International sister-cities - Bridging the global-local divide

With the demise of the sharp urban-rural divide as a framework for urban an alyses, debates have arisen regarding the utility of the city as a theoreti cally significant construct. Recently however, the growing emphasis on glob alization has brought the analysis of global cities into sharp focus. The c ountervailing trend emphasizes the significance of "the local." Internation al sister-cities provide a site of analysis which illustrates the global-lo cal interface and yet delves deeper. Initially conceived as a post-war mean s of developing friendships and cultural ties, sister-cities were based on similarities such as name or economic function. More recently, greater reco gnition has been given to the economic foundations and benefits of these co nnections. Providing an extension to an integrated approach to the study of sister-cities based on the multifold relationship between culture and comm erce, this paper adds a further dimension by focusing on simultaneously ope rating multi-level entrepreneurial partnerships necessary to sustain active sister-city relationships. Drawing on New Zealand examples of twinning arr angements, it is demonstrated that the emergence and development of embedde d partnership ties is vital to deriving sustainable economic and social ben efits. While the global outreach of the sister-cities phenomenon appears to transcend the geographic confines of cities, strong locality consideration s and local activism nevertheless predominate. A nov el feature of this pap er is the conceptualization of a hybrid form of entrepreneurialism, "munici pal-community entrepreneurship," which is argued as a valuable facilitator of the economic and social vibrancy of cities.