Infectious Talk Podcast with Paul Kedrosky

1. Posted this to your FB page, thought I’d CC here.:
   Although the concept of Charter Cities is fascinating in it’s potential; there is the problem of it’s practical application in the material. It’s a cornucopian inference to say that because there are 9 US cities over 5 million we can build numerous cities to the same standard of living, and presumably similar levels of consumption, around the world. But I understand that the statement is what it is: a demonstration of possibility. To me the concept represents a McLuhanesque retrieval of the polis, the city-state. “There’s nothing new under the sun” so to say. It is a logical extension of the success of the rule of law that we’d want to build new cities with better laws. I’m not convinced that nations are “too big” to apply good rules, as you stated in your TED presentation. The NY Times recently published an article comparing the success of efficiency standards on appliances versus the lack of such standards on consumer electronics. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/business/energy-environment/20efficiency.html?_r=1&em
   I think the example in the Times article illustrates the possibility of successful regulation and the impeding factor to legislating that regulation: corporate lobby.

   One problem I see is the potential unintended consequences of laws, or conversely; what are the exact intentions of the laws? I guess what I’m driving is what do you see as the ideal governance of a charter city? The examples you’ve cited have all at least began under authoritarian governments . Hong Kong was a colony under a viceroy, South Korea was a dictatorship, Singapore’s draconian laws are well known etc. I recall reading an article in which a young woman who worked in a new factory in China was interviewed. She had moved from the rural family home (and her family) to a one room apartment. She talked of how lonely she was and how city food prices really cut into any financial gains. I have a neighbour who told me that during a trip to China he watched people marched to work under armed guard. Those sorts of circumstances don’t seem like any improvement of living standards to me even though on paper they represent increase in GDP. A Maquiladora/free trade zone model doesn’t provide the infrastructure, such as the example of electrification, to the community. Nelson doesn’t have electricity because either a.) his street and/or house aren’t wired or b.) he can’t afford to pay for electricity because he has no job therefore no money. (Sidebar: is the price disparity between cell phone rates and electricity rates really so much in that country that it would make sense for a person to have a phone for personal communication but not electricity for their whole family?) How is that electricity produced? Hydro-electric or solar have no input, no fuel, costs. Coal or natural gas are more expensive overall.

   It seems to me that what you’re proposing is a sort of scientific rationalism. The question seems to be does economics build the city or does the city make the economics. I believe there are relevant models a little further back in history than the examples you’ve cited. When I was watching your TED presentation one of my first thoughts was of Robert Owen’s unique combinations of socialism and capitalism but then my mind turned to an example I’ve seen concretely. I went to college in Sault Ste. Marie Ontario. It’s an interesting place of about 90 000 people built on the St Mary’s river rapids that flow from Lake Superior to Lake Huron. The location was significant to people since man first set eyes on it. Native people would travel from the American mid-west and Northern Ontario from all directions to fish and trade with each other there. Industrialization hit the town in the late 1800’s. Francis Hector Clergue was an American capitalist who saw the potential for hydro-electric generation in the rapids. He built the hydro-plant and needed a commercial customer so he built a pulp plant. The wet-pulp was way too expensive to ship and he needed sulphuric acid for a process to create dry pulp. The acid is a by-product of steel production so he built an iron mine, a steel plant and railway to transport the iron. (Krupp bought the steel so it’s entirely possible that Canadian soldiers on WWI battlefields were killed by Canadian steel. An early example of what today we’d call globalization.) Clergue lost his empire and his shirt around the turn of the century and of course he’s long dead. But the hydro-plant, steel plant, papermill and railway are still there. (A side bar here: can a person invest all their time, energy and money and risk losing it all as we all eventually do anyway, but a corporation cannot because they don’t have that finite lifetime? My grandfather had an aphorism: “There‘s no pockets in a coffin.” There’s no coffin for a corporation so they just worry about their pockets, so to speak. ) The “twin city” on the American side of the St. Mary’s is somewhere around 20 000 in population and no real industry to speak of. The juxtaposition of these two cities makes an interesting contrast.

   Laws don’t build a city, neither does money really. I look at that sandy coastline and I tried to think, what fit’s with these resources? I’m no scientist or enegineer but if I recall correctly; aerogel is highly insulative and made from sand and methane in the process. I think this might be an ideal building material but there is the question of intellectual property rights, amongst other things. What you’re really proposing is building “Civilization 3.0” a sort of “If you build it, they will come” philosophy. I think perhaps Siemens Desertec projects could perhaps serve as a nucleus for so called charter cities in Africa. Just like Clergue’s plant, these would provide the electricity and water for a nascent city. And people need food so they will need food, meaning in this case vertical farming and irrigation. Your future city should be designed with zero carbon (http://www.shweeb.com/) and even negative carbon technologies. (http://www.grestech.com/)
   Getting together the engineers and designers should be the easy part. Maybe something like the Transition Towns model except building from scratch. And I think once the infrastructure is built that perhaps such a city could be a demonstration model for new economics such as participatory economics. The money’s the hard part and I usually leave such things for the beancounters, but trillions of dollars piled up in the coffers of corporation and sovereign wealth funds and I think it’s time they bust out some largesse. I think it may be useful too to have another look at Jane Jacob’s work. After all, she helped make Toronto one of the best cities to live on the planet and so I will leave off with a passage:

   “I think economic life is for teaching our species it has responsibilities to the planet and the rest of nature,” said Kate. “At least that’s my hope. In it’s own way, that isn’t so far from bearing witness, Murray. It isn’t so far, either, from Hortense’s aim for justice and fairness, although I’m including other forms of life besides ours.”
   “I have two thoughts on the question,” said Armbruster. “First, beware of the drift into ideology. Economic ideologies are a curse. Carts before horses, tails wagging dogs, self-imposed blinders! I prefer Murray’s dry proposal to look at import-stretching ratios, skeptical though I was when he suggested it.”
   “I think they’d give us some large surprises,” said Murray.
   “Second,” Armbruster went on, “it seems to me that economies have alot in common with language – alot besides unpredictably making themselves up. What is language for? The glib answer is communication, which you could say of the yips of coyotes and pheromones of termites. Not an answer that does justice to the functions of language. How about this? Language is for learning and to pass along learning, in the process permitting us to develop cultures and multitudes of purposes. Just so, economies are to fill material needs, which you could say of the foraging of deer and the scavenging of buzzards. Not an answer that does justice to the functions of economies. Like language, economic life permits us to develop cultures and multitudes of purposes, and in my opinion, that’s its function which is most meaningful to us.”
   “I’ll go along with that,” said Murray. “Now, I really must leave and pay attention to those bees.”

   — Andy Robbins · Aug 21, 01:10 PM · #