The Blank Slate Fantasy The Promise and Pitfalls of International Charter Cities

International charter cities, a concept of autonomous cities popularized by American economist, Paul Romer, remain purely theoretical. Despite the many proponents of the idea, no charter city has been successfully implemented.

On 23 September 2020, anyone tuned into Nigerian Twitter was treated to an interesting thread about two Americans and their adventures across West Africa trying to build a new city. In the since-deleted thread, Dryden Wilson Tate Brown recounted how a sense of adventure and knowledge gained from reading ‘every book he could find’ drove him and his startup, Bluebook Cities, to meet with high level officials in Nigeria and Ghana. Perhaps predictably, Brown’s story was met with derision. Many critics pointed out that the pair’s whiteness and American citizenship granted them funding and access that would not have been accessible for Black African entrepreneurs. Others took issue with Brown’s limited knowledge of the region he aimed to work in and his use of harmful stereotypes about African cities.

Initiatives like Bluebook Cities spring from the concept of the international charter city, an idea popularized by American economist, Paul Romer. Romer advocated for governments of developing countries to create charter cities in which the laws and institutions of the home country could be replaced by those of more developed countries. Romer and his proponents argue that these cities should be purpose-built on ‘unused’ land in order to be free from ‘existing baggage’. By creating zones of economic security within supposedly ‘failed’ states, these cities could spur development for the whole country and create opportunities for the unemployed. They would operate autonomously of the state government, adopting best practices from jurisdictions around the world.

International charter cities in the Romer model remain purely theoretical, none have been successfully implemented. Nonetheless, it is an idea with many proponents. The Seasteading Institute, founded in 2008, has been sponsoring entrepreneurs looking to create charter cities on floating man-made islands. Brown cited both Romer and the Seasteading Institute as inspirations for his company’s desire to build a city in West Africa. Dr Gbenga Oduntan, a Nigerian lawyer and academic, has written that the purpose-built Eko Atlantic should be structured as a charter city to take full advantage of its potential.

But could charter cities actually work? In 2010, Paul Romer was approached by the government of Honduras to guide the development of its Zone for Employment and Economic Development (Zonas de empleo y desarrollo económico—ZEDE) in the model of his ideal charter city. Romer and other foreign experts were appointed to a transparency commission that was to oversee the project. However, this project ended with most members of the commission, including Romer himself, resigning in frustration. Construction has now stalled, and domestic and international critics have called out corruption in the development of the new city.

The reasons behind the failure of Honduras’s ZEDE illustrate the fundamental flaw behind international charter cities, and purpose-built cities more generally—the idea that one can start over in an environment free of context and baggage is ultimately a fantasy. In real life, there are no blank slates. Any effort to build new political or physical structures will need to contend with local context and existing institutions.