Future Forward

Seyi (00:02.437)
Hi Reza, how are you? I am good today. We are recording episode 12 of Future Forward.

Reza (00:03.554)
Hey Seyi, I'm good, how are you doing?

Reza (00:12.024)
Yeah. So this is going to be an interesting one, Seyi I liked the idea and I think we had an instant back and forth debating it. So tell our listeners what this one is about. And I feel this is like the, this one was like a seed that was growing and something interesting has come out of it. So share some.

Seyi (00:15.939)
Definitely.

Seyi (00:24.131)
Yes.

Seyi (00:34.591)
Absolutely, absolutely. So this episode today is our charter series, The Future. We're afraid we'll end it as a question, but we have some ideas and some answers too. And before we dive into it, Reza, what is future forward for our new listeners?

Reza (00:47.192)
Yeah.

Reza (00:53.026)
Yeah, welcome new listeners. for joining listeners that have been coming along the way. Future Forward is a conversation that Che and I have been having for many years and we're bringing you into it. We're talking about the future of cities and thinking about how we can understand from history what's going on in the present and then having some strategic foresight into the future about what makes sustainable cities and thriving communities.

We always say we're not experts, we're trying to learn and explore these topics with you. We always encourage others to, our listeners to send us mailbag, text us or email us and share your ideas and your thoughts so that we can learn with you.

Seyi (01:43.557)
Yes, yes. And as we just shared with you, today's episode is titled Are Charter Cities, the Future. And as Reza alluded to, this one came out of us realizing there's a 21st law. We have 20 laws of cities.

But as we mulled over a few of our ideas and continued to increase our expertise in this space, we realized we'd left out what I think we both agree is the Keystone Law here. And if you want to share the law, and I'll dive into it a little bit before we dive into the episode. Yeah.

Reza (02:27.266)
Yeah. So what we say with this is that emergence and entropy are required to build thriving and sustainable cities. And the reason why we believe this is a keystone law is because our thesis is that cities are systems and a feature or a key part of systems is emergence and entropy.

emergence describes how new properties and features can arise from the interaction and self -organization of elementary parts in a complex system. And that's what a city is. And entropy is a measure of a system's disorder or uncertainty and how much energy is unavailable for work. And that's kind of describing randomness. And we believe that cities need those two factors because cities are organic and the

point of this episode is to explore charter cities which are inorganic or created, you know, unlike other cities. So it's going to be an interesting discussion because it makes us think about like what cities are to contrast with what charter cities are.

Seyi (03:44.837)
Yeah. Yeah, no, it's a, it's a really, thanks for the framing there. And while the idea of charter cities, I'd say, started before 2009, most experts in the space attribute the development of charter cities and what are they? They are the cities with new rules that could

quote unquote, in the words of the economist Paul Romer, who introduced the idea in his TED talk, this idea of cities with their own governance systems that promote economic growth. In one simple line, cities, new cities with their own governance systems to promote economic growth. And I think fundamentally,

you just, if you believe cities are organic, like Reza and I do, you will disagree with that idea that you can just pop a city somewhere, put new rules around it and optimize for economic growth. So Roma put this out in 2009 and a bunch of, I'll say acolytes and

Reza (05:04.516)
Yeah.

Seyi (05:15.189)
and tech bros who feel the need to build cities that exclude people is the framing, jumped on the idea because Roma was speaking to them. Before we jumped on this, on to recording, we were talking about this idea that economists tend to live in models and paper.

Reza (05:44.814)
Yeah. Yeah.

Seyi (05:45.701)
And that truly is reflected in this idea that Roma was sharing in his TED Talk. And if you watch the TED Talk, are a things that I'll go into my African mode now. There are a few things that will annoy you about the TED Talk. He starts off with this picture of a group of who he calls African students under a streetlight with their books.

Reza (06:08.12)
Mm.

Reza (06:12.525)
Yeah.

Seyi (06:15.555)
because, and as he claims in the talk, they do not have electricity in their homes. He gives one of them a name and says, why don't they have this electricity that has been invented or that was invented years ago? And they live in cities in Africa where they cannot get electricity. Ignoring so much.

complexity.

