Honduras occupies a grim spot in Latin America. It has the world’s highest murder rate, nearly 65 percent of the population lives in poverty, and about 16 percent of its GPD comes in remittances from the United States. Violence and income inequality increased even more following a military coup in 2009. The country has since held presidential elections, though opposition politicians and observers questioned the process.

This context helps explain why an idea as drastic as the “charter city” model took hold in Honduras several years ago. The concept, usually credited to the economist Paul Romer, aims to recreate the success of city-states like Hong Kong and Singapore by creating business-friendly, quasi-sovereign villages or even cities, free from government regulations and the messy realities of politics. Touted as a revolutionary development tool, the idea promises fresh opportunities for countries mired in poverty and poor governance.

Despite marked opposition from human rights organizations and a multitude of legal challenges, these theoretical “model cities,” as they’re called locally, might actually be up and running in the near future. A 2011 law permitting the creation of autonomous zones was struck down by the Honduran Supreme Court, but the current “Zones of Employment and Economic Development” law (ZEDE in Spanish), passed in 2013, has since been upheld by a reconfigured court, paving the way for the great experiment to be put into practice.

The possibility of a real ZEDE being created soon has raised widespread concern, both locally and internationally. Romer himself, initially deeply involved in the Honduran initiative, stepped aside citing transparency concerns. A recent spate of articles in the international press focuses on the situation of residents in the sparsely populated areas that could theoretically house these zones: they would be forced to join the ZEDE or sell-out from their homes.