruteo 2 years ago
Boring and not a good idea. Too much generalization - "we can change rules" - who? how? other people will resist changes, what to do about that? humans are not machines than can just change on command.
Dayvit78 2 years ago
The way China and Britain worked together...?the opium wars?
benlingben 2 years ago 3
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Jacnas 2 years ago 3
well I've always thought we should use the local poor. much more efficient.
chulritti 2 years ago
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Jacnas 2 years ago 2
@Jacnas
There is no such thing as exploiting poor foreign labor. I am from India. Leftwing idiots like yourself, who are dumb enough to support minimum wage laws and child labor laws, are the biggest threat to poor workers. It is the progress of Americans businesses in these third world nations which will ultimately help them.
LogicalFlawDetector 6 months ago
Libertarian bullshit
RocketMain44 2 years ago
a) This is an argument for a slow transition via a mixed economy towards one that is ultimately more liberal. Libertarians want immediate shock therapy for everyone, with a laissez-faire end-state.
b) What a closed minded comment. Open your mind, Quaid, open your mind.
Prytanus 2 years ago
I know it sounds great, but using a "charter city" in China sounds like impossible because chinese don't have the freedom of movement to one city to others. For example: a 25 yrs man from the in land is impossible to move to those "special zone" unless he pay under table money to the police and state gov to get a permit to walk pass the state border.
It doesn't work at all!!!! The only way is to set people in undeveloped countries free by destroying their existing power in war. NUKE rock!
opps288 2 years ago
I recon this guys really smart, the west used to have something similar in China where each european empire: Britain; France; Holland; Russia had specific areas of influence over commerce. It was capitalism imposed by force though and was deeply unpopulour however it proves that these radical ideas have a good economic base in colonialism. To use nations as a means to finance is a truly remarkable idea but not a revolutionary one and why should the people of earth gain from each other developing
selurbrainonebay 2 years ago
gain and suffer
bcosten2007 2 years ago
Resource Based Economy...
Zeitgeist - Addendum.
DrSKooT 2 years ago
A Canadian city in Cuba? Yes! Its population would swell to 25 million in February!
TrueBeginner 2 years ago
LOl. Very radical. I had that in high school,
FuckRequiringSignUps 2 years ago
14:00 wow holy shit buy your own city in africa? huh think about it, it might be the only good one in the whole country, maybe become the capital in 50 years? then by deduction you own a country?
1gnoramus 2 years ago
What's with the thing at the end of some of the TED lectures? Is it a metaphor Nokia uses for "connecting people" or something?
khaninator 2 years ago
I don't know, but it freaks me out
Jeitek 2 years ago
When British created Hong Kong they had Worlds best military to protect it... A charter city sound like a good idea only if there is a Supper Power to back it up. I cannot imagine even the poorest African nation to give up its control of an inhibited land and then just watch how newly rich inhabitants make iPods.
igorkrupitsky 2 years ago 3
kudoes to you for seeing that
1gnoramus 2 years ago
Actually, technology will save us - but we must harness it entirely in order to.
Think about it....We're the only species that has the capability and diversity of capability to potentially take ALL life on this planet somewhere new when this world ends.
Do you think life is aware of its own, inevitable demise? It's already dealt with several mass extinctions, why wouldn't it influence the evolution/creation of us in order to save itself before the next one? ;)
We+Technology=Insurance plan
Kaioshinbrock 2 years ago 2
The US isn't giving up Guantanamo Bay. Give it to Canada? Yeah right.
thehoopatribe 2 years ago
He is so worried about people's opinion of him that he can't even be intellectually honest about this topic. Its simple! Throw all the 'rule' talk out of the window. I know I am going to ruffle some feathers but here it comes... Freedom + capitalism = prosperity. Watch 'Hans Rosling: New insights on poverty and life around the world' ted talk before you respond to me or freak out.
blakkoctopus 2 years ago
Freedom + capitalism + (massive amounts of untapped natural resources to capitalize on) = prosperity.
thehoopatribe 2 years ago
You're correct. But capitalism is an idea with a PR problem. When you use the old language, you preach to the choir and alienate everyone else. I like what Romer is doing here, providing new ways to think about older ideas that are actually good, but people are afraid to to return to with a fresh perspective.
