Twinning, Cities, and Health: Opportunities Being Missed?

Excerpt

In Europe, the idea that communities should seek “twins” in other countries had a new lease of life after the 1939–1945 war. For smaller towns, one twin is usually enough. UK/France twinning is especially popular, but the activities are essentially social with annual exchanges of visitors or short school trips, for example. However, cities can be more ambitious both in the number of twinning arrangements that are set up and in their scope. The former port city of Bristol, in south–west England, has seven twinning or friendship arrangements, whereas in the middle of the country, the former manufacturing heartland of Birmingham has eight. As a center for wine importing, historically anyway, it would be natural for Bristol to have chosen Bordeaux (1947) and Oporto (1984) as suitable twins. Another is Germany’s Hannover (also 1947), but the others are in the developing world. The twinnings with Beira in Mozambique, the port of Puerto Morazan in Nicaragua, Guangzhou in south–east China, and Tbilisi in Georgia involve far more than the usual social exchange programs. …