Reza (06:46.2)
Yes, yes, so many assumptions. Yeah, so many assumptions, yeah.

Seyi (06:48.601)
but bucketing it. So many assumptions. Yeah, so, but that's the genesis of charter cities. I'll pause there because as I think about that Ted talk, I get slightly annoyed.

Reza (07:01.705)
Yeah, and I would also say like, it's interesting that you mentioned sort of this is, know, an economist's idea, you know, and their ideas tend to be sort of modeled and on paper. The word charter, the origin of the word charter comes from Latin paper. And so instantly we see that, okay, this might be good on paper.

But it's not going to actually serve communities in ways. And so in the examples that you go through, you have some examples to share of these charter cities, I think we will realize some of the trade -offs and some of the downsides that come with it.

Seyi (07:42.969)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So the first one, the one that really took off as a result of Paul Romer's TED Talk is Prospera, which is located on the island of Roatan, which is off the coast of Honduras. And it's considered by most who study this as the first charter city. And the idea is that it aims to create a platform for prosperity.

by partnering with governments to establish conditions in this new regulatory zone owned by a private company to establish conditions that are conducive to economic development. I'll share some quick things to note about Prospera. It was formed by what is called the

managed by Honduras Prospera Inc, financed by Balaji Srinivasan, Peter Thiel, Mark Andreessen, through a capital company called Pronomos Capital. And it is a private area, education, recreation, all planned in this zone. And the idea is that

Hondurans who live in the Prosperia region will pay $260 to live there in their own country, by the way, and $1 ,300 for foreigners. And the legal tender is Bitcoin. I did just say Bitcoin. Yes. Yes.

Reza (09:28.942)
Bitcoin, did you say Bitcoin? My head just exploded.

Seyi (09:35.977)
It's supposed to be an autonomous zone with its own fiscal, regulatory, and legal architecture. And Paul Romer was involved in the development of this, what I fundamentally consider an exclusionary zone in what is a developing country.

Reza (09:46.008)
Yeah.

Reza (09:51.491)
Yeah.

Reza (09:55.554)
Yeah. So, I already see some challenges with it. One, Honduras has had, it has poverty, it's had political challenges. It's really difficult to, one of the challenges with the Prospera is like, it's really difficult to maintain a separate and exclusionary type of charter when a

the political situation is unstable. And so there have been challenges with sort of maintaining this charter in the face of political change and opposition. So, and the second problem that I have with it is it seems there's a private entity and I don't know enough about this Shae, but just to tell me if I'm right or wrong here, it seems there's a private entity that is driving this and

Seyi (10:25.369)
Yeah.

Seyi (10:29.251)
Yes.

Seyi (10:33.838)
Yes.

Reza (10:49.09)
I don't think cities can be owned by private entities because their incentives are not sort of public good in the community. Their incentives are probably profit -based. And so you have different motivations for what you want. mean, like having someone pay for living in their own country just seems wrong. But I'm sure there are other things that are wrong about it. And, you know, if we dig in further, you realize, well, I don't, that's not a structure, that doesn't seem like a structure that would work.

Seyi (11:05.668)
Yeah.

Seyi (11:15.373)
Absolutely. And it's you are correct. It is managed and sort of run by a private entity. But the the idea is that these private entities are, quote unquote, working hand in hand with the government to provide them the acreage or the land that is required to build this this these zones. And the interesting

point you make there is that as we were digging into these charter cities and examples that exist out there, it is private economic or economically focused entities that are trying to build this exclusionary zones is what I will keep calling them because they're simply following what Paul Romer was suggesting.

Reza (12:13.73)
Hmm.

Seyi (12:13.795)
The point of charter cities is to make a space that is conducive to economic growth, with the idea being that hopefully for the non -economic actors in that zone, i the people who would live there that are just maybe regular citizens of the region but are now living there, they are not going to, they will get the benefits, quote unquote, which are now

Move to the second example we have here. Yeah, Tatu City, 5 ,000 acres with homes, schools, offices, medical clinics, sports and entertainment complexes, and manufacturing. And the idea for Tatu City is that it is in Kenya with 250 ,000 residents and the expectation of tens of thousands of visitors a day.

