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Are you interested charter cities?

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Our summary today works with the article titled Building resilient cities: The role of charter cities in promoting resilient urban development from 2024, by Eva Klaus and the Charter Cities Institute, published on the Charter Cities Institute website.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with Mark Lutter, the founder and executive director of Charter Cities Institute in episode 318 talking about charter cities and their role in urban futures.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how the charter cities concept can enhance urban resilience. This article introduces charter cities as new cities with new rules and the opportunities within climate adaptation and sustainable growth.

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Welcome to today’s What is The Future For Cities podcast and its Research episode; my name is Fanni, and today we will introduce a research by summarising it. The episode really is just a short summary of the original investigation, and, in case it is interesting enough, I would encourage everyone to check out the whole documentation. This conversation was produced and generated with Notebook LM as two hosts dissecting the whole research.

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Speaker 1: Today we’re diving deep into a really critical issue. Especially for these fast-growing cities in the global south, how can they actually become resilient with a climate changing so rapidly?

Speaker 2: We wanna unpack this so you walk away feeling like you’ve got a solid grasp. Maybe even have a couple of those aha moments. We’ve been digging into a pretty interesting research paper. It’s called Building Resilient Cities. The role of charter cities in promoting resilient urban development, and it pulls together a lot of existing research, but also puts forward a specific idea, a potential solution.

Speaker 1: So our mission today,

Speaker 2: basically to explore this whole concept of charter cities, could they be a strategy for building climate resilience cities, especially in the global south?

Speaker 1: Okay, let’s start with resilience itself. It’s the buzzword, isn’t it? But when we talk cities and climate, it’s not just bouncing back after disaster. What’s the real meaning here?

Speaker 2: Yeah, the paper is clear on this. Resilience here is more fundamental. It’s about a city’s ability to keep its essential functions running when things get tough to adapt as things change, and maybe even fundamentally transform systems if that’s what’s needed to survive long term.

Speaker 1: So it’s definitely not just about bigger sandbags or stronger sea walls.

Speaker 2: There’s definitely an engineering view, which is important, decreasing exposure, bouncing back quickly, building things stronger,

Speaker 1: which you need, obviously, which

Speaker 2: you absolutely need. But this paper argues for a broader, more dynamic systems approach. One that actually embraces change as well. Inevitable

Speaker 1: because cities aren’t static machines, they’re living systems. Uh, always evolving.

Speaker 2: It draws a bit from ecology. This idea that change is constant, so resilience becomes about the capacity to handle and adapt to that change. Maybe even shape it.

Speaker 1: Okay. So a city needs to be agile, learn, evolve. That makes sense. Now the paper breaks resilience down into two main parts, abortive capacity and adaptive capacity. Can you walk us through those?

Speaker 2: Absorptive capacity is the immediate thing. It’s the city’s ability to withstand a sudden shock. Think a major flood. An extreme heat wave without completely collapsing, without losing its basic form and function.

Speaker 1: Okay, and what influences that?

Speaker 2: The paper points to four key properties. First is diversity and redundancy, so having a mix of economic activities, different types of infrastructure, multiple ways to get essential services. If one part fails, there are backups, like having both a subway and buses or not relying on just one industry

Speaker 1: backups built into the system. Citywide redundancy.

Speaker 2: Exactly. Second is connectivity. How well are different parts of the city? Linked roads? Internet. Sure, but also social ties,

Speaker 1: social connections too.

Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely a well connected city moves, resources, information, people more effectively in a crisis. Think about how neighbors help each other out.

Speaker 1: So strong communities are as important as strong bridges maybe.

Speaker 2: Absolutely. Third slow variables. These are the underlying conditions, often less visible day to day.

Speaker 1: Like what?

Speaker 2: Like the health of the groundwater supply maybe, or even deep seated social inequalities. Things that change slowly, but have a huge impact on long-term resilience.

Speaker 1: Stuff you might not think about in the middle of a crisis, but that really matters overall.

Speaker 2: Number four,

Speaker 1: feedbacks. This is about how a change in one part of the system can trigger other changes. Sometimes amplifying the effect positive feedback, sometimes dampening it. Negative feedback like investing in parks might lead to better public health, which then maybe leads to more community engagement. I. Positive loop, enhancing, wellbeing, and potentially resilience.

Speaker 2: Okay, so those four, diversity, redundancy, connectivity, slow variables, feedbacks help a city absorb an immediate hit. Now, adaptive capacity, that’s the longer game. Adaptive capacity is about the ability of the people and the institutions within the city. To not just react, but to anticipate, change, innovate, and actually reshape the city for the future. Those more proactive, much more proactive. And the paper outlines four basic attributes of a governance system that can support this kind of adaptation. First, a balance between flexibility and stability. You need institutions that can change rules and operations when needed, but within a framework that’s still consistent and predictable, too rigid. You can adapt. Too chaotic. Nothing works.

