Model Cities in Honduras

The phrase Model City is most closely associated with Johnson's Great Society and War on Poverty. In the international realm, however, the concept of a model city is intriguing because it combines both unproven facets of international development and urban planning. In essence the model city becomes an almost sovereign, controlled environment, or the proving ground for Paul Rommer's ideas. Rommer has been proposing the idea of a model city for quite some time now, and his ideas have taken hold, and found support with President Lobo, and after a recent vote from congress appear closer than ever to being a reality. These model cities would be near sovereign bodies, in most instances only needing a simple majority vote from their host nation's congress.

" [They] would be areas with their own legal personality and jurisdiction, their own administrative systems and laws. A [city] can also negotiate international treaties with partner countries or organizations. Congress would need to ratify these international treaties with a simple majority."

I've included some more information below from the research non-profit associated with the Charter City movement. I'm not completely sold on the idea. I still hold skepticism with the regards to ideas of sovereignty and total privatization of municipal services, but vamos a ver. 

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http://chartercities.org/blog/191/a-new-city-in-honduras

Concept

Charter cities are special reform zones. They let governments quickly adopt innovative new systems of rules. A charter city’s formal rules, and the norms that they encourage, can differ markedly from a country’s prevailing system of rules. The concept is very flexible, but three elements are common to all charter cities:

1. An uninhabited piece of city-sized land, provided voluntarily by a host government.
2. A charter that specifies the rules that will govern the new city.
3. The freedom for would-be charter city residents to move in or out of the reform zone.

Charter cities are based entirely on voluntary actions—no person, employer, investor, or country can be coerced into participating. Only countries that want to charter new cities will free up the land to do so. The use of unoccupied land ensures that only the people who want to live and work under the new rules will move to the reform zone.

The charter itself is a foundational legal document, not an exhaustive city plan. The charter will set forth the process by which rules and regulations will be established in the city. The charter might also initiate a legal framework on which the city can grow and prosper, establishing some early rules to foster long term investment and ensure the safety and security of residents. The residents, employers, and investors will follow, attracted by the chance to work together under the rules of the charter.

There are three basic roles that countries can assume when chartering a new city in a special reform zone:

1. Land comes from a host country.
2. People come from a source country.
3. The assurance that the charter will be respected comes from a guarantor country.

Because these roles can be played by a single nation or a group of allies, there are many potential charter city arrangements. The hypothetical cases listed below help make the many possibilities concrete and clear. However, they do not reflect ongoing conversations or prospective projects.

• One country could assume all three roles, much as China did in establishing special economic zones like the one where the new city of Shenzhen emerged. For example, India appears to be headed down this path, using public-private partnerships to create new cities on greenfield sites. Such projects could potentially do much to alleviate pressure on India’s rapidly growing slums while providing better social and economic opportunities to the people who might otherwise end up there.

• One country could serve as both the host and the guarantor and attract residents from a specific source country. Consider the hypothetical case of Brazil chartering a new city and inviting Haitians to move there. Brazil took the lead on the UN’s MINUSTAHmission to Haiti. It may want to create an exit option that allows it to withdraw soldiers from Haiti even as it creates new options for Haitians who would prefer to live under a different set of rules.

• One country could serve as both the host and the primary source, but the role of guarantor could be filled by a consortium of the host country’s allies. Consider the hypothetical case in which Mauritania hosts a charter city, New Zealand and Norway serve in the guarantor roles, and a number of regional countries, including Mauritania, fill the role of source. By cooperating with its allies in New Zealand and Norway, Mauritania may be able to create a development authority that is capable of generating much higher levels of investment and employment in the new city than Mauritania could achieve acting on its own.