Canada will administer 'charter' city in Honduras

[Dark567]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opi ... le2412947/

Spoiler:

With the near unanimous support of its Congress, Honduras recently defined a new legal entity: la Región Especial de Desarrollo. A RED is an independent reform zone intended to offer jobs and safety to families who lack a good alternative; officials in the RED will be able to partner with foreign governments in critical areas such as policing, jurisprudence and transparency. By participating, Canada can lead an innovative approach to development assistance, an approach that tackles the primary roadblock to prosperity in the developing world: weak governance.

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PHOTOS
Editorial cartoons from April, 2012
Many people from around the world would like access to the security and opportunity that Canadian governance makes possible. According to Gallup, the number of adults worldwide who would move permanently to Canada if given the chance is about 45 million. Although Canada can’t accommodate everyone who’d like to move here, it can help to bring stronger governance to many new places that could accept millions of new residents. The RED in Honduras is the place to start.

With half of its population in urban areas, Honduras is among the poorest and least urban countries in Latin America. About four million Hondurans now live in cities, a number the United Nations expects to more than double by 2050. The Honduran government sees this rapid urbanization as an opportunity for inclusive growth and reform.

Honduran congressional support for the RED reflects a clear understanding of the challenges the country faces. Inefficient rules are the major obstacle to peace, growth and development. These rules are difficult to change, especially in a society that suffers from fear and mistrust. Building a new city on an undeveloped site, free of vested interests, with trusted third parties, is one way to fast-track reforms that might otherwise take decades to achieve.

Canadians are increasingly aware of the limits of traditional aid but remain committed to the principle that supporting international development is not only in Canada’s national interest but is the right thing to do. Recent trade agreements with Peru, Colombia, Panama and Honduras demonstrate that Latin America remains high on Canada’s development agenda.

The RED offers a new way to think about development assistance, one that, like trade, relies on mutually beneficial exchange rather than charity. It’s an effort to build on the success of existing special zones based around the export-processing maquila industry. These zones have expanded employment in areas such as garments and textiles, with substantial investment from Canadian firms such as Gildan, but they haven’t brought the improved legal protections needed to attract higher-skilled jobs. By setting up the rule of law, the RED can open up new opportunities for Canadian firms to expand manufacturing operations and invest in urban infrastructure.

By participating in RED governance, Canada can make the new city a more attractive place for would-be residents and investors. It can help immediately by appointing a representative to a commission that has the power to ensure that RED leadership remains transparent and accountable. It also can assist by training police officers.

The courts in the RED will be independent from those in the rest of Honduras. The Mauritian Supreme Court has agreed in principle to serve as a court of final appeal for the RED, but Canada can play a strong complementary role. Because the RED can appoint judges from foreign jurisdictions, Canadian justices could hear RED cases from Canada and help train local jurists.

Oversight, policing and jurisprudence are just a few of the ways in which Canada can help. Effective public involvement will also be required in education, health care, environmental management and tax administration. Such co-operation can be based on a fee-for-service arrangement in which the RED pays Canada using gains in the value of the land in the new reform zone.

The world does not need more aid. As the Gallup numbers show, it needs more Canada – more of the norms and know-how that lead to the rule of law, true inclusion and real opportunity for all. Because only people who want to live under the RED’s new system of rules would choose to move there, Canada’s presence would not only be welcome but legitimate.

By working together, Canada and Honduras can do what traditional aid can’t: offer people a chance to live and work in a safe and well-run city, one that provides economic opportunities for Canadians and Hondurans alike, and one that has the potential to inspire reform in the rest of Honduras and throughout the region.

Paul Romer is a professor of economics at the New York University Stern School of Business. Octavio Sanchez is chief of staff to the President of Honduras. Prof. Romer is co-author of a recent paper for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute on charter cities, economic development and Canadian opportunities.

Interesting idea, but I see a thin line between this an colonialism.