Speaker 1: That sounds like a tricky balance to strike.

Speaker 2: It really is. Second, participation and inclusion. Resilience is stronger when lots of different groups and voices are involved in decisions. You get broader knowledge, more needs considered

Speaker 1: more perspectives should lead to better, more robust solutions. That sense makes sense. Third in-depth information and monitoring. Yeah, you can’t adapt if you don’t know what’s happening. So you need good systems for collecting and analysing data. Environmental, social, economic, everything. Data-driven, resilience,

Speaker 2: you could put it that way. And finally, continuous learning and experimentation. An adaptive city learns from successes and failures. It’s willing to try new things, refine its approach.

Speaker 1: So resilience isn’t a destination, it’s an ongoing process of learning and tweaking the paper zeros in on the global south. Why is building this kind of resilience, both absorptive and adaptive, so critical there?

Speaker 2: The paper really highlights their disproportionate vulnerability. It’s a mix of factors, geography, economic constraints, often weaker institutions. Figure one in the paper shows this visually, that higher climate vulnerability across much of the global south.

Speaker 1: And this is all happening while these regions are urbanizing incredibly fast,

Speaker 2: which is unbelievably fast. By 2050, the projections say over 70% of the world’s population will be in cities. Wow. And most of that growth Sub-Saharan Africa and India figure two really drives home the speed of it

Speaker 1: in the paper notes. This is happening faster and often at lower income levels and with less infrastructure than say, historical urbanization in Europe or North America. That sounds like a recipe for problems.

Speaker 2: It’s a huge challenge, and climate change just pours fuel on the fire. It’s a threat multiplier, making all the existing stresses of rapid urbanization. Worse, it hits social cohesion, productivity, the city’s basic ability to cope,

Speaker 1: so massive growth at the cities that are often already vulnerable, often lacking resources, and now facing intensifying climate impacts. Pretty stark picture.

Speaker 2: It is.

Speaker 1: And this is where the idea of charter cities enters the conversation as a potential way forward. Exactly. What exactly is a charter city in this context?

Speaker 2: The paper defines them as basically new cities with new rules. Okay. The idea is they offer a chance to build well-governed sustainable cities, more or less from scratch. Researchers like Mason and Letter emphasize that they operate under special legal jurisdiction, allowing for significant reforms and regulations and administration specifically aimed at making the local economy work better.

Speaker 1: New rules. What kind of rules? We’re talking about

Speaker 2: things like making it easier to start a business or register property. Modernizing land use planning, improving how essential services like water or sanitation are delivered. Maybe even some autonomy on things like local taxes or immigration within the city limits. The thinking is it might be more feasible to these reforms at a city scale than trying to change things nationwide all at once,

Speaker 1: like a test bed for better governance. How are they typically run?

Speaker 2: Often it involves partnerships between the host, country, government, and private developers.

Speaker 1: Ah, public-private partnerships, pps,

Speaker 2: which gives the developers a strong stake in the city’s success. Governance structures can vary, but maybe a city council with appointees from the developer, the government, maybe others. Service delivery itself could then be contracted out to private firms.

Speaker 1: And the paper mentions this isn’t a totally brand new idea. It points to places like Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai.

Speaker 2: Those are cited as historical examples. What connects them is that within their specific areas, they enacted significant new rules, major policy and regulatory changes that really spurred economic growth, leveraging urbanization. The hope now is that modern charter cities could not only drive economic growth, but also explicitly build in resilience and act as models for a form that could spread,

Speaker 1: right?

So we know what they are now, how can they specifically help build climate resilience? The paper lays out three main ways, starting with where you put them. Location.

Speaker 2: That’s the first big one. Strategic location to decrease exposure. Historically, lots of big cities grew up on coasts or rivers, right? Rate for trade makes sense. But those locations are now ground zero for sea level rise, storm surges, bigger floods, major vulnerability and

Speaker 1: worryingly. It seems we’re still building rapidly in these risky areas.

Speaker 2: Yeah, alarmingly so. The paper sites work by Wrencher and others showing that urban expansion is actually fastest in high flood risk zones. More development is happening in these vulnerable places than in the past, especially in middle income countries, low income countries might be heading the same way.

Speaker 1: That feels counterintuitive. So how did Charter Cities help fix that? I.

Speaker 2: The IPCC talks about adaptation strategies like avoidance, just not building in high risk areas, and even retreat planned relocation. The paper argues that building new charter cities and inherently safer, less exposed locations is a powerful to be underused adaptation strategy.

Speaker 1: So instead of just defending vulnerable cities proactively build somewhere safer from the start.

Speaker 2: Exactly. And this links to climate migration too. As some rural areas become harder to live in, due to climate change, people will move to cities. If you have charter cities in less vulnerable regions offering jobs in a decent quality of life, they could become safer destinations for these migrants.