The opt-in model is good, because it doesn't force anything on anyone. A socialist model has more problems because it DOES require compliance from those who may not agree with it.
ChrisSketch 2 years ago
He takes for granted that people want to live in large cities. This concerns me.
burn70u7 2 years ago 3
I think it's more that he finds Cities to be the right size for the experiment, and if those work then it can be expanded outward, as with his example in China.
Even if they did create the charter laws for a rural area, if the rules were good it would attract enough people to be considered a city I would think.
svd348 2 years ago
@burn70u7 Most people don't have a choice. They are being pushed out of rural lands by things like the lack of economic opportunity and lack of access health care. Urbanization is going to continue rapidly and forcefully in the global south in the coming years. It's hard to envision any scenario where this process can be reversed. You can try to stop buying food from multinational agricultural conglomerates, but third world farmers have already been fucked in the ass by the global economy.
kaylaro 1 year ago
New Detroit, here we come.
Murphey NOOOOOOOO
Kreadus005 2 years ago
in addition to all the problems here in the comments,this extreme urbanization requires mass industrial agriculture which means more chemicals. we need smaller city/town communities (which could be close but interspersed with farmland) using Permaculture "rules". reminds of the 150 "rule" in Tipping Point for better interpersonal relationships in groups. calculate how much food 150 (or so) people need for food each year and make space between each community for farming.
hmm... sounds nice.
funnyguise 2 years ago
Best win-win situation is to make it all free and available to all without any cost. This is totally possible if we change the rules completely. The rules we have today is there coz we think they are necessary, but they are not. They exists for the sole purpose that there are a few people in this world that wants to own everything and charge the rest for it. We can build any society we want and so far we have done a pretty lame job.
kaxitaksi 2 years ago 2
Wow just wow, I would love to shit gold and fly as well. But well there is more to setting up cities then political approval.... condensing people into even more cities is what will cause an increased demand upon resources, spreading out instead of condensing into cities... his example showed a chunk of desert coast...... I hope no one is listening to this fool..
grazzitdvram 2 years ago
Earht's population will urbanise whether you want it or not. There's no stopping it.
Though if the growth goes naturally, it be much more polluting and resource demanding then if you use the policies he proposes.
Look how the western world developped, it went trough a resource inefficient peak before we had the technology (and ideas, like he said) to make us more inefficient.
Growth is unstoppable, we better have a framework in place to let it grow the right way.
BaileysBeads 2 years ago
this isn't entirely true nor is it entirely wrong. If artificially constructed cities are the aim they should not look to emulate the traditional city designs that are failing the world over.
Rather then condensing everyone into an artificial cities, connecting the villages and towns into massive sprawls that contain farms and industry is the much more intelligent way to design.
The distance is an advantage, transportation is the problem. Condensing will only result in a condensed problem.
grazzitdvram 2 years ago
Couldn't agree more.
Creating more efficient cities is useless if it is not accompanied by de-urbanization motive. What happens when everyone is living in cities dependent on huge, expensive, oil dependent infrastructures? How are cities going to replace skyscrapers (high material/energy intensity per unit of service) in 50-100 years?? If future generations cant breath the air, drink the water and eat the food they are fucked.....
Hockeyjason 2 years ago
What if we walk in our bare hands instead of the feet? Many people succeeded in life because of that factor, they changed the rules. Let's walk upside down!!
code933k 2 years ago
With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
But there's nothing in it
And you'll ask yourself
Where is my mind?
Where is my mind??
