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The Sunday Read: ‘The For-Profit City That Might Come Crashing Down’

The Sunday Read: ‘The For-Profit City That Might Come Crashing Down’

The Daily vor 2 Jahren

0:00

40:35

If Próspera were a normal town, Jorge Colindres, a freshly
cologned and shaven lawyer, would be considered its mayor. His
title here is “technical secretary.” Looking out over a clearing
in the trees in February, he pointed to the small office complex
where he works collecting taxes and managing public finances for
the city’s 2,000 or so physical residents and e-residents, many
of whom have paid a fee for the option of living in Próspera, on
the Honduran island of Roatán, or remotely incorporating a
business there.

Nearby is a manufacturing plant that is slated to build modular
houses along the coast. About a mile in the other direction are
some of the city’s businesses: a Bitcoin cafe and education
center, a genetics clinic, a scuba shop. A delivery service for
food and medical supplies will deploy its drones from this
rooftop.

Próspera was built in a semiautonomous jurisdiction known as a
ZEDE (a Spanish acronym for Zone for Employment and Economic
Development). It is a private, for-profit city, with its own
government that courts foreign investors through low taxes and
light regulation. Now, the Honduran government wants it gone.

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