12 Comments

These essays are fabulous, thank you! I learn something in every one of them.

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author

Thanks for the positive feedback. It gives me the incentive to keep pumping out the content!

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Would you consider doing an article on any of the following topics -

1) History of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and Export Processing Zones (EPZs) in Asia and their role in promoting investment and industrialisation.

2) If a startup wants to build a charter city in the 21st century, what will be their minimum viable product?

3) Potential impact of new transportation technologies on existing and new cities. Technologies include EVs, self driving vehicles, remote work, eVtols, airships and underground delivery networks etc.

4) Could charter cities undermine the authority of the clans and their chiefs in Sub Saharan Africa as it did for feudalism in Europe?

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author

Thanks for the comment and the request for writing specific articles. Unfortunately, I do not know enough about those topics to write an article.

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I don’t know if he’s still on twitter (X), but if you are in that space, check out wrath of gnon. He has some epic threads on medieval towns and cities, traditional architecture and materials and so forth. I don’t think he’s a progress optimist; I get the sense that he prefers the esthetics, economics and politics of the past. But his posts still have some bangers on the beauty of the old world.

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author

Thanks for the tip. I rarely go on Twitter, but I will check his page.

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These are fun to read.

I'm curious: Did guilds and "free" craftsmen pre-date cities, or were they the result of city-independence?

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author

Thanks for the comment.

I am not sure that I know the answer, but I can tell you what I do know.

I don’t think that there is a relationship between the two. Cities evolved long before Medieval times, and guilds seemed to emerge in all types of cities in Medieval Europe.

So guilds we’re not unique to autonomous Medieval cities.

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An interesting question is what's happening to cities today? The destruction of places like SF and NYC, and earlier cities like Detroit seems to be bottom up.

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author

Let’s try to keep comments to the topic of the article.

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I was considering how to apply the OP to modern cities.

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author

OK Fair enough.

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