Ideas change everything

Why the world needs charter cities

746,910 plays|

Paul Romer |

TEDGlobal 2009

• July 2009

How can a struggling country break out of poverty if it's trapped in a system of bad rules? Economist Paul Romer unveils a bold idea: "charter cities," city-scale administrative zones governed by a coalition of nations. (Could Guantánamo Bay become the next Hong Kong?)

How can a struggling country break out of poverty if it's trapped in a system of bad rules? Economist Paul Romer unveils a bold idea: "charter cities," city-scale administrative zones governed by a coalition of nations. (Could Guantánamo Bay become the next Hong Kong?)

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.