Free Private Cities with Peter Young - WBD553

Peter Young is the managing director of the Free Cities
Foundation. In this interview, we discuss the development of
autonomous administrative areas around the world called ‘free
cities’, where new types of governance can be offered to citizens
outside the control of existing states.


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Paul Romer, former chief economist at the World Bank and a Nobel
prize winner, proposed in 2009 the concept of Charter Cities.
Romer was trying to tackle the problem of stagnant investment in
the Global South arising from bad governance. The solution was to
evolve the idea behind special economic zones and create
autonomous city-states within existing countries.


The autonomy would extend to alternate legal and political
systems from the host nation, and to the provision of services by
private organisations. An advanced guarantor country would
protect the legal rights of residents. The idea was that such
cities would become trusted centres predicated on good rules,
attracting investment, firms and people, the benefits of which
then filter beyond the cities' boundaries into the host country.


The Free City Foundation have taken Romer’s idea and sought to
implement it in different parts of the world. The aim is to
provide citizens with alternatives to the status quo:
establishing new legal, financial and municipal relationships
with residents. The ideology is to reduce the size of the modern
state, which is considered to act in its own self-interest at the
expense of society.


There are a number of different scales of initiatives for the
Free City Foundation: from intentional communities to prosperity
zones, all the way to Free Private Cities. Prospera in Honduras
is a working example of a Free City: a new settlement on the
island of Roatán is being developed within its own civil law,
regulatory agencies and taxation; although it must still adhere
to the Honduran constitution, international treaties and criminal
law.


But this is only the start: many more examples are being
developed across the world. Perhaps the most innovative idea is
Seasteading, where independent communities are developed in
international waters, outside of the jurisdiction of existing
governments. Are these initiatives viable and preferable
alternatives to the nation-state? That may be too early to tell,
but there is a growing number of investors who think they are the
future of civilisation.