[Heisenberg]

Being invited in by the people vs. Storming the beaches with guns blazing? Seems like a pretty substantial line to me.

[Enokh]

I love this idea. If America were the kind of country that could handle doing this, I'd want us to do it to. But having Canada do it makes a hell of a lot of sense.

[lutzj]

Interesting idea, but I see a thin line between this an colonialism.

As long as Canada doesn't profit from the endeavor and Honduras is assumed to retain sovereignty over the zone, I doubt it'll drift into colonialism.

[Arrian]

As long as Canada doesn't profit from the endeavor and Honduras is assumed to retain sovereignty over the zone, I doubt it'll drift into colonialism.

What's the problem with profit?

If it's in the style of Paul Romer's charter cities idea, (check out some of the TED talks on the video page) then it will be a semi autonomous city within Honduras that sets up its own laws and institutions. The idea is to bypass the political economy problems with existing governments (graft, poor court systems, meaningless red tape, etc) to create a high functioning government in third world population zones, allowing foreign companies to invest safely and local residents to move (or out) freely to take advantage of the new jobs. (And leave if they don't like what they see.)

At a brief glance, it looks like they're having Canada set up the government infrastructure, which should give them a pretty credible legal foundation.

This is a big scale aid experiment, and potentially the most important libertarian event of the century. I haven't been following the charter cities project closely, but the last I heard, Madagascar was tinkering with the idea, but I hadn't heard anything about Honduras.

[Yakk]

The problem with fearing the profit motive is that if Canada doesn't profit from the zone, I doubt it will go far. Modern civil society ain't cheap. And once there is profit, there are incentives...

If this is successful, you'll see Canadian companies building factories and offices in this zone, which will result in profits for Canadians, which will be part of the justification the Government will give to increased investment. The more successful it is, the larger the connection becomes -- and if it is very successful, the connection becomes very strong.

What then happens if the Honduran congress decides to destroy it, for whatever reason? Historically, a stronger nation with an enclave that is destroyed by the locals ends up responding with violence.

If you get lucky, and very successful, the zone's "good governance" is exported to the rest of the country, which bootstraps itself without a schism from the zone until it is more on a level playing field, and the zone is dismantled in an orderly fashion when Honduras is closer in equal power to Canada, and/or after Canada's entanglement in the rest of the country has eclipsed its entanglement with the zone.

(There is the alternative, which is "Canada is too nice a country to do something violent", but relying on that as an exit strategy seems unwise.)

[Dark567]

Interesting idea, but I see a thin line between this an colonialism.

As long as Canada doesn't profit from the endeavor and Honduras is assumed to retain sovereignty over the zone, I doubt it'll drift into colonialism.

The RED offers a new way to think about development assistance, one that, like trade, relies on mutually beneficial exchange rather than charity. It’s an effort to build on the success of existing special zones based around the export-processing maquila industry.

Bolded for my emphasis.

On the sovereignty, surely it is giving up some sovereignty if it is allowing Canada to make laws and institutions, even if everything came to a head they would be able to kick Canada out.

[lutzj]

The problem with fearing the profit motive is that if Canada doesn't profit from the zone, I doubt it will go far. Modern civil society ain't cheap. And once there is profit, there are incentives...

If this is successful, you'll see Canadian companies building factories and offices in this zone, which will result in profits for Canadians, which will be part of the justification the Government will give to increased investment. The more successful it is, the larger the connection becomes -- and if it is very successful, the connection becomes very strong.

This. Foreign aid should primarily benefit the country meant to be aided. I understand that some control needs to be given to the Canadian officials in order for this experiment to work, but it needs to be the understanding of all parties that the charter city fundamentally remains a part of Honduras and subject to Honduran laws. This sort of thing has turned out badly before.

[Dark567]

but it needs to be the understanding of all parties that the charter city fundamentally remains a part of Honduras and subject to Honduran laws.

The entire point of the city is that it's not under Hondurans laws, because Honduran laws apparently suck.

