# Prof. Paul Romer's Charter Cities concept is featured in a three-part series

1 August 22, 2012 Stern in the News ![Fast Company logo](/sites/default/files/styles/246w/public/assets/images/uat_026723.jpg?itok=PGORMP3v)>

Excerpt from [Fast Company](http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680401/can-importing-well-run-cities-into-poorly-run-countries-lift-the-world-from-poverty) -- "'The opportunity is to create a number of cities,' \[[Romer](http://www.stern.nyu.edu/faculty/bio/paul-romer)\] told the audience, 'startups like Shenzhen.' These startups, which he calls charter cities, are new enclaves granted their own laws, immigrants and investors. They’re laboratories for testing competing forms of governance, erected on what in theory are clean urban slates."

[Read more](http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680401/can-importing-well-run-cities-into-poorly-run-countries-lift-the-world-from-poverty)