4 Comments

Interesting as always ! I like how you bring our attention to less common topics.

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Detroit is a decent choice for Nagoya, yet the former has qualities (deep stains?) that I think make the partnership untenable. Gun deaths, crack smoking, ice age conditions, and urban rot top this list. Yes, they both have cars and are mid country but is that enough? I think Nagoya can hold out for better...like Frankfurt, say!

I agree fully with you though that the entire concept of Sister City has highly questionable value. lol.

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Well, Nagoya merely kind of sucks and is boring as hell for a Japanese city, from this perspective, as where much of Detroit is cut off from basic city services, full of abandoned buildings, as well as horrific violence by Japanese standards (or basically any country in the developed world), so I don’t think there’s much connection, aside from being former industrial hubs. Since Nagoya is still an actual functioning city, just a bit more gritty perhaps in some respects, a smarter US pairing would probably be Oakland..

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New Orleans & Matsue are sister cities based on the fact that Lafcadio Hearn lived in both cities. I don’t know the quality of the pairing as I have not been to Matsue but plan to go on my next trip Japan. The two cities have cultural exchanges and visits. I’m a little late to the game, but thank you for the brilliant content.

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