Kevin Phillips has likened the nations and regions of the Anglosphere to cousins. Yet, as in real life, those cousins don't necessarily know each other all that well. One possible way to improve connections between those cousins is through exchanges of people, as is familiar from institutions such as American Field Service (for students) and Sister Cities International. Yet, for instance, the "sister" cities of Denver, Colorado are Brest, France; Takayama, Japan; Nairobi, Kenya; Karmiel, Israel; Potenza, Italy; Cuernavaca, Mexico; Chennai, India; Kunming, China; Axum, Ethiopia; and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Not an Anglosphere location among the bunch! So here's a proposal: let's get at least one Anglosphere town on the "sister city" list for every participating city in America.
Alternatively, towns with the same name could seek out connections among themselves or even hold reunions of a sort. Consider some town names from different regions of England:
Folks in these towns could hold a BristolFest or whatever every year, rotating among the towns with that name. It sounds like a good excuse to travel, see new places, make new friends, and experience the different flavors of Anglospheric culture.
(Cross-posted at one small voice.)
Posted by Peter Saint-Andre at October 12, 2005 10:57 PMA great idea. It would be particularly interesting in cases where the colonial towns were named because their original settlers came from the region of the original town. New York is not an example, as it was renamed from New Amsterdam in honor of the Duke of York; the various Richmonds are a similar example. But Kevin Phillips has a fascinating set of maps in The Cousins' Wars showing the whole cluster of towns in Plymouth County, Masachusetts bearing the names of a cluster of towns around Plymouth, England, and a second set of East Anglia towns, like Boston, that have namesakes around Boston. Names from the Anglo-Scottish Border and Northern Ireland are scattered across the Appalachian regions. It could be interesting.
Posted by: Jim Bennett at October 13, 2005 01:02 AMMy home town is Kenilworth, immortalised by Sir Walter Scott in his Waverley novels. There is a Kenilworth in the US, and in Queensland, and there is also a district called Kenilworth in Edmonton, Alberta, where I live now.
Unfortunately towns in the UK are more interested in twinning with towns in the UK so Kenilworth, Warwickshire, is twinned with Bourg-la-Reine in France and Eppstein in Germany. I don't want to come over as a xenophobe - I have lived and worked in Germany and enjoyed it greatly - but at the end of the day they are foreigners. The kids of Kenilworth, England, would much prefer swapping with Yanks and Aussies I'm sure.
Posted by: Gareth at October 13, 2005 02:05 AM"Unfortunately towns in the UK are more interested in twinning with towns in the UK"
Should read:
"Unfortunately towns in the UK are more interested in twinning with towns in the EU"
Doh!
Posted by: Gareth at October 13, 2005 02:07 AMI thought there was a Richmond in Virginia as well. Actually, Richmond on the Thames, nowadays a London borough is twinned with the Virginia one but it is also twinned with some French and German towns. Some of that is a matter of finance. Town twinning, which in Britain, pre-dates the EU but has been snaffled up by that institution, is largely an excuse for jollies for the various officials, elected or unelected. It is cheaper and easier often to go to France than to smaller places in the US, Canada, let alone Australia. But I do think it would be a good idea to start a movement of this kind. Isn't there a London in Ontario? We could twin with that. In fact, I think it will be suggested to Hizonner, the Mayor Ken Livingstone. He will hate the very idea.
Posted by: Helen at October 13, 2005 07:20 AMSo what am I supposed to do? I'm in San Jose, California!
St. Joseph might work but they tend to be of Gallic background.
Are Irish towns OK and are there any?
Posted by: Whitehall at October 14, 2005 05:25 PMThere are plenty of Irish town names throughout the Anglosphere, starting with Baltimore. Particularly if you count Northern Irish names. For San Jose you're out of luck -- perhaps you can adopt Newark!
Posted by: Jim Bennett at October 14, 2005 07:13 PMIt is a good idea, and makes a lot more sense than the twining with Europe, I never could understand the logic behind that.