The Dream Machine

Charter cities, privately backed new cities in developing countries with their own economic regulations and laws, are presented as a way to build stable institutions and better governance, according to the first episode of Stripe Press's podcast Beneath the Surface. The episode traces the idea to economist Paul Romer, whose 2009 TED Talk proposed cities administered by developed countries, and notes that Patri Friedman and Mark Lutter now define the concept differently. It uses Lagos, where an unstable power grid and political corruption make electricity a struggle, to frame the problem these cities would address.