The New York Times recently ran a story about New Dehli’s new Metro subway system. It offers a nice illustration of how a greenfield project creates an opportunity to establish new rules, particularly new informal rules enforced by norms. Part of what people like about the new service is that the cars are clean and people are relatively courteous. Some riders are so pleased that they volunteer their time to ensure it stays that way.

In an article on charter cities in The Atlantic, Sebastian Mallaby has a good summary of how the Hanseatic League of cities emerged in the Middle Ages from what was arguably the first charter city. When Henry the Lion founded Lübeck, he wrote a charter that specified “a set of ‘most honorable civic rights,’ calculating that a city with light regulation and fair laws would attract investment easily.” The city itself was a dramatic success.

Excerpt: “Castro goes to the prime minister of Canada and says, ‘Look, the Yankees have a terrible PR problem. They want to get out. Why don’t you, Canada, take over? Run a special administrative zone. Allow a new city to be built up there,’” Romer muses, channeling a statesmanlike version of Raúl Castro that Cuba-watchers might not recognize. “Some of my citizens will move into that city,” Romer-as-Castro continues. “Others will hold back.

Excerpt: The name ‘charter cities,’ Paul explains, comes from the historical example of the colony of Pennsylvania, which was founded under a charter drafted by William Penn. That charter enshrined new freedoms of religion– freedoms that were quite attractive to prospective immigrants. “It’s a nice illustration,” says Paul, “of how a new system of rules… could come into existence not through a vote or a consensus seeking process, but instead by creating a new entity and saying, ‘Who wants to opt in?

Life on the road is full of surprises. Not all of them are bad. In Abu Dhabi, I met the editors of an impressive English language newspaper start-up called The National. Later, someone who knew of my interest in cities showed me one of its articles, the best news account of life in an informal settlement I’ve ever read. With gritty realism, the article shows that: cities offer economic opportunities that don’t exist in rural areas, so people will endure urban living conditions that seem unimaginable to us;