Reza (12:43.16)
Yeah, I'm curious about the second one.

Reza (13:03.513)
Mm

Seyi (13:12.023)
As it stands today, the schools and the businesses are open in Tatu City and some homes are available to suit different income ranges. It is placed in this, the first special economic zone, which allows the entity running Tatu City to get reduced corporate taxes.

zero rated vat and a few of these benefits that again go right back to this economic goal that is set. I struggle a little bit with Tatu City because I listened to the founder, his name is Steven Jennings. He owns this company called Rendeavour and he has worked for decades in Africa. He's building Tatu City

Reza (13:47.502)
Mm

Reza (13:57.594)
Mm

Reza (14:06.596)
Mm -hmm.

Seyi (14:09.837)
And he's also building a place called Alaro City in Nigeria. And the idea is modern infrastructure attracts investment, stabilizes some of the volatile economic conditions in the countries at large. And in the interviews I've heard with Steven Jennings, I do believe his heart is in a good place. He really believes charter cities can work.

But as far as we are concerned though, it is just fundamentally flouting the law of cities. There's no room for emergence or entropy when the goal, the single goal is economic prosperity.

Reza (14:48.878)
Yeah. Yeah.

Reza (14:53.678)
Yeah.

Reza (14:57.966)
Yeah.

So the example of Tatu City was slightly different for me and I actually thought that his approach, Jennings' approach was better because they come, or he and his organization come from a place like we will set up infrastructure, like good infrastructure and then build prosperity and economic development on top of that. And I think that's actually, there's something very good about that approach because it's creating this public

Seyi (15:18.531)
Yeah. Yeah.

Seyi (15:24.238)
Yeah.

Yes.

Reza (15:30.232)
good infrastructure that you allow some things to be built on top of as opposed to Prospero, which was just about sort of economic growth. There was no thought about infrastructure, like how do people live or is it good for them? Do they have the benefits? Do other people have benefits? So I think it's useful to look at Tatu City's example and see is that slight different approach good? And I think the lesson from that is what

Seyi (15:40.162)
Yes.

Yeah.

Reza (15:59.339)
cities need are things like better infrastructure. The other thing that they need, which is not addressed with charter cities is civic agency, like community agency, which I don't see a lot of because they're seeing, you know, there's these entities that are making decisions with government, but where is the community involved in that? So.

Seyi (16:00.993)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Seyi (16:12.068)
Yes.

Seyi (16:20.901)
It's a really good point and underline some of this is this idea again, and it's been sort of promoted by what is called the Charter Cities Institute in here in the US, if I believe correctly. And again, I'll go back to this. We always think developing countries are

Reza (16:36.397)
Mm.

Seyi (16:50.371)
the test bed for ideas like this. And so the Charter Cities Institute, to your point, they're trying to promote. But there's also the recognition that infrastructure is required as you go into these places. So similar to Steven Jennings, the Institute promotes this idea of, let's build these zones. Let's recognize the infrastructure required. And

Seyi (17:17.995)
Africa has a big problem. Let's start in the developing parts of the world, which again, also sort of ties back to, it is problematic because of the lack of recognition of this emergent or chaotic nature of actually building cities.

Reza (17:26.84)
problem.

Reza (17:42.265)
Yeah.

Seyi (17:42.979)
But if we're building them from a place of recognizing the need of the communities and the people on the ground, you don't just show up and put fees on living in. They probably pay taxes to their governments. So what is this additional fee, which fundamentally is around how do you make money and how do you prevent people who can afford the fee living in these charter cities?

Reza (17:54.648)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Reza (18:07.726)
Yeah.

Seyi (18:11.191)
I agree, there's a way to approach it that, and that is underlying my both disdain for charter cities, but also a certain level of respect for Steven Jennings and his approach.

