Menu
Menu
•🌏 Niceville City Manager David Deitch plans to travel to Taiwan in May to pursue a sister city agreement with New Taipei City.
•🤝 The opportunity was made possible through Deitch’s military connections and a referral from a former commanding officer.
•📊 New Taipei City, with a population of over four million, contrasts significantly with Niceville’s 17,000 residents.
Niceville’s City Manager David Deitch will make an international trip to Taiwan in May to attempt to establish a sister city relationship with a town in the country, New Taipei City.
But the story begins in Berkeley, California.
Deitch said the opportunity came about thanks to his military service. A captain he served with on two tours of duty attended the University of California, Berkeley, for his undergraduate degree. That captain met a classmate who is now serving in the Taiwanese government of the city of New Taipei City, Taiwan.
The captain told his friend from Berkeley that he knew someone – and recommended David Deitch and the city of Niceville.
“I’m hoping to go over there and establish a sister city relationship that is mutually beneficial, where we can grow and learn together and learn from each other, to share cultural experiences with them,” Deitch said.
As of Wednesday, for those of you who are dying to know, the cost of a plane ticket to the island off mainland China is a relatively reasonable $1,000. That is 23 hours and 50 minutes of travel time from Destin Fort Walton Beach to Taipei City, with two stops in between.
RELATED: French Students Arrive in Crestview for Cultural Exchange
Has this story made a difference for you? Consider making a monthly supporting donation to Mid Bay News so that we can continue to create meaningful local journalism for our community.
According to Sister Cities International, a group that helps facilitate sister city relationships between cities, Sister Cities Relationships are a “broad-based, long-term partnership between two communities in two communities in two countries. A relationship is officially recognized after the highest elected or appointed official from both communities signs off on an agreement to become sister cities.”
A city, according to the organization, can have any number of sister cities. The relationships aim to foster civic, economic, and other relationships between the two groups of residents in order to improve both cities and relationships between the members of two countries.
According to cities-today, a municipal trade group magazine, the sister cities idea started after World War II to foster the reperation of relationships damaged by the war and to build cultural and economic ties.
“Since our creation in 1951, our main aim has consisted in helping citizens to reconcile after the war through town twinning partnerships,” says Georgina Mombo, Press Officer at the Council of European Municipalities and Regions in Brussels.
Again, according to Cities Today – In 2012, Brookings and JPMorgan Chase launched the Global Cities Initiative (GCI), aimed at helping US cities strengthen their regional economies by becoming more competitive in the global marketplace. “We believe that cities need to get back to their roots, which is to be centres of trade and commerce,” says Amy Liu, senior fellow, and co-director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program.
New Taipei City is the largest city in Taiwan, located on the northern tip of the island of Taiwan. The city has more than four million people living there, roughly 1500 square miles. For comparison, Niceville has roughly 17,000 residents and 11.3 square miles.
Like Niceville, New Taipei City has many people from other parts of the island. More than 70% of the city’s residents were born somewhere else.
Almost four in ten residents have more than an undergraduate degree.
People indigenous to Taiwan have lived near or in the city’s current boundaries for millennia. Chinese settlers arrived on the island in 1620 – followed by the British in 1850, when they set up a consulate on the island.
The region has a subtropical climate with seasonal monsoons and lots of yearly rain. January is typically the coldest month of the year – and averages 53º. July is the hottest month – and residents expect averages around 91º.