[Yakk]

20,000 soldiers with a 100 million dollar budget. 31 patrol boats (max tonnage ~1000 each), a few 100 heavy weapons (mortars and up), 24 tanks, two dozen fighters, 8 million citizens.
70,000 soldiers with a 21 billion dollar budget. 79 fighter and bomber jets, 15 5000 tonne ships (and more than a dozen 1000+ tonne ships), ~150 tanks, 150+ field artillery pieces, 33 million citizens.

The power gradient, even ignoring the economic one, is huge.

If the experiment is a complete failure, then Canada's interest will be nearly zilch.

If the experiment is a partial failure, you could easily have Canada's interest being large enough to incite violence.

And, in a sense, the economic gradiant is more dangerous than the military one. If this starts taking off, you'll see a warping of the political scene in Honduras due to foreign money flowing into the RED.

I'm not saying this is a bad idea, but it is a dangerous one that could end very well, or very badly.

This. Foreign aid should primarily benefit the country meant to be aided.

Foreign aid that primarily benefits the country meant to be aided ends up failing. Foreign aid (in the form of trade) can be scaled up to ridiculous levels, because when done right, it doesn't cost the "helping" country.

Setting up rules to prevent the "donor" country from benefiting is easy: just ban it. The problem is, setting them up so that the donor country benefits, but the receiving country does as well. And doing so in such a way that the benefit to the receiving country is maximized...

---

Dark, the theory is that it is less the laws that suck, but the rule of law that sucks. The laws probably also suck -- but a current going theory is that endemic corruption causes lots and lots of damage. If many civil servants (from police, to judges, to drinking water inspectors) are arranging things so that they can get graft, the machinery of civil society doesn't work well. The bad laws are also a problem -- if tax laws are so bad that the amount you owe is a function of how friendly you are with your tax inspector, what happens is that you bribe the tax inspector to not notice you. This discourages you from growing (because once you get bigger, bigger fish want a cut of your bribes -- and your past bribes are now crimes that you can be blackmailed about), and because everything you do is off books, discourages others from investing in a business that could grow.

Then the idea of this kind of thing -- where you attempt to build a civil society based off of a successful country -- is aimed at dealing with that kind of sick civil society.

Or so I've read.

[Dauric]

but it needs to be the understanding of all parties that the charter city fundamentally remains a part of Honduras and subject to Honduran laws.

The entire point of the city is that it's not under Hondurans laws, because Honduran laws apparently suck.

Not quite. If i'm reading it correctly it's not about rejecting the laws en-masse, but rather on changing the judicial procedures in enforcing and investigating breaches of the law. Think of it as court-reform, allowing Canada to run the courts and -hopefully- minimizing corruption in the jurisprudence system while still enforcing Honduran laws.

Reducing corruption in the court system by effectively 'outsourcing' the legal system it reduces economic uncertainty caused by bribes, nepotism, etc. etc. (so the theory goes). Reducing that uncertainty means the RED becomes an attractive place to invest in, investment means jobs, infrastructure, and through that a growing market willing to buy Canadian exports (as well as exports from other nations).

They're not rewriting say Honduran traffic laws, they're just allowing the Canadians to replace the system of enforcing those laws with one that is (in theory) less prone to abuse than the one Honduras already has.

I think it's optimistic, but interesting nonetheless.

[Sheikh al-Majaneen]

Consensual colonialism. I approve.

[Vaniver]

[edit]How the hell did I misread Honduras as Haiti? This post should probably be ignored.

Interesting idea, but I see a thin line between this an colonialism.

Given the disaster that post-colonial Haiti had been, wouldn't that a good thing?

[poxic]

It's an interesting idea. Unfortunately, people are still very much like people and not like ideas, so things will go wrong. I hope they don't go too badly wrong, or even (to be optimistic) more right than wrong.

