{"id":9472,"date":"2011-10-18T18:12:03","date_gmt":"2011-10-18T23:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/?p=9472"},"modified":"2021-05-18T17:11:50","modified_gmt":"2021-05-18T22:11:50","slug":"better-sister-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/better-sister-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"Better Sister Cities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sister Cities International’s mission<\/a> promotes “peace through mutual respect, understanding, & cooperation \u2014 one individual, one community at a time.” I find that laudable although I wonder how they establish these relationships. Does it involve some sort of affinity perspective or does someone simply say, “hey, wanna be our sister city?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My hometown — Arlington, Virginia — has a number of sister cities<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“To date the Arlington Sister City Association has a relationship with five cities from around the world. The first sister city relationship was established more than fifteen years ago with Aachen, Germany. The second sister city was established shortly after with Coyoacan, Mexico. In 2003, Arlington became sister cities with Reims, France after several years of student exchanges and cultural programs. We have a very active relationship with San Miguel, El Salvador, and our newest sister city agreement was signed on May 23, 2011 with Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"Ivano-Frankivsk.<\/a>
Ivano-Frankivsk<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Setting aside that Arlington isn’t technically a city (it’s a county<\/a>) I still wonder how they came up with their list. San Miguel, El Salvador seems like a great choice because of the large Salvadorian community that has immigrated into the area. I’m sure that Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine is also a wonderful place so I hope nobody takes this personally, but how did they come up with that pairing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d like to suggest something a little less random, at least to the geo-geek community: maybe subsequent rounds of Sister Cities selections could be based on locations with the same latitude or longitude? A quick mapping exercise introduces all sorts of possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n