“Romer’s biggest idea is the importance of “rules.” Rules are, he, believes, the core DNA of any successful city–not sidewalks, not small blocks, not the width or layout of city streets. New ideas don’t need old buildings; they need strong patent and bankruptcy laws. Good rules explain why Nogales, Ariz., is roughly three times as rich as its sister city across the Mexican border. Instead of over-thinking urban form through rigid codes and top-down planning–the approach favored by modernists and New Urbanists alike–Romer and his partners refuse to plan at all, preferring to search for a minimum set of rules from which order can emerge.

Excerpt: “Romer, in a series of papers in the 1980s, fundamentally changed the way economists think about the role of technology in economic growth. Since then, he has studied why some countries stay poor even when they have access to the same technology as wealthier ones. He eventually realized something that seems obvious to any nonacademic, that poor countries are saddled with laws and, crucially, customs that prevent new ideas from taking shape.

At the December 2011 gathering of ZURICH.MINDS, Paul presented a framework for thinking about human progress. He began by pointing out that an idea has a value that is proportional to the number of people who use it, and that our ability to share ideas is therefore the driving force behind economic growth, globalization, and urbanization. Watch the full video below:

The Glass House Conversations invited Greg Lindsay to host a conversation about new cities. I couldn’t resist the temptation to throw some stones: In this century, billions of people will move to cities. On the current trajectory, far too many will go to places that don’t want them. As a result, they will live in conditions that deny them equal treatment under the law and exclude them from full participation in the modern economy.

Excerpt: “In the last 10,000 years, humans built cities to house 3 billion people. In this century, we will make room for another 3 to 6 billion. Because both the worldwide and urban population will stabilize this century, humans will never again have this chance to remake our system of cities.” Click here to read the full article by David Leonhardt.