Ask Chicagoist: Sister City Selection?
By Thales Exoo in Miscellaneous on Apr 27, 2006 6:44PM
I was out of town this weekend but traveling through O'Hare always makes me wonder who is managing our sister city office. Seems like every time I go to O'Hare there are a few more sister city flags. Does our city have no standards? Do we need to be sister city to everyone? Why not be more selective and therefore barter better deals like everyone in Chicago gets a free hotel stay in sister city Amsterdam.
What is the selection criteria for Chicago's Sister Cities? Who has been turned down? Has anyone ever been kicked out of the Chicago Family?
Whenever Chicagoist goes to O'Hare, we like to walk through what we've dubbed the "Hall of Tranquility." You know the passageway with the swirly and colorful sci-fi lights on the ceiling and the soothing other-worldly music? Sometimes, when we're extra stressed out, we want to go to O'Hare just to experience that New Age bliss, without the potentially pesky side effect of needing to get on a plane and fly somewhere. But that's neither here nor there.
Chicago must come from a good Catholic family, because we currently have 25 sister cities, and based on how much Daley likes the Sister Cities Program, we're sure that number is going to continue to grow. President Eisenhower founded the national program in 1956, as a post-World War II initiative to promote world peace via a "people-to-people, citizen diplomacy initiative." Chicago's first Sister Cities agreement was signed by the first Mayor Daley in 1967 with Warsaw, Poland. In 1990, when the current Mayor Daley established a Board of Directors for the program, we had only nine Sister Cities. Since then, Daley has encouraged our quick acquisition of new siblings, giving us ties to regions all over the world.
We think the idea behind the program seems pretty sound: promoting global understanding by connecting with people all over the world on a smaller city-to-city scale. Each city has their own committee, so cultural exchanges and events can really vary based on how active the committee is. Activities include theater and musical performances, presentations on technology and medicine, organizing relief efforts, or even just hosting residents of the sister city in order to learn more about where they are from (check out the Current Events section on the Chicago Sister Cities site). It all sounds pretty cool, but we're not sure if there's enough word out about how we in Chicago could potentially benefit or help out. It's nice to think it's more than just another pretty flag on the wall, though.
The selection criteria for the program is pretty open-ended, and is centered around a nomination process. First, the nomination "must come from an organized group of Chicago citizens," and there must "exist a mutual interest and involvement with the prospective city in the areas of culture, trade and economic development, youth, education, recreation, medicine and technology." The nominating group then submits to the New City Nominations Committee a city profile, with emphasis on what similarities the city has with Chicago; a list of community leaders in both Chicago and the nominated city who are "committed to a long term relationship" (we've heard that one before); and examples of how the city and Chicago have already shared assets, in terms of culture, trade, education, recreation, etc. The group then makes a presentation to the committee, and a recommendation is made to the Board of Directors, who either approves, denies, or postpones the nomination. In the case of an approval, the nomination is sent to Mayor Daley for the final decision.
In order to try to tackle your last two questions, we contacted the Sister Cities Office. The person we talked to insisted that the Sister City process was very internal, and because the nominating process can really vary so much from city to city and is based on individual circumstances, they couldn't really say why a city wouldn't survive the selection process. They did point out that only one city per country is allowed, and some countries are not yet members of Sister Cities International (which hosts a cities seeking cities section -- think they have speed dating, too?). And no, no city has ever been disowned.
We're also happy to report that some of our fellow -ist cities are our sister cities too! Toronto, Shanghai, and Paris are all sister cities to Chicago.
Experiencing sibling rivalry? Need some advice? Email ask(at)chicagoist(dot)com.