Real-time analysis of charter cities and related topics
January 20, 2021
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
January 11, 2021
A brief feasibility assessment on using to-be-closed US overseas bases as charter city sites.
Background notes on DP World's Port of Berbera, Somaliland as a potential charter city site.
January 4, 2021
Amna Al Owais gives an introduction to the DIFC Courts and their inner workings.
November 13, 2019
Executive Director Mark Lutter parses the distinction between large real estate projects and viable cities.
September 23, 2019
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.
December 21, 2020
September 2, 2019
November 12, 2020
Tom Bell introduces the history, philosophy, and workings of his Ulex open-source legal system.
October 26, 2020
Alex Rothenberg presents his paper, "Urban Sprawl and Social Capital: Evidence from Indonesian Cities."
June 30, 2020
Susanne Frick presents her paper on special economic zones in emerging economies.
June 15, 2020
Richard Bolwijn presents his research team's findings from the 2019 World Investment Report.
May 12, 2020
Kat Nawrot and James Donald present their paper, "African Megacities as Emerging Innovation Ecosystems."
April 22, 2020
Nicolas Lippolis presents his co-authored paper "Can Africa Learn from the Chinese Urbanization Story?"
April 20, 2020
Matt Prewitt and Paul Healy present their research paper, '"Building Radical Charter Cities."
December 16, 2020
We are proud to release our 2020 Annual Report.
December 1, 2020
November 17, 2020
September 21, 2019
Mark Levin offers lessons for charter cities from his four decades of experience in city management.
A unique variety of informal settlement emerged in Cairo in the 1990s.
September 28, 2020
September 23, 2020
Bastrop, Texas is bringing back the grid to urban planning. New cities in Africa should follow suit.
July 15, 2020
July 8, 2020
Paul Healy and Matt Prewitt detail three RadicalxChange policies for improving charter city governance.
The American founding offers crucial lessons for charter cities.
The third entry in our Building Africa blog series on pre-colonial urban development in Africa.
June 22, 2020
April 2, 2020
The second entry in our Building Africa blog series on pre-colonial urban development in Africa.
May 27, 2020
The first entry in a series of blog posts on pre-colonial urban development in Africa.
May 20, 2020
Can Nollywood learn about agglomeration effects from Hollywood?
May 19, 2020
May 8, 2020
It's probably close to zero.
April 29, 2020
Congratulations to 2020 John Bates Clark Medalist Melissa Dell!
April 10, 2020
Are ports a better development bet than RCTs? It's an open question.
April 9, 2020
Charter cities have much in common with this widely-used project financing model.
April 6, 2020
Strong institutions are necessary to weather negative economic shocks and support long-run growth.
March 31, 2020
A closer look at the steps a successful charter city might take in the face of a pandemic.
March 25, 2020
Regulatory reform matters for charter cities, not tax incentives.
March 18, 2020
Charter cities would follow the Asian Tigers, not the West.
March 16, 2020
March 6, 2020
February 17, 2020
February 12, 2020
January 28, 2020
January 27, 2020
We're hiring a Legal Researcher. If interested, send a resume and cover letter to mark@cci.city
We're hiring an Operations Manager. If interested, email a resume and cover letter to mark@cci.city
December 20, 2019
December 17, 2019
December 16, 2019
We're proud to release our 2019 Annual Report.
December 9, 2019
December 2, 2019
Charter cities offer residents in emerging economies something they rarely get: a choice of where and under which institutions to live.
November 18, 2019
November 12, 2019
A call for academic papers ahead of the inaugural Charter Cities Conference on March 17-18, 2020.
October 24, 2019
September 20, 2019
Paul Romer went to Burning Man.
September 5, 2019
August 27, 2019
We are happy to announced the 1st and 2nd prize winners of our Technology Zone White Paper Contest: Ross Marchand and Ryan Hagemann.
July 31, 2019
As the Center has grown and developed, so has the substance of our internal conversations.
July 1, 2019
On the connection between charter cities and effective altruism.
June 3, 2019
On May 2nd, Executive Director Mark Lutter and Communications Lead Tamara Winter spoke at the Lincoln Network’s Reboot American Innovation Conference.
May 13, 2019
The Charter Cities Institute is pleased to announce our Charter Cities Business Plan Contest. First-place prize is $25,000 and second place receives $10,000.
May 7, 2019
Noah Smith recently asked me on Twitter to compare charter cities to Millennium Villages.
April 23, 2019
I recently tweeted that the Charter Cities Institute is “Gonna make charter cities replicable. Charter cities in a box.” I’d like to unpack what I mean by that.
April 4, 2019
Some answers to frequently asked questions about charter cities.
March 26, 2019
A charter city is a city given a special jurisdiction to create a new governance system.
March 20, 2019
We’re pleased to share our new brochure, “Building the Future of Governance.”
March 6, 2019
Inspired by these questions and others we’ve received, we’ll also be posting an FAQ on the website in the coming days.
February 4, 2019
We have a new working paper by Jorge Colindres and myself (Mark Lutter) on how charter cities can make Honduras great.
January 17, 2019
The Charter Cities Institute is pleased to announce our Technology Zones White Paper Competition: “Towards a New Regulatory Framework”.
December 10, 2018
I’m interested in teaching a charter cities course next year so I wrote up this draft syllabus.
October 30, 2018
These questions are focused around charter cities and innovative governance.
October 9, 2018
A review of Artemis by Andy Weir
October 8, 2018
Paul Romer, along with William Nordhaus, just won the Nobel Prize in economics for his work on endogenous growth theory.
A guest post by Mischa Spiegelmock.
October 2, 2018
Video lecture on charter cities locations.
October 1, 2018
A presentation overview of Ulex.
September 12, 2018
A summary of events in the charter cities space in September.
August 1, 2018
The nomination of Brett Kavanuagh to the Supreme Court has ignited an interesting discussion about the rise of the conservative legal movement.
July 23, 2018
An interview with Joe Quirk, President of the Seasteading Institute.
July 9, 2018
A conversation with Michael Castle Miller, the Founder and CEO of Politas Consulting.
June 21, 2018
One of the most important considerations in building a charter city is location.
May 31, 2018
Wade Shepard, a journalist who writes on new cities has an in Forbes which describes some of the challenges in categorizing new city projects.
May 7, 2018
Last week I attended the World Free Zone Organization’s annual conference in Dubai.
April 22, 2018
The development community is shifting their focus to fragile states. The World Bank doubled their fund for fragile states.
April 9, 2018
Hambantota is a port in Southern Sri Lanka of which control was ceded to China in a 99 year lease.
April 7, 2018
The New York Times has a very interesting article on ISIS and how they created a bureaucracy to administer their territory and collect taxes.
March 22, 2018
An interview with Preston Mendenhall, the Head of Corporate Affairs for Rendeavour.
April 11, 2018
The Case of the Honduran ZEDE Regime
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