Free Cities Foundation
Governance model

Modern City-States and Small Sovereign Territories

The places already governing themselves at city scale, from a principality owned by one family to a Special Administrative Region of 7 million people.
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Long before anyone proposed building a Free City, some already existed. Monaco, Liechtenstein, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Channel Island of Sark govern themselves at a scale most countries would call a suburb, and each arrived there by a different route: inheritance, treaty, empire, secession or accident.

They are not models anyone designed, which is exactly what makes them useful. Every argument about whether a city-sized jurisdiction can raise revenue, defend itself, hold a legal system together or survive a change of ruler has already been tested in at least one of these places, in public, over decades.

This hub gathers what those cases show: how Monaco funds itself without income tax, why Hong Kong’s autonomy proved reversible, what happened when Sark ended feudal rule in 2008, and how Dubai turned a set of free zones into a magnet for people who could live anywhere. Their histories are covered under History of Free Cities; here the question is how they work today.

Also known as: City-State · City States · Microstate · Small States · Monaco · Singapore · Liechtenstein · Principality · Hong Kong · Macau · SAR · Special Administrative Region · One Country Two Systems

Articles

  • Blog10 min read

    Can Startup Cities Defend Themselves? Ask Dubai

    It’s been a month since the Gulf war erupted. Triggered by the assassination of Iran’s leader in a U.S.-Israeli strike, the conflict has since spilled across the region.

    Vera KichanovaVera Kichanova · Free Cities Foundation
    Can Startup Cities Defend Themselves? Ask Dubai

  • Blog6 min read

    Monaco: A State Owned By A Family

    While Venice has lost its independence, another Mediterranean community founded by Genoese noblemen has survived to this day. This is the Principality of Monaco, which can be exemplary for Free Cities in many respects because of its size, its special relationship with France, and its solutions to the issues of security, immigration, and financing of public expenditure. Some claim that Monaco is already a kind of private state that publishes its figures like a stock corporation and regards its inhabitants as customers. [1]

    Titus GebelTitus Gebel · Free Cities Foundation
    Monaco: A State Owned By A Family

  • Blog7 min read

    Is Hong Kong’s Success Story Coming to an End?

    The astonishing development of Hong Kong is an example of how a city-state can work its way up from simple beginnings with a classical liberal system to considerable prosperity and also to enormous size. The population has multiplied (from 7,500 in 1843 to 1.7 million in 1945 to over 7.3 million in 2015), mainly due to immigration from the People’s Republic of China. For many mainland Chinese, the British colony was a refuge from the Chinese Civil War and later the Communist People’s Republic of China. Today, the quality of life and life expectancy, per capita income and business friendliness in Hong Kong are among the world’s best. [1]

    Titus GebelTitus Gebel · Free Cities Foundation
    Is Hong Kong’s Success Story Coming to an End?

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