Grex Aaypsi Conference

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Grex Aaypsi Item 77: Sister Cities
Entered by jvmv on Mon Sep 22 19:01:50 UTC 2008:

At the entrance of the Ann Arbor there's a board and on it is the names
of 'sister' cities. Tubingen/Germany, Belize/Belize, Hikone,
Peterborough/Ont, Juigalpa/Nicaragua, Dakar/Senegal and Remedios/Cuba
were named there.

I know that Sister Cities often - though by no means always - is an
association of similar characteristics. I'm trying to understand the
connection between Remedios and Ann Arbor, for example.

9 responses total.

#1 of 9 by rcurl on Mon Sep 22 19:31:51 2008:

What are the "similar characteristics" for any of the Sister Cities?

There is a "checklist" for cities to find sister cities at
http://www.sister-cities.org/sci/cityseek/find/index

I don't find in the checklist any suggested criteria other than wanting to
have a sister city relationship. I'm inclined to think that it generally
occurs because someone from one city visited the other, and thought it would
be a "neat idea".

#2 of 9 by jvmv on Mon Sep 22 20:50:01 2008:

I mean, similar characteristics between cities. I think in selecting a
sister city for Ann Arbor, various criteria of similarities are used.
Example, the population of Ann Arbor is exactly the same as Remedios.

#3 of 9 by tod on Mon Sep 22 23:35:09 2008:

Here is the list of sis cities for Seattle:
Beer Sheva, Southern, Israel   
Bergen, Hordaland, Norway   
Limbe, Sud-Ouest, Cameroon   
Mazatlan, Mexico   
Mombasa, Coast, Kenya   
Nantes, Pays de la Loire, France   
Pecs, Baranya, Hungary   
Perugia, Umbria, Italy   
Reykjavik, Gullbringusysla, Iceland   
Sihanoukville, Cambodia   
Surabaya, Aceh, Indonesia   
Taejon, South Korea   
Cebu City, Cebu, Philippines   
Tashkent, Toshkent Shahri, Uzbekistan   
Chongqing, China   
Christchurch, New Zealand   
Galway, Galway, Ireland   
Gdynia, Pomorskie, Poland   
Haiphong, Vietnam

#4 of 9 by rcurl on Tue Sep 23 06:13:47 2008:

Ask someone in Seattle government (call it City Clerk?) why they chose those
sister cities.

Ann Arbor has more than twice the population of Remedios Cuba.

#5 of 9 by tod on Tue Sep 23 18:29:04 2008:

re #4
The Seattle Sister Cities Coordinating Council consists of 20 members
appointed by the Mayor and approved by the City Council to serve 2-year terms.
Membership categories are as follows:  

10 representatives from sister city associations, chosen on a rotating basis:
1 representative from the City Council, appointed by Council 
1 representative from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations 
1 representative from Greater Seattle Trade Development Alliance, Port of
Seattle or Chamber of Commerce 
7 representatives from educational/cultural institutions and business
community 

You can read about each sister city and why they were chosen under their
available links at:
http://www.seattle.gov/oir/sistercities/cities.htm

#6 of 9 by rcurl on Wed Sep 24 19:57:25 2008:

I looked at all the Seattle Sister Cities descriptions and only two of 
them gave any hint for the origin of the relation: Limbe and Reykjavik. 
The former started because someone organized the gift of a van to Limbe. 
The latter started because of a "sizeable" number of Icelandic residents 
living in Seattle. In neither case is any information given of who did 
what to organize the Sister City arrangement.

I find the origins of things interesting, but this information is not 
included in the descriptions of sister city relations.

When I visit a town, the first qauestion that occurs to me is, why is this 
town here? Geography is often the reason. For sister cities, it must be 
personal contacts.

#7 of 9 by tod on Thu Sep 25 13:33:24 2008:

re #6
 For sister cities, it must be
 personal contacts.

I'd venture a guess there is a bit of tax write-off and vacation packaging
involved..possibly even tourism/heritage PAC.  I know for the "south of
the border" sister city, much of it has to do with a latino vote and
an excuse to bring those folks into all the parades.

#8 of 9 by jvmv on Thu Sep 25 22:27:44 2008:

Well, I think now things are clear. I was wrong thinking about 'similar
characteristics'. I appreciate the effort you've expended to find out
although we still don't know what the relationship between the sister
cities in Ann Arbor except it must be some connection economic &
cultural between them.

#9 of 9 by rcurl on Fri Sep 26 05:39:39 2008:

There are descriptions at that Seattle Sister-Cities site of what 
activities are conducted with most of the Sister-Cities, just not how the 
arrangements came about.

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