Reza (18:28.504)
Yeah, yeah, well, that's, think the other thing that comes to mind when you talk about charter cities, you know, in your comments, like it can undermine sort of sovereignty because this is, you know, someone from another country that's coming in to say, hey, here's how to do a thing better. And I think it also diverts from addressing the other challenges that

Seyi (18:46.244)
Yeah.

Seyi (18:50.404)
Yeah.

Reza (18:58.392)
you know, that urban area or that country faces. So, you you sort of get focused on this other thing that's there as opposed to actually tackling the challenges that are needed for that urban area to get better. And so you leave some people out by doing so. And that really is troubling for me. So I think that, you know, communities need better governance and agency as opposed to a charter city. And they need to have ways of participating in that governance.

Seyi (19:01.391)
Yeah.

Seyi (19:13.559)
Absolutely, absolutely.

Reza (19:28.564)
I don't think like imposing models from outside, it does not solve the core problems in our communities and our cities. so I, I, I think charter cities are bound to fail if they come in with that approach, which is, you know, we're going to, we're going to, we're here to fix things. Well, what are you doing with the community to help them give them agency to have, participate in making things better?

Seyi (19:28.643)
Yeah.

Seyi (19:41.902)
Yeah.

Seyi (19:55.473)
Absolutely. Yeah. And we'll quickly share a couple more examples of what is being done, which is wrong, buttress the point you just made. And recently, we started hearing about this billionaire city in Solana County in California, and it's called California Forever. I love how they tried to frame it as a

maybe patriotic thing, this California forever idea. And the idea is to create a new community with modern amenities and infrastructure, reflecting the interest of private investors. Some of the same investors are showing up in the California forever initiative, by the way. And the...

Reza (20:42.456)
Yeah.

Seyi (20:48.677)
problem, think, even started with how they started to acquire the land. It was under the guise of different entities, not the eventual owner. And so when you feel the need to hide behind a different entity to achieve your goals,

kind of makes it tough for you to claim you're supporting the community with your goals. And yeah.

Reza (21:21.41)
Yeah. Yeah. I had a problem from the first word billionaires. It makes me extremely skeptical that their motivations for doing this are anything but exclusionary. you know, I think California does face challenges with, you know, there's been, you know, California was like a growing state, people would move there and then they had this no growth movement that has, you know, with an odd group of people you have, you know, sort of

Seyi (21:27.428)
Hahaha

Seyi (21:33.071)
Yeah, yeah.

Seyi (21:42.211)
Yeah.

Reza (21:50.028)
environmentalists on one side and sort of these libertarians on the other side. And the way to solve California's challenges are not by, you know, creating a city called California forever. What about the rest of California? know, yeah. So they're California forever and then the rest?

Seyi (22:05.273)
Yeah.

Seyi (22:08.621)
What about the rest? What about the rest of the people? Yeah.

Seyi (22:17.09)
It's pretty wild. It's pretty wild. I, there's experiencing a ton of resistance to building it, rightly so. And if what ends up happening, honestly, is that enough resistance comes into play and the community gets to play a huge part in what eventually happens in these parts of...

the Solana County, then I'm all for it. It's this when you are not considering the needs of all, especially those who were there before you showed up. That's where the real struggle starts for me with these charter city ideas. I'll touch on the last one and then we'll touch on our laws, Reza. The last one here is Neal, the line.

For anybody who's been paying attention, this is, I'll actually read the marketing text that is on the Neom website. It's called the future of urban living, a cognitive city stretching across 170 kilometers from the epic mountains of Neom across inspirational desert valleys to the beautiful Red Sea.

Reza (23:23.812)
Mm -hmm.

Seyi (23:41.381)
a mirrored architectural masterpiece towering 500 meters above sea level, but a land saving 200 meters wide. The line redefines the concept of urban development and what cities of the future will look like. I'll give you one more line. No roads, cars, or emissions. It will run on 100 % renewable energy and 95 % of land will be preserved for nature.

People's health and well -being will be prioritized over transportation and infrastructure, unlike traditional cities.

Reza (24:16.708)
Yeah, right away, I have a problem with it. Unlike traditional cities, what's wrong with traditional cities? We love living in cities. Cities work. They have problems, but they work. This is such a strange idea and it's already facing challenges in implementation because you're building an unsustainable environment in an unsustainable... Like you're in a desert.

