Ideas change everything

The world's first charter city?

531,243 plays|

Paul Romer |

TED2011

• March 2011

Back in 2009, Paul Romer unveiled the idea for a "charter city" -- a new kind of city with rules that favor democracy and trade. This year, at TED2011, he tells the story of how such a city might just happen in Honduras ... with a little help from his TEDTalk.

Back in 2009, Paul Romer unveiled the idea for a "charter city" -- a new kind of city with rules that favor democracy and trade. This year, at TED2011, he tells the story of how such a city might just happen in Honduras ... with a little help from his TEDTalk.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference.

Read our curation guidelines.

About the speaker

Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, World Bank

See speaker profile

Paul Romer's research on catch-up growth in low- and middle-income countries has emphasized the importance of government policies that encourage orderly urban expansion.

Learn more

"The Trouble With Macroeconomics"

"For more than three decades, macroeconomics has gone backwards," says Paul Romer in this September 2016 paper. "A parallel with string theory from physics hints at a general failure mode of science that is triggered when respect for highly regarded leaders evolves into a deference to authority that displaces objective fact from its position as the ultimate determinant of scientific truth."

This talk was presented at an official TED conference.

Read our curation guidelines.