Not everyone getting involved will have pure motives, Canadian or Honduran or anynational else. If some things do go right, there will be people outside the successful part who will burn the candle at all six ends* to find a way to get their hands on some of that. Also, once an international corporation or few get involved, there will be no "dismantling in an orderly fashion" -- if Canada's government continues rightward, there is little reason to think they won't military up to keep the money flowing.

(I can't remember where I read this, but someone gave an account of a "war council" of sorts about the time of the invasion of Iraq. Around the table were the heads of Coca-Cola, General Dynamics, one or more of the car companies, oil companies, possibly even McDonald's... Does anyone know the reference?)


* Creative accounting.

[Iulus Cofield]

Why is Mauritius involved in this? Or, I guess, what I am really asking is how did Mauritius get involved in this?

[DavidH]

Are you people insane? When has Canada's military last been the aggressor in a war? I think you're confusing us with the united states.

[poxic]

(Thus the caveat "if Canada's government continues rightward".)

[DavidH]

(Thus the caveat "if Canada's government continues rightward".)

Harper at his most extreme wouldn't be an aggressor in a war. You're confusing "right" with "insane".

[Derek]

Are you people insane? When has Canada's military last been the aggressor in a war? I think you're confusing us with the united states.

Clearly Canada's violent and unprovoked invasion of the US in the War of 1812 is evidence that they cannot be trusted.


*Yes, I'm fully aware of how wrong that statement is.

[poxic]

I hope you're right correct. What I see in Harper isn't insanity, though, just a hunger for an American brand of power. I don't know how far that goes, since we haven't seen a "with us or against us" moment* from south of us since he took office.


_{* Initially wrote "tantrum", decided to remove it. But then noted it here, so that doesn't fix anything, does it?}

[Iulus Cofield]

Are you people insane? When has Canada's military last been the aggressor in a war? I think you're confusing us with the united states.

You seem to be arguing that a lack of military aggression by a remote country with a smaller military, economy and population than its two nearest competitors (and nothing they've disputed with Denmark was worth military action anyway) means that, once established as the more powerful actor and lawmaker in a sphere of influence, said country will not succumb to the overwhelming temptation to exploit and profit.

I do believe we have finally received the long awaited confession that Canadians are not human.

I hope that the Hondurans, for one, welcome their new android overlords.

[Zamfir]

Are you people insane? When has Canada's military last been the aggressor in a war? I think you're confusing us with the united states.

I doubt anyone here seriously thinks Canada is going to invade Honduras. But at the same time, the military is in the end a major backstop of the legal system. Canadian billionaires and large companies still meekly follow court orders if they lose a court case, because even the thought of resistance is silly. If they take up arms, the government has more arms. If they bribe too much police or officials, higher authorities will sweep in and replace them. If they too crudely bribe the top, the next elections will replace that top.

In this case, that backstop will be the the state of Honduras, who apparently don't even fully trust themselves. If this experiment reaches any serious scale, there will be locally well-connected Hondurans with powerful interests in the specifics, and also well-funded foreign companies. The pressures from those groups are not going to rest on Canada, exactly because Canada won't invade Honduras to uphold Canadian laws.

Instead, its going to rest on roughly the same Honduran state as it does now. If they can push for Honduran laws in their favour, they can push for extra exemptions to Canadian laws in their favour. If they can bribe Honduran policemen and officials, they can bribe RED policemen and officials. And the counterpressure has to come form the same central Honduran government that just decided that it doesn't trust itself in that respect.

Of course, canada couls influence the events there in ways that fall short of physical force. Though that still runs into the same interest/desinterest dilemma: we can somewhat trust Canada as long they don't have large interests in the zones. But that same lack of interest means that Canada won't be very active as a counterforce, and can be easily brushed aside. And if Canada has noticable interests (like Canadian companies in the zones, or mining contracts, etc), they become tainted and can't just be given large powers there.

[Angua]

[edit]How the hell did I misread Honduras as Haiti? This post should probably be ignored.

Spoiler:

Interesting idea, but I see a thin line between this an colonialism.