Speaker 1: The paper also mentions satellite charter cities. What’s the idea there?

Speaker 2: The idea is to create smaller, well-planned cities near existing large ones, especially in regions, expecting a lot of immigration. It spreads the growth out, reduces strain on the Mag City’s infrastructure. I. And build redundancy. If one city gets hit hard by a disaster, there are alternatives nearby, a more resilient urban network overall.

Speaker 1: There’s the example of Abuja in Nigeria, relocating the capital inland. What did we learn from that?

Speaker 2: Abuja wasn’t explicitly about climate, but it’s relevant. They moved the capital from coastal flood prone logos to an inland spot with a milder climate less risk,

Speaker 1: and it grew rapidly,

Speaker 2: hugely. Shows the demand is there for cities in less vulnerable spots, but it also faced big challenges, massive costs. The master plan wasn’t fully followed, leading to sprawl anyway. Political fights, high cost of living.

Speaker 1: So not a perfect solution, but proof of concept,

Speaker 2: maybe it shows the potential and the difficulties.

Speaker 1: And what about that point on India in box two, where some drying areas saw faster urbanization, but so did wetter areas. What’s that about?

Speaker 2: It’s complex. It suggests migration isn’t just people being pushed out by bad conditions. Some might be pulled to cities and regions that are perhaps temporarily benefiting from climate shifts, like more rain boosting agriculture nearby. But that creates its own pressures in those better areas too. So it just reinforces the need for really well-managed planning for in-migration. Wherever it happens, charter cities could potentially help manage that influx in strategically chosen location.

Speaker 1: So location is about avoiding risk now, but also about anticipating future climate driven population shifts and creating sustainable landing spots. Exactly.

Speaker 2: Which leads nicely into the second way Charter cities can boost resilience, building strong absorptive capacity through sustainable urban foundations.

Speaker 1: From the start, this is about the actual city building, the infrastructure, the planning,

Speaker 2: the paper stresses how critical the built environment is, but many existing cities in the global south struggle with huge infrastructure gaps and that kind of low density hand kicks, s brawl, especially informal settlements.

Speaker 1: Which makes providing services hard and increases vulnerability

Speaker 2: and trying to go back and fix these problems and establish cities, retrofit them is incredibly costly and complex.

Speaker 1: Logistically a nightmare, I imagine.

Speaker 2: Yeah. You run into what’s called lock-in. Cities get stuck with unsustainable energy, use transport patterns because the infrastructures already there. Vested interests resist change. And this stuff lasts for decades, even a century. Decisions made now really matter long term.

Speaker 1: So the big advantage for charter cities is that clean slate, building it right the first time.

Speaker 2: That’s the core idea. Good urban planning from day one, laying out roads, water, power, public spaces in a coordinated way before people build, can prevent that harmful sprawl and create a solid base for sustainable growth. The long-term benefits are huge,

Speaker 1: and a key part of that, building it right is green infrastructure. Parks, urban forests, wetlands,

Speaker 2: absolutely vital. These nature-based solutions do so much. They soak up rainwater, cool the city down, clean the air. Support biodiversity, provide recreation,

Speaker 1: multiple benefits,

Speaker 2: huge co-benefits. The example from Freetown Sierra Leone planting trees to stabilize slopes after a landslide. That shows the very practical life-saving potential.

Speaker 1: The paper mentions eco cities too. Are these popping up more often and are they actually delivering on the eco promises?

Speaker 2: Yes, the label Eco City is definitely more common now, but the paper urges some caution. Sometimes it might be more marketing than deep sustainability.

Speaker 1: Greenwashing

Speaker 2: potentially. There isn’t always strong proof that environmental concerns are the main driver,

Speaker 1: but there are some examples that seem promising. Roger Hot in Newtown in India, FBA Town, and Zanzibar.

Speaker 2: Roger Hot near Cota was masterplan as an EcoSmart city.

Box three talks about its design, integrating green spaces wetlands, aiming for economic growth alongside ecology. FBA Town in Zanzibar incorporates permaculture. Sustainable building materials. Green corridors

Speaker 1: sounds good on paper,

Speaker 2: but the Raha example also shows the challenges, particularly around land acquisition critical. Even the best EcoSign can be undermined if the process of getting the land isn’t transparent and doesn’t respect the rights of the people already there. Social foundation is just as important as the physical one.

Speaker 1: Okay. Third, pathway for resilience via charter cities.

Speaker 2: Improving adaptive and transformative capacity through good governance.

Speaker 1: This is about the institutions, the rules, the decision making, having a system that can actually manage the city effectively, especially when facing change in uncertainty.

