Jacksonville, Florida and Curitiba Unite
The mayor of Curitiba, Beto Richa, and the mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, John Peyton, recently signed a protocol of sisterhood between the two cities. Discussions with the American city began in February 2008, when a delegation from Jacksonville visited Curitiba, interested in its urban planning projects and social reform measures. The group was led by the International Relations Advisor, Nancy Olson, and the Latin America director of the Jacksonville Port Authority – JAXPORT, Joshua Rodrigues.
Olson and Rodrigues found much in common between Jacksonville and Curitiba, and proposed a sisterhood in the same vein as the sisterhood protocol between Curitiba and Orlando. Last year, John Peyton, was invitated by Beto Richa to visit the city, hoping to sign a Sister Cities memorandum. Richa took advantage of an invitation by the World Bank to speak at an international event on ecology and energy in Washington, and extended his visit to the new sister city.
Jacksonville is divided by the Saint John’s River at 2178 km², and is the largest district in the U.S. in area. It is almost five times the size of Curitiba at 430.9 km², though the population is 850,000 inhabitants, nearly half the population of Curitiba’s at 1.85 million.
Constantly evaluated as one of the best U.S. cities for business expansion in an annual survey conducted by the magazine Expansion Management, Jacksonville has earned the status of Large Intermodal Center. Its distribution system for raw materials and manufactured goods, offer transport logistics including: port facilities, air cargo terminals, railroads and truck routes.
Curitiba has 11 other sister cities: Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Bolivia), Montevideo (Uruguay), Asuncion (Paraguay), Orlando (USA), Guadalajara (Mexico), Coimbra (Portugal), Treviso (Italy), Krakow (Poland), Himeji (Japan), Hangzhou (China) and Suwon (South Korea).
