Future Cities Development ceasing operations

Greetings all.  As you may be unsurprised to hear after reading about the Honduran Supreme Court case, my company Future Cities Development has ceased operations.  Here is the full announcement:

Closing Statement From Future Cities Development, Inc.
October 19th, 2012 

In July 2011, Honduras amended their constitution[1] to create the world’s first free city program.  Passing with a vote of 126-1, the RED[2] program was intended to create new cities on empty land with semi-independent governance systems[3] under Honduran and international oversight.

Because we share a deep passion for innovative governance, we responded by founding Future Cities Development in August of 2011.  We saw the historically unprecedented program as a compelling and urgent opportunity to improve economic prospects for Hondurans and put our principles into action.

Unfortunately, the early political momentum for the RED program faltered, and the program’s implementation suffered a number of setbacks and delays over the last year.  These culminated in the October 18th, 2012 ruling by the Honduran Supreme Court that the RED legislation was unconstitutional, by a vote of 13-2.

As a result, we no longer see any imminent development prospects in Honduras. Since our funding was contingent on making substantial progress within a year, we are winding down the company and returning our remaining funds to our investors. We thank them for their support of our work towards a better world for all.

While we are saddened that the RED program did not materialize, we are proud to have participated and learned much from the experience. We remain convinced that free city initiatives are the most promising strategy for alleviating global poverty.  As awareness grows that good rules and effective institutions are the foundations of improved standards of living, we expect that other countries will attempt similar programs. We look forward to a future with more opportunities for the sustainable development of free cities.

In the meantime, we encourage you to follow and support the research non-profits working to create these opportunities: the Free Cities Institute[4], The Seasteading Institute, and Charter Cities.

Sincerely,

The founders of Future Cities Development, Inc. (info@futurecitiesdev.com)

[1] Here is the amendment in English and in Spanish.
[2] Regiones Especiales de Desarrollo – Spanish for Special Economic Zones
[3] See coverage in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal here and here, TED, and The Economist.
[4] The FCI website is being re-designed as of Oct 2012, will be back up soon.