Given the disaster that post-colonial Haiti had been, wouldn't that a good thing?

Spoiler:

Post-colonial Haiti mainly failed because every other country embargoed them so the uppity slaves who dared to rebel would fail at a country. It was basically other countries favouring slavery and colonialism that led to their disaster.

[Belial]

Spoiler:

[edit]How the hell did I misread Honduras as Haiti? This post should probably be ignored.

Interesting idea, but I see a thin line between this an colonialism.

Given the disaster that post-colonial Haiti had been, wouldn't that a good thing?

Spoiler:

Because after you break something, clearly the solution is to hit it more. Colonialism ruined your country in a lasting way? Let's fix it with MOAR COLONIALISM!

[Whimsical Eloquence]

Spoiler:

[edit]How the hell did I misread Honduras as Haiti? This post should probably be ignored.

Interesting idea, but I see a thin line between this an colonialism.

Given the disaster that post-colonial Haiti had been, wouldn't that a good thing?

[spoiler]Because after you break something, clearly the solution is to hit it more. Colonialism ruined your country in a lasting way? Let's fix it with MOAR COLONIALISM!

Spoiler:

Not to specifically advocate anything here. But isn't that an argument to do Colonialism better? Or does, "having a government ruined our country. Let's fix it with with more Government!" work as an argument against having States?

[The Mighty Thesaurus]

Spoiler:

I believe vaniver would argue that ending colonialism is what ruined the country, not colonialism per se. Personally, I'm putting my money on racism

[Jessica]

I need more information on these zones.

a) Are the people within the zones still given democratic rights? I've seen inklings of no in other instances, but not necessarily this one.
b) Are the people in the zone allowed the same rights that Canadians are allowed, or is it more similar to the Mexican free trade zones, where the people's rights end with the corporations in the zone.
c) Is there an exit plan? I don't remember the article stating anything about it specifically.

Sure the government said it was cool. I wonder how the people in the RED zone feel. Also, I really wish I could find more info than this one Globe and Mail article. Tried searching yesterday, found nothing. If it's supposed to be similar to the Mexican free trade zones, then I'm not really happy about that.

Honestly I'm not sure if this is a good thing for everyone. Probably good for Canadian business and Canadian government. Probably good for international corporations in general. Good for Hondurans? No idea, but if colonialism has shown anything, it's that the locals generally get the short end of the stick.

[morriswalters]

Let us see. Canada and Honduras trying to do something to make things better. Or maintaining the status quo. I dunno, It seems like a no brainer to me. Colonialism, whatever its evils is a done deal, you can't change the facts. RED would try to do a number of things, control immigration at its source by giving people a reason to stay being what I see as the primary one. Could be a useful paradigm.

[Yakk]

People trying to make things better often make things worse. So you don't get a free pass by "trying to make things better".

The military question is somewhat important. While Canada has, in the recent past, mainly engaged in wars of aggression at the behest of other more powerful nations in their power block, they haven't had serious investments abroad or incentives to do so.

Suppose that this is a half-success, in that it generates a bustling metropolis, but doesn't uplift the rest of the country. Large numbers of Canadian citizens live in the RED, and many Honduran RED locals have picked up Canadian citizenship -- on the order of 1 million Canadian citizens and 1 million residents of the RED. 5% of Canadian trade flows between Canada and the RED (which is a large amount of money). Border controls where introduced, and there are relatively slum-like towns outside of the RED that are worse off. The Honduran government then decides to close the experiment down in a swirl of vilification of the residents of the RED as being colonialist running dogs, and nationalizes all Canadian assets in the RED.

Both parties have a "legitimate" (to themselves) interest in what happens in the RED. The Honduran government because it is sovereign there (and has a piece of paper to prove it), and the Canadian government because it is more powerful than the state that is nominally sovereign there, and has massive entanglements and incentives to prevent what the sovereign state wants to do. That is the kind of thing that breeds war and colonial conflict.