Seyi (24:25.572)
Yeah.

Reza (24:45.688)
I love the idea of like renewables and no cars and good transportation and things like that. But I can't imagine that what seems to me is like this hermetically sealed space for a very long way. I can't see that being a city. I mean, do they have outdoor spaces? And if they have outdoor spaces, don't they need to be air conditioned? Because like temperatures there soar above a hundred degrees Fahrenheit or...

Seyi (25:00.591)
Yeah. Yeah.

Reza (25:14.66)
40 degrees centigrade. So I, it just doesn't seem like a, a human scale environment. And so I, I don't know how anyone would consider the health and wellbeing of people living in this inhuman place. Just, yeah, I don't know. A lot of trouble with it.

Seyi (25:15.193)
Yes.

Seyi (25:36.025)
Yeah, yeah, it will be, it will be to a certain extent hermetically sealed because the idea they're suggesting is that they will put non -native plants and vegetation in this mirrored line and people will move through pods that have to be air sealed across the line.

Reza (25:55.041)
Yeah.

Reza (26:03.192)
Yeah.

Seyi (26:05.573)
and you will take lifts or elevators up and down because it's 500 meters high. It is just so many levels of ridiculous.

Reza (26:23.042)
Yeah. Ridiculous, it's a really good word. Yeah.

Seyi (26:25.189)
And it starts with that last line. Unlike traditional cities, when you think the role of your charter city is to fix cities, you have set yourself up for failure.

Reza (26:32.43)
Yeah.

Reza (26:43.938)
Yeah. So Seyi, let's talk about the laws. What laws are these breaking?

Seyi (26:47.767)
Yes.

Yeah, so apart from the fact they're breaking the new law, we just added the 21st law of emergence and entropy. There are two other laws that we immediately came to mind, that immediately came to mind for us. One is regional cooperation enhances sustainability. The exclusionary nature of these charter cities goes against what we believe strongly, which is that sustainable cities cannot exist in isolation.

They must coordinate with surrounding areas, municipalities, other cities for truly sustainable regional development. And this comes from Willa's research in 2002, which argued for the importance of regional approaches to urban sustainability. And the consequence is what we're seeing in some of these cities already, these charter cities, the consequence of flouting the rule.

the law is that they're not cooperating with the region. So the resource requirements they have, they are having to go further away to get unsustainably so that they can serve the residents of their cities. It will lead to conflicting land use policies, unsurprising, and an inability to address the urban environmental issues we're all seeing.

That law has been flouted hugely by these charter cities. The next one is that urban form shapes social interactions. This is one of the ones you really like, Reza. And the idea is that the physical layout and design of cities significantly influence social interactions, community formation, and quality of life. And some of this comes from Gale's 2010 research in his book, Cities for People, one I highly recommend.

Reza (28:31.758)
Yeah, yeah.

Seyi (28:50.635)
our listeners read. It's a big book, so buy it and read it over a period of time is how I'd recommend you tackle that one. But in the book, he demonstrates that design impacts social life period. And poor urban design leads to isolation, community cohesion reduces, and quality of life is also negatively impacted as well.

Reza (29:06.008)
Hmm.

Reza (29:15.97)
Yeah. So that's interesting, Seyi. It might be an interesting, when we tackle that law in an episode to see the tension between design and entropy and emergence, because I think charter cities in a way are maybe an extreme form of urban design that doesn't work, but what forms of urban design allow for entropy and emergence?

Seyi (29:30.745)
Yeah.

Seyi (29:38.691)
Yes.

Seyi (29:44.665)
Yes.

Reza (29:46.137)
Both are needed. You do need some, you need to give the city some shape, some form, and you need to allow for that emergence and entropy. And so what's the right balance? I'm curious to explore that.

Seyi (29:52.302)
Absolutely.

Seyi (30:00.429)
It's a really good point. actually think as we explore the future of cities, charter cities in this case, we always need to point out that that tension. realize we say some of the, it's a really good point you're making. We say some of these laws almost as if there is no wiggle room. When there is, there is. Design is.