Speaker 2: Exactly. The paper argues this might be the most critical factor. It’s the governance system that implements everything else. But again, many cities in the global south face big governance challenges, lack of money, political instability, weak administration,

Speaker 1: all things that make it hard to manage growth, let alone adapt to climate change.

Speaker 2: Precisely. The paper mentions this concept of state capability traps.

Speaker 1: What’s that?

Speaker 2: It’s from Pritchett and others. Basically, some countries get stuck in a situation where their government’s ability to actually implement policies effectively is very limited and doesn’t improve much over time.

Speaker 1: Why does that happen?

Speaker 2: Various reasons. Maybe new reforms accidentally break things that were working okay before maybe elites benefit from the weak system and block real change. A focus on looking like reform is happening rather than actual effectiveness.

Speaker 1: So how can charter cities escape that trap

Speaker 2: by creating pockets of effectiveness as the paper puts it. With better governance structures, better practices demonstrated at the city level,

Speaker 1: more localized, maybe more manageable.

Speaker 2: Empowering city level decisions can cut through some of the bureaucracy, allow for more tailored solutions. It’s seen as a potentially smaller, more achievable entry point for building effective governance compared to reforming the whole country. A place to experiment

Speaker 1: and land administration comes up again here as a key example of governance reform.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it’s fundamental. Good land administration, clear records of who owns what. Efficient planning. Easy titling has huge resilience benefits. How so? It gives household security encouraging them to invest. It provides vital data for planning where not to build, where infrastructure should go. It helps disaster response if you know who lives where. The World Bank though secure tenure helps people save, build wealth, use land as collateral, all boosting resilience to shocks.

Speaker 1: Okay. Crucial stuff. And charter cities being new have the flexibility to set up different kinds of governance. Like those public-private partnerships we mentioned Guan in China is used as an example.

Speaker 2: Guan shows how a PPP model can work where a private company takes on a lot of the development and management under contract with the government. It led to rapid growth and transformation there.

Speaker 1: Efficient maybe.

Speaker 2: Can be very efficient, brings in private expertise and capital, but, and the paper is careful to point this out, you have to be wary of the downsides,

Speaker 1: such as

Speaker 2: you need strong mechanisms for democratic inclusion. You have to ensure benefits are shared equitably, that it doesn’t just become a private enclave that excludes people. Accountability is key.

Speaker 1: So PPP can work, but need careful design and oversight.

Speaker 2: Absolutely. The ultimate goal isn’t just profit, it’s a thriving, inclusive, resilient city for everyone.

Speaker 1: And the really powerful idea here is that if these governance innovations work well in a charter city, they

Speaker 2: could potentially be scaled up, adopted more widely regionally or nationally. The Charter City acts as a living lab demonstrating what’s possible.

Speaker 1: So let’s try to wrap this up. We’ve got this perfect storm brewing climate change hitting harder, colliding with rapid urbanization, especially challenging for the global south.

Speaker 2: A huge confluence of pressures

Speaker 1: and charter cities. These new cities with new rules. Are proposed as one potential strategy. They aim to build resilience in what, three main ways.

Speaker 2: First, by choosing safer locations from the start, avoiding high risk zones and anticipating climate migration. Second, by establishing sustainable urban foundations, good planning, essential infrastructure, laid early, incorporating green infrastructure, building absorptive capacity from the ground up. Third, by fostering good governance, creating capable, adaptable institutions may be using PPP carefully. Experimenting with reforms, building that crucial adaptive and transformative capacity.

Speaker 1: I think for me, the real aha moment is that shift in thinking, moving from just reacting to crises in existing cities, to proactively designing and building new cities for resilience.

Speaker 2: Exactly. It’s about seeing urban development itself as a core climate adaptation strategy, intentional design for an uncertain future.

Speaker 1: But as we’ve touched on, the paper acknowledges it’s not simple. There are big challenges, affordable housing, actually implementing green infrastructure effectively, the complexities of governance, making sure it’s equitable.

Speaker 2: Huge hurdles. These are ambitious projects. They need careful planning, management, and definitely more research to figure out best practices and avoid potential pitfalls, like just creating greenwash developments, right?

Speaker 1: It’s not a magic bullet,

Speaker 2: definitely not, but potentially a powerful tool in the toolbox.

Speaker 1: So maybe the final thought for our listeners to chew on is this, what are the implications of deliberately building new cities designed for climate uncertainty? What are the ethics of this kind of large scale urban experimentation?

Speaker 2: Big questions.

Speaker 1: And who gets to decide? What roles should governments, private companies, citizens play in shaping these new places to ensure they truly contribute to a more resilient future for everyone?

Speaker 2: And it really pushes us to think differently, doesn’t it? About how we build our future in a changing world.

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What is the future for cities podcast?

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Episode and transcript generated with ⁠⁠Descript⁠⁠ assistance (⁠⁠affiliate link⁠⁠).