Global City-Twinning in the Digital Age

For many years, cities throughout the globe have developed ties with each other to process and nurture friendship, solidarity, and collaboration. They constitute a mode of governance distinct from the modus operandi of cities that are not involved in such crossborder entanglements. While the characteristics of twinned cities are known on a local, regional, or national level, little analysis is available about their operation at the global level. An approach to the study of sister cities anchored througha global framework has been long overdue. In this light, Global City-Twinning in the Digital Age unveils an analysis of intercity relationships on a global scale and as a global phenomenon with digital communication technologies playing a key role in upgrading traditional practices, enhancing crossborder cooperation, and facilitating the production of digital sister cities. This book analyzes the deployment of sister city formations and operations throughout the globe with a focus on cities of North America, Latin America, North Africa, Europe and the Mediterranean region. Using a global approach, it discusses the variety of orientations and purposes they take from friendship, entrepreneurship, urban development, cooperative management, municipal policy to digital entanglements. It expands the scope of study of sister cities by unveiling the role of immigrants, diaspora, and postdiaspora in the making and functioning of sister cities and by assessing the production of the digital model of sister cities--