Reza (30:26.052)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Seyi (30:28.719)
How do you include or remove things to get to address the need you know people have? And I think the problem with the design of charter cities is where it starts from. It starts from this, in the case of the line or Neom, it is to fix traditional cities.

Reza (30:39.576)
Yeah.

Reza (30:49.07)
Mmm.

Reza (30:57.336)
Mm -hmm.

Seyi (30:57.687)
In the case of Prospera, it is about purely economic growth and consequently, you will design the cities to serve those goals. so we, yeah, we should absolutely dive into it a little bit more, but fundamentally, the design question that is being answered in these charter cities start from a place that almost ensure that the laws will be broken and it is likely to fail.

Reza (31:02.648)
Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Reza (31:27.746)
Yeah. So Sheyi, you had some thoughts about the future of, you know, based on this learning on Charter City. So yeah, so share that.

Seyi (31:34.329)
Yes.

Seyi (31:40.727)
Yes, yes. So the first one idea I had is that while the charter city idea is not a good one, I do think we need builders, more builders who are visionary to imagine what cities can be to serve people. So we need builders was the first idea I had for what the future should look like here.

Reza (31:51.96)
Mm

Reza (31:56.174)
Mm -hmm.

Seyi (32:09.399)
And you had a really good reaction to that.

Reza (32:11.469)
Yeah. Why do we always talk about building? My retort is like, what about improving, maintaining, caring? What we need is visionary community leaders or a phrase just came to mind. We need visionary community engineers. We need engineers and leaders that are deeply empathetic to the needs of their local area while having a broad view of the region and world.

Seyi (32:15.429)
That's a good question.

Reza (32:39.272)
That's what communities need. We need groups of people that are engineers, technologists, social workers, marketers, local business owners, etc. that want to work together and figure out what is best for the community. Since engineers are builders, we need them to be thinking in terms of the community. That's my retort.

I would love these builders, but I want them to consider the other things. Because you can't just build, you have to maintain, have to improve, you have to care about the people that you're building this for.

Seyi (33:15.609)
which is why I'm doing this podcast with you, you immediately had that reaction. And I agree. There's a bent to building. And we probably need to temper that a little bit with the empathy that you're suggesting is required in our cities. The second idea I had here was less regulation in our cities. And I don't say this that regulation shouldn't exist.

Reza (33:18.926)
You

Seyi (33:44.281)
This one is more about just the recognition that I think I have. And I was reading and listening to a few things. We are now in a phase in just cities where it is tough to even do the right things for the communities because of too much regulation, is my view. And so.

Reza (34:05.379)
Yeah.

Reza (34:10.114)
Yeah. Yeah.

Seyi (34:12.767)
some of the charter city proponents are reacting to that. So I'm not saying their reaction is the right one. I'm just saying there's a recognition that, yes, there is a lot less room to innovate and address some of the needs we have because of the regulatory constraints that now exist. So maybe a little less regulation might be useful here in the future.

Reza (34:18.999)
Yeah.

Reza (34:24.152)
Yes.

Reza (34:38.552)
Yeah, I agree Shea. I think that as cities have become more mature, know, regulatory, like with every regulation, you have a trade -off and these regulatory frameworks aren't set up in a way to be flexible or to be reconsidered. know, regulation goes in, ordinance goes in, you know, I was for a few years on my town's planning commission.

Seyi (34:51.546)
Yes.

Seyi (34:58.67)
Yes.

Reza (35:07.972)
And it really struck me how choices that you're making as a commissioner have a long -term impact. Like some choices I made 10 years ago are still being debated or being argued or not really solving the problem that we thought we were going to solve. And I think there's something to it. I don't know what the solution is to regulation because regulation is needed.

Seyi (35:28.89)
Yeah.

Reza (35:37.316)
But maybe, yeah, maybe there are other ideas out there. I think your last point here about, you know, engaging the community. And so let's talk about that one. Maybe that will help us coalesce around a thought on it.

Seyi (35:37.37)
Yeah.

Seyi (35:46.767)
Yes.