Hockeyjason 2 years ago
nelson turned into wilson =D
woshinwb 2 years ago
sorry, I don´t like the typical youtube violent comments... but this is crap.
tomatoso27 2 years ago 2
I say that it is crap because in mi country (Argentina) this "rules" he is talking about were installed firmly by a military dictatorship (orchestrated by the US) to avoid the (not quite) socialist route the country and the people were, is easier to see it in Chile where the army attacked it´s first and recently voted democratic socialist president.
tomatoso27 2 years ago 2
These rules (AKA monetary neo liberalism) continued for over 15 years after the dictatorship, and in this period almost every industry created before where closed, leaving millions of people unemployed and the ones who did conserve their jobs, had their rights diminished to squat. The "rules" are good for some people, yes. Specially if they involve cheap labor for monopolist corporations, like in china. But I don´t think that is a really good for anybody but for rich people getting richer.
tomatoso27 2 years ago 3
LEGALIZE IT!!!
Aperfectmoment 2 years ago
This is similar to the idea I have for a global community. CALL THEM "AREA CODES" CITIES! Each one has a maskot, no countries just cities!
TakeTheGreenPill 2 years ago
Right because everyone knows corporations really care about people. Of course nelson and his friends wouldn't be studying under street lights. They'd be in the well lit apple factory putting together iphones for puffed up people that think that everyone is really nice on the inside and that capital venturists would invest in cities that weren't slanted towards their personal interests.
ratholin 2 years ago 2
sounds too good...unrealistic
tklau 2 years ago 2
Free choice is bogus in the sense this guy is talking about. His emphasis on populating charter cities without the use of "coercion" is false because economic coercion would be the direct result of switching to a capitalist system within proximity to undeveloped regions.
thecheesburgler 2 years ago 2
I see what this guy is talking about. If I were to design a special zone it would be a car-free city with locally produced food and solar electricity and local production of goods. That is what Americans need as a model.
totoroben 2 years ago 6
Truthfully wonderful stuff.
ErichoTTA 2 years ago
interesting until 15minutes in when suddenly it becomes about overpopulating the planet even more.
128pagenovella 2 years ago
Yeah. I have to say his sleight of hand there was a bit off-putting. His display assumes that every hectare of every continent (excluding Antarctica) is arable. That's obviously false. While there could be some reclamation of desert land, he doesn't address the expense at all. Not to say he couldn't, but he didn't.
cboehm24 2 years ago
Consider what having no rules means.
If for instance, you wanted to stop a world Government, you would have to stop people who were doing this from operating.
You would indeed be setting up a New world order of your own in talking about certain topics was banned.
This would be far more oppressive than people having open trade and negotiations accross borders.
where everyone can see it and we can vote.
We agree to regulate the mega corps, the problem is they can hide capital. Expose that instead.
marsCubed 2 years ago
The problem with Romers means is that he forgets that economies are emergent from the bottom up. He seems to think these enclaves of good rules can be developed and enforced. It is this concept that has us where we are ... with warehouses full of stupid rules no one understands. Allow freedom in a framework of property rights and people get stuff done.
stratvic 2 years ago
This is vile. A method of propping up governments which should surely be abolished outright.
Individualism101 2 years ago 4
People don't just need land for big super cities. Cities require huge tracts of land for agriculture. For ever inch of urbana there is neccessary agriculture, preferably geographically near the city. Also, Cities can't be built in many places on earth because of how remote, high, low, rocky, cold, or swampy (etc) that they are.
majinspy 2 years ago
Interesting, but it reminds me of the "modern" cities of Le Corbussier, such as Brasilia and that one Indian city. They're both built from scratch, and they're both nasty places to live, or so I've been told
cockroach2 2 years ago
You´ve been told wrong.
