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.

Back in 2009, Paul Romer unveiled the idea for a “charter city” - a new kind of city with rules that favor democracy and trade. This year, at TED2011, he tells the story of how such a city might just happen in Honduras … with a little help from his TEDTalk.

Excerpt: “Rather than push for reform within a political system, he suggests starting afresh from the outside. In business, after all, new ideas are often championed by insurgent start-ups rather than by incumbents – IBM, master of the ancient mainframe, never championed the PC; Microsoft, hegemon of the hard drive, came late to cloud computing. Likewise in government, free entry and competition may trump reform from within the establishment. American mayors, frustrated in their attempts to shake up incumbent education systems, have encouraged experimental charter schools.