Even moreso, ~3 out of 7 million Honduran residents (presuming no population growth) may be pro-RED. So the pro-RED forces could engage in a civil war, pulling Canada into it.

Now this is just a thought experiment, but the point is that colonialism has been found to be very hard to do "right" historically. It isn't implausible that entanglements like this could end in violence.

a) Are the people within the zones still given democratic rights? I've seen inklings of no in other instances, but not necessarily this one.

Often the justification of "you can leave if you want to" is used to put aside democratic rights.

b) Are the people in the zone allowed the same rights that Canadians are allowed, or is it more similar to the Mexican free trade zones, where the people's rights end with the corporations in the zone.

Almost certainly not? The right to enter Canada, for example, is probably not handed out to every person who enters the RED.

[morriswalters]

However people doing nothing achieve nothing. Are there any competing ideas? I see no significant resources to steal, the country is in turmoil but not at war. Literacy is high, the population at 8 million is relatively small, it has some type of experience using this technique. Canada doesn't seem to have a compelling interest, at least that I am aware of.

[Jessica]

I see no significant resources to steal...

Well, the resource they are looking to get would be the cheep labor, without all those pesky rights things.

[Ormurinn]

There seems to be a big concern in this thread that Canada doesn't get anything out of this relationship. Why is that? Presumably living in this new charter city will be completely voluntary, with no element of coercion, so I don't see what would be wrong with a mutually beneficial relationship. If I were in the same position as Honduras, I'd rather be treated as a soverign equal than as an aid recipient - and providing a real benefit to Canada is a good way to ensure the project gets suported fully.

If Canada doesn't at least break even, yo're siphoning off Canadian tax dollars to pay for something that doesn't benefit the taxpayers. That strikes me as unfair.

[LaserGuy]

Well, on the military side of things, Canada doesn't need to invade in order to exert military influence, strictly speaking. Depending on the rules of the agreement, it's entirely possible that the Canadian Forces could set up a small military base within the RED area, and, you know, run training exercises and things. If things turn sour, well, they're already there to help "keep the peace". I can't imagine any Canadian government selling an invasion of a third world country without serious UN backing, which they probably wouldn't get, but there might be workarounds.

Will the project work? Well, I don't expect it will come to violence. More likely, it will just be much, much more expensive than any of the proponents dreamed, and the benefits will be far fewer. When the government sees that this is coming a black hole for public funds, they'll pull the plug. In the unlikely event that it does work really well, it may be a model for economic development in the future. Of course, just because it worked (hypothetically) in Honduras is no guarantee that it will work somewhere else.

[edit]Just to be clear, it does not appear to the be the case that Canada has actually signed onto this as of yet, which is why it isn't getting much mainstream coverage. The linked article in the OP is an op-ed from a charter cities advocate.

[Zamfir]

[edit]Just to be clear, it does not appear to the be the case that Canada has actually signed onto this as of yet, which is why it isn't getting much mainstream coverage. The linked article in the OP is an op-ed from a charter cities advocate.

i have understood this is, as yet, the main hurdle of the plans. Poor countries seem open to the idea, as long they don't have to give up real sovereignity over the territory. But rich countries are not lining up. It's a weird proposal after all. It's cute at a small scale, send in some trainers, lawyers and administrators. But a bit of success would be embarassing. What are you going to do with a city of a hundred thousand people or more, on other side of the world? leave? provide an entire civil service to it? raise taxes? how much? what if some of people there protest against some policies, or throw the tea overboard and demand representation? ignore them, send in the coppers, let the local country handle it? could be a hornet's nest without end

[morriswalters]

A lot of the problems come from the North because of the drug trade, if you don't solve those then everything will fail. Even Costa Rica is starting to see problems.

[aoeu]

Take notice that "the Mauritian Supreme Court has agreed in principle to serve as a court of final appeal for the RED". Canada doesn't get to bend the law after the fact.

[Zamfir]

Also this:

Presumably living in this new charter city will be completely voluntary, with no element of coercion, so I don't see what would be wrong with a mutually beneficial relationship.