Francebrasil 2 years ago
Britain's tentacles have reached far and wide.
lvecsey 2 years ago
this seems like a really slow, and self glorifying form of imperialism. it wont be though, as long as the nations funding these cities are benevolant, and the history of global super powers isnt too promising.
zeromont 2 years ago
yeah for one thing, he is at least bringign up special administrative zones for a good reason in that they create many ideas and possibilities. What matters i think is clsoe to how you say it, a history. the achilles heel of development is when balance is lost -when "higher incomes and land value" in trading and individualistic freedom logic is instantly equated with good. Creation of courts and social services is good, but administrative and cultural capacity should be addressed in detail.
tyrannicoystercult 2 years ago
i think in a lot of ways its just a way for superpower nations to get their hands in all these poorer nations, so if they do succeed their hands remain somewhat involved and their monopoly of power is never questioned. Imperialism.
zeromont 2 years ago
he is really simplifiying territorial electricity use and consumerism with an unarticulated concept of 'good', ignoring the economic chaos created by the special zones he lsits, and that each of them was negotiated by military situations by the US - e.g. North Korea and Hong Kong -both caused by aggression to suck resources, coastline, and low-cost labor out of high population areas. funny how the detail he leaves out is the moral and administrative imperfection of the West's economic invasions
tyrannicoystercult 2 years ago
He doesn't explain how we would have 1% more land space taken up by cities, and at the same time less of a carbon footprint. Great idea though, I'd love to see experimental communities. It should be mandatory for them to be self-sustaining.
mrslair 2 years ago
cities are more efficient at using resources.
sum1unxpected 2 years ago
Cities are more efficient at using-up resources.
Hockeyjason 2 years ago
Yeah he didn't specifically say how it'll reduce carbon emissions but i think he may have meant that if everyone is going to be provided for, having cities would reduce the CO2 emissions because they're more efficient as the guy above said.
tarohoa 2 years ago
it's a mixed bag... enticing, but...
sometimes choices are false dualites.
sometimes choices corrupt, especially when the chooser is in desperate straits.
but hell, everything is dangerous, right?
baronmorris 2 years ago
What is tempermonkey talking about? There is no wealth normalization "law" in the world. For some people to get money they don't have to take it away from other people.
If that were so, how would you explain the dramatic increase in per capita wealth the world has seen in the past several centuries?
aderek79 2 years ago
Ummm, banks and corps like the IMF and the Fed print out more money and lend it to national banks?
111eastmall 2 years ago
on top of printing money, they can have fun with creating urban areas with no food production, to exploit the 20th century's new int'l legal and monetary system to extract food and labor from surroundign areas and introduce heightened class tension in a new racist/modernist duality culture (old and new).
tyrannicoystercult 2 years ago
As long as we live in a capatalistic money-based economy, nothing will change for the better in the long-term sense. If profit is the primary concern, we will never have equality, and really, equality is not the point. This is a nice idea, but urbanism is a disgusting parasite and we're not even sure what the true effects of the rise of the city even is.
araless 2 years ago 2
Good video that makes the elementary point (though he hesitates to say it to the TED crowd): capitalism works, socialism doesn't.
Basically, these are transnational enterprise zones a la Jack Kemp. A very good idea.
However, I wouldn't get a senescent welfare state like Canada to run one in Cuba. Doomed to fail. Canadians would propose all kinds of inappropriate environmental and labor laws that would defeat the purpose.
No, let Chinese capitalists run it in Cuba and in Africa.
HenryOrientJnr 2 years ago
Where would wildlife live?
Where would indigenous groups live?
Does every square foot on earth HAVE to become commodified?
Are these 'chartered' cities fixed in time - where no progress occurs in law?
Perhaps most distressing: Who would enforce these charters? An external overseeing body or the inhabitants?
Sounds suspiciously like the borderless 'zoned' world that is foretold of in NWO doctrine.
Sadly it seems more & more that TED is promoting these ideas. While they are bold - they are not new
morelshaman 2 years ago 2
What all the dreamers like this guy forget is that cities thrive because of poor areas in the world. If these other countries started doing well, then the standard of living would go down in the entire world. I dont know if the worlds population could even live half as good as it is in the US.
Charter cites are a good idea, but for them to really do well, they need crappy cities and villages to support them.
tempemonkey2323 2 years ago