His proposal looks similar to how medieval cities were formed from anew in places like Poland about 700-800 years ago, most of them using the “Magdeburg rights” [1], i.e. the “good rules” he mentions sometime during his talk. What eventually happened to those cities was that the surrounding territory “caught up with them”, so to speak, and imposed its own rules which superseded the Magdeburg rules, the same way China is now “superseding” Hong Kong’s rules (HK is also mentioned as a “good example” to follow, but the lecture is by now almost 10 years old).
> Named after the German city of Magdeburg, these town charters were perhaps the most important set of medieval laws in Central Europe thus far.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdeburg_rights