There's children. In 20 years time, a significant part of a city will consist of people who didn't choose to move there, but were brought by their parents or simply born there. They will still consider it their city, probably stronger than anyone else. Suppose they don't like the charter, and want to vote in their own city council. Or demand public health care, and old-age pensions. Crazier things have happened.

[Dark567]

Because not a lot has been said outside the original article, here is a followup from the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magaz ... l?_r=1&hpw

Spoiler:

Shortly after the 2009 coup that overthrew Manuel Zelaya, Honduras’s newly elected president, Porfirio Lobo, asked his aides to think big, really big. How could Honduras, the original banana republic, reform a political and economic system that kept nearly two-thirds of its people in grim poverty?
Deep Thoughts This Week

1. The world is becoming overwhelmingly urban.

2. Multinationals rarely invest in unstable nations.

3. There must be a better way for rich countries to help poorer ones.

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One young aide, Octavio Rubén Sánchez Barrientos, had no idea how to undo the entrenched power networks. Honduras’s economy is dominated by a handful of wealthy families; two American conglomerates, Dole and Chiquita, have controlled its agricultural exports; and desperately poor farmers barely eke out subsistence wages. Then a friend showed him a video lecture of the economist Paul Romer, which got Sánchez thinking of a ridiculously big idea: What if Honduras just started all over again?

Romer, in a series of papers in the 1980s, fundamentally changed the way economists think about the role of technology in economic growth. Since then, he has studied why some countries stay poor even when they have access to the same technology as wealthier ones. He eventually realized something that seems obvious to any nonacademic, that poor countries are saddled with laws and, crucially, customs that prevent new ideas from taking shape. He concluded that if they want to be rich, poor countries need to somehow undo their invidious systems (corruption, oppression of minorities, bureaucracy) and create an environment more conducive to business. Or they could just start from scratch.

Then he decided to put the theory into practice. In 2009, Romer developed the idea of charter cities — economic zones founded on the land of poor countries but governed with the legal and political system of, often, rich ones. There were a couple of interested parties. (The president of Madagascar was intrigued by a preliminary version of the idea, Romer told me, but he was soon ousted in a coup.) Then, in late 2010, Sánchez met with Romer, and the two hurriedly persuaded President Lobo to make Honduras the site of an economic experiment. The country quickly passed a constitutional amendment that allowed for the creation of a separately ruled Special Development Region.

According to Romer, becoming a wealthy country requires better-run cities because that’s where people are headed. Cities might offer horribly paying jobs in factories and domestic service, but many families make the move because they’re still earning far more than they can make by farming. In 1900, nearly 90 percent of the world’s population was rural. By 2000, three-quarters of people in the United States, Western Europe and other wealthy countries were city dwellers. In the next 40 years, the United Nations estimates, the world’s urban population will grow by nearly three billion, largely in poor countries.

It has been an ugly transition. I saw it firsthand a few years back, when I visited a family in San Pedro Sula, Honduras’s business capital. José Avila and Gloria Rodríguez, who worked much of their lives on a banana plantation for 25 cents a day, had recently moved to a lawless slum outside the city so that their children might have a better future. By the time I met them, they had just earned enough money to turn their shack into a concrete house. José was selling computers, and his oldest daughter, Joheny, was a star sock-machine repairwoman. Joheny insisted that she was one of the lucky ones. Many of the other women her age were able to work only as prostitutes or for drug dealers.

Romer’s charter city is trying to avoid this dark side of urbanization by adapting older, more successful models. The United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong and Singapore were able to build well-designed cities that housed and employed millions, in part by persuading foreigners to invest heavily. Dubai created a number of micro­cities — one of which, for instance, is governed by a system resembling English common law with judges from Britain, Singapore and New Zealand.

[eran_rathan]

Can...can we get Canada do that here in the US? Please?

Ou <<s'il vous plait>>, si vous preferez...