Both the Suez and Panama Canals had charters and were a huge success. Lessons from both were learned, and CCI’s model of charter cities incorporates these lessons.
In Honduras, the National Congress unanimously repealed the constitutional amendment and enabling law for charter cities, known as Zonas de Empleo de Desarrollo Económico (Zones for Employment and Economic Development) or ZEDEs. Now we take a deeper look at what happened in Honduras, and what comes next.
This Earth Day, it’s time to admit that one of the most promising solutions to climate change is too often excluded from the conversation: cities. Instead, cities are often portrayed as the cause of climate change. We argue that cities can be one of the most effective tools to fight climate change.
Featured post by Kurtis Lockhart et al.
Executive Director Mark Lutter parses the distinction between large real estate projects and viable cities.
Sustained economic growth is the world’s best poverty reduction tool. In this paper, Research Associate Jeffrey Mason argues that charter cities are a highly cost-effective way to ignite long-run growth.
Both the Suez and Panama Canals had charters and were a huge success. Lessons from both were learned, and CCI’s model of charter cities incorporates these lessons.
In Honduras, the National Congress unanimously repealed the constitutional amendment and enabling law for charter cities, known as Zonas de Empleo de Desarrollo Económico (Zones for Employment and Economic Development) or ZEDEs. Now we take a deeper look at what happened in Honduras, and what comes next.
This Earth Day, it’s time to admit that one of the most promising solutions to climate change is too often excluded from the conversation: cities. Instead, cities are often portrayed as the cause of climate change. We argue that cities can be one of the most effective tools to fight climate change.
CCI Founder Mark Lutter predicted back in 2020 that this decade would be half “burning ’20s” and half “weird ’20s” with different forms of social organizations, communes, charter cities, religion, trying to fill the void. Acting Executive Director and Head of Research Kurtis Lockhart unpacks this foresight.
Charter cities can play an outsized role in the climate change agenda. Since charter cities are limited to new special jurisdictions, policymakers can test innovative ideas in a smaller geographic area.
CCI’s new research agenda outlines the 5 research topics most important to the charter cities movement and helps guide our research on urban governance, economic growth, and poverty alleviation.
African cities are underfunded, both in terms of public expenditure and infrastructure investments.
Senior Director of Research Kurtis Lockhart to serve as acting Executive Director while comprehensive search for new permanent leader concludes.
Talent City is one of several exciting bright spots driving both infrastructure development and governance innovation in Africa.
Everywhere you look, founders are launching efforts to build new communities and entirely new cities.
Distinguished Professor Leonard Wantchekon Joins Charter Cities Institute’s Board of Directors
The recent Honduran elections may have ramifications for the greater charter cities movement.
Barefoot planning proposes to dynamically organize private development and public goods without a static master plan by employing barefoot planners, a new class of community-level planning practitioners.
When creative solutions are found, service provisions can improve quicker than anyone would otherwise expect.
There are elements of the charter cities toolkit which we can use to ‘fix’ cities whose governance is dysfunctional or destructive.
The CCI Summer Fellowship exposes participants to academic and real-life urban discourse. This document, through several Project Briefs, overviews the proposed projects of the 2021 CCI Fellows.
By adopting the innovative governance system offered by the charter cities model, the DRC can not only address its development challenges, but would also demonstrate that it can also deliver on bold and innovative models of economic development for its people.
A charter city operated via a public-private partnership at the Port of Berbera, Somaliland will substantially increase the positive impacts of Somaliland’s already effective national development strategy.
Marc Lore is building a new American city, Telosa, about which there are reasons to be both positive and skeptical.
A CCI team recently travelled to Zambia to meet with key stakeholders in the new administration.
The Taliban have retaken Afghanistan. What does this mean for the future of charter cities?
Gurgaon, India, Jiaolong, China, and Próspera, Honduras offer three models of private governance.
Could charter cities gain legitimacy by taking the job no other city wants to take?
Charter cities are not some theoretical, pie in the sky idea; there is real, tangible traction happening that can be accelerated with additional funding.
Charter cities need to retain their focus on being transformative, which includes combining governance reform with agglomeration.
Like any early-stage startup, charter cities are currently a momentum play, and the state of charter cities is strong.
In a world with increasing numbers of forcibly displaced persons, charter cities provide one way to generate more effective responses to refugee movements while placing refugee and local community needs firmly at the center of local governance.
Somaliland is an autonomous region in the Horn of Africa that unilaterally declared independence from Somalia in 1991. Not only has Somaliland maintained democratic governance, but it has also made continual efforts to improve this governance and recently passed the “Somaliland Special Economic Zones Law.”
Ports need trade to justify the investment, governance to ensure effective operation, capital to be built and maintained. That ports are part of a larger process that can be described as development does not make them unimportant.
Monetary authority is one power charter cities might not want to possess.
The Victoria Falls Stock Exchange as a model for mitigating currency risk.
Arjun Khaitan considers an Ostromian approach to industrial strategy.
What does peak internet coordination of real-world activity look like?
Starbase has the potential to become one of the greatest cities of the 21st century.
Jiaolong, China may be the world’s must successful privately operated city.
A new city for South Africa is not a bad idea, however it has to be driven by something greater than a desire for a new city.
A legislative analysis of Nevada’s interesting new proposal for “Innovation Zones.”
The Tiebout model demonstrates that competitive pressure across local governments can lead to the optimal provision of public goods. In other words, competitive governance works, provided several key assumptions
Informal settlements are often depicted as shantytowns. However, informal settlements in Cairo don’t often fit this stereotype.
If Africa’s urban centers are to enjoy adequate provision of infrastructure and services, the decentralization of governance must be complete— not partial.
The Charter Cities Institute is a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to empowering new cities with better governance to lift tens of millions of people out of poverty.
