Definition of Charter

• A charter is a document that grants authority or rights from a sovereign power to a city or other local organization. The word "charter" comes from the French "charte," meaning "little paper."
  
  

Origins of Charters

• Some of the first charters were grants made to the church in Kent, England, during in the 600s. These were followed by grants of land to individuals. Later, charters were granted to towns to give them the right to hold markets, collect tolls and elect their own officials. The most famous charter was the Magna Carta ("Great Charter"), a document issued by King John in 1215. The document, signed under threat of civil war, gave the English people liberties including the freedom of the church and the security of land ownership.
  
  

Origins of Charter Cities

• Luebeck, Germany, became one of the first charter cities when Henry the Lion took control of it 1158. He wanted to create a center of commerce on the Baltic coast, so he established a charter that limited taxes and trade restrictions, and then invited merchants from Russia, Denmark, Norway and Sweden to move there. An example of a regional charter is Pennsylvania. King Charles II granted it as a land charter to William Penn in 1681 to repay a debt. Penn then established a government that included a county commission and freedom of religion.
  
  

Modern Charter Cities

• Charter cities still exist today and are granted by a state or local legislature. In California, where the state constitution gives cities the power to become charter cities, 117 of the state's 478 cities were charter cities as of June 2010. These cities have "supreme authority over municipal affairs," meaning that their law concerning a municipal affair will trump a state law governing the same topic. Cities that have not adopted a charter are general law cities, bound by the state's general law, even when it comes to municipal affairs. Other examples of modern charter cities include Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and Marawi City in the Phillippines.
  
  

Charter City Movement

• Paul Romer, an economist from Stanford, has been a modern champion of charter cities. He has proposed that global poverty can be ended by following the model of Hong Kong, in which a poor nation (China) and a rich one (Britain) collaborated to create a new city.