Guangzhou.
‘Diplomacity’
Cities are not just based on their sovereignty, but also on their capacity to make their own decisions and set their own policies. Around the world, we can see that a diplomatic powerhouse doesn’t have to be a capital city of a country. New York City, Dubai, Istanbul, Mumbai and Frankfurt, for example, are drivers of commercial diplomacy and environmental diplomacy in their respective countries. And this is nothing new. In the history of diplomacy, from ancient Mesopotamia to the Renaissance in Italy, it has always been cities that are actually the driver of exchange and of
Photo: jo.sau http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
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communication across societies. Now this is happening on a whole different scale. There are more mayors serving as the heads of states today than ever in history, and that number is growing over time. We see from Mexico to Nigeria to Turkey to Indonesia, mayors are increasingly becoming leading candidates for nation-states or already are. They can demonstrate a municipal track-record and the ability to govern that they can take to a larger scale, and those accomplishments make them well-suited to be national and international leaders. What does it take to be a leader of a global city today? There are certain challenges they have ➤
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