Seyi (35:51.811)
Yeah, yeah. And we touched on this a little bit, just this idea of participatory, community -centered, and participatory decision -making for any new laws, any new developments that aim to address the needs of the communities in cities would be a way to, I believe, go forward here. Because we've traditionally

mostly put regulations in place or signed agreements with these charter city proponents with no consideration or engagement with the people who will be negatively impacted by them. So that I think might be the middle ground that ideally, again, ties back to one of the laws that we put down.

Reza (36:42.402)
Yeah. Yeah. I think the hardest part about that community participation, it's hard to do. It's hard for public entities to engage the community. You know, I've worked for a public entity and I know how fraught the process can be because you, as a public entity, feel very defensive, you know, when you're in front of the community. But the other point, my friend Mark and I on a bike ride this morning, he mentioned that...

Seyi (36:51.031)
It is. Yeah.

Seyi (37:00.729)
Yeah.

Reza (37:11.637)
He's a true activist, he's on the ground, he's trying to address an issue with a parks nonprofit and is engaging the city auditor to evaluate and to investigate what's going on there. The comment that he made was, it's hard for me to tell if some of the people that I interact with at the city are in it because they care about public service or they're in it just for a J -O -B.

Seyi (37:41.017)
Wow.

Reza (37:41.026)
And that makes it really difficult because, you know, if you are a public employee, your purpose is public service. And that's easily forgotten that you're there for the public good. And that makes involving the community so hard because you have to like philosophically be on a mission to care for the community and help them. And that's hard to do day after day.

Seyi (37:50.233)
Yes.

Seyi (37:54.639)
Yes.

Seyi (38:05.603)
Yes.

Seyi (38:09.221)
It is a tough one, but again, if we, not but, and if we go back to the 21st law we just put out, the chaos and unknown outcomes all heading towards serving the needs of the communities, you need to make room for.

Reza (38:20.675)
Yeah.

Seyi (38:38.735)
community involvement, even though it will be chaotic. And what will emerge again from including their voices will be better than whatever it is you think you can come up with as a public servant, because you don't know, you genuinely can't solve all the problems yourself. And the participation will ultimately lead to better outcomes for

Reza (38:42.978)
Yes.

Reza (38:47.011)
Yes.

Reza (38:57.476)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Seyi (39:08.271)
for everyone, or even if it doesn't lead to better outcomes for everyone, public participants will recognize their part and feel empowered. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Reza (39:18.114)
Yeah, their agency, their civic agency. love your optimism. Shai, what you're great at is your optimism. I love you bringing it back to that 21st law and how even in that chaos, you get something good out of it. I love how you sort of brought it back and brought me back from some of my skepticism about the challenges that face doing this. Yes. Yeah.

Seyi (39:27.747)
you

Seyi (39:33.219)
Yeah. Yeah.

Seyi (39:45.259)
Healthy skepticism is good. it's and just just blind -eyed optimism is also bad. And so what we try to find on the on the podcast and in our conversations is what is what works the best here? Understanding the reality of the difficulty of building systems as cities are. Great. And that's it.

Reza (40:00.516)
Yes.

Reza (40:08.366)
Yeah.

Seyi (40:12.761)
That's the end of the episode. Thanks so much for listening. Do we have a mail back today, Reza? We do not. We do not. I do not. So we'll just say thank you for listening. As always, reach out, share your ideas, share your comments on the conversation we've just had. Do you love Charter Cities? Do you think we're getting it wrong? Please let us know. And share this with a friend.

Reza (40:20.342)
I don't think we have one today. Do you have one? No?

Reza (40:37.955)
Yeah.

Reza (40:42.211)
Yep.

Seyi (40:42.213)
family, neighbors, if you enjoy it, I'm sure someone else will as well. Thanks.

Reza (40:47.158)
Yeah, like and subscribe, rate and review. That always helps us feed the algorithm, but most important, make a connection with someone. Thank you for listening. Look forward to hearing you on our, look forward to having you on our next show.

Seyi (41:03.224)
Bye. Thank you.

Reza (41:04.238)
Bye.