[sdoering]

Interesting idea. But I believe, that countries as a whole a too big to be really manageable. I imagine a society living in smaller regions (but big enough for natural resources, et al.) and these regions are part of a bigger structure. Like cells in a body. OK, Germany or the US do have a similar way of organizing, but I would love for these "cells" to be more autonomous, so that like-minded people could "just" switch cells, so that ideologies or political principles would be voted for by feet.

Something along these lines. sitting @work, this rough sketch is everything I can offer. And I know, a lot of detail is missing.

[Paul_S]

I think a 2 million city would be big enough. We can call it an special economic area. I do believe this is already happening.

We all know that this is the inevitable cyberpunk future - just substitute governments with corporations.

[innguest]

I have come to the same conclusion. I don't understand why we keep voting with ballots and not feet.

Does anyone here remember those vertical cities (they were effectively cities) in SimCity 2000 (3000?)? I can't find a picture (EDIT: found it: http://imgur.com/MBAzs) but ever since I first played that game, that tiny pixelated picture has given me many ideas.

Think of a large building with everything you need inside - all big box stores, small businesses, and residences. But in order to live there you need to share a lot in common with the philosophy that building was made for. So there would be one for liberals who are for abortion and for legalizing pot and so on and so forth; there would also be a separate building for all of the tiny variations, and those buildings would literally undergo a kind of natural selection (people would choose where to live) and the least popular ones would keep fine tuning their philosophy to try and attract more people.

That way we would all live with like minded people, there would be a lot less of the problems there are in today's society (basically all the proselytizing and wanting others to do as you think is right for them).

I'll stop here because I'm saving this stuff for a book or a long article, but Jacques article and your comments here have just alerted me to the fact that there might be other people who think the same as I do. To be frank, I'd much rather have a beer with you all than waste my time typing this crap. We could all do that if we lived in one of those vertical charter cities. :)

[innguest]

Just for the sake of completeness, after much googling I came to learn that what I was trying to describe already has a name, and it's Arcology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology

So I mean that we should use arcologies (am I using this word correctly?) to experiment with finding the best political systems for each person, by allowing each person to choose where to live, and fine tuning the laws of the least popular arcologies to try and attract more people.