Chongqing, China, world's fastest growing city is Detroit's sister city?

[davewindsor]

I was checking out Wikipedia and noticed that Detroit has seven sister cities including Chongqing, China, the world's fastest growing city with over 28m people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit How did it come to be that the world's fastest growing city in China was sistered with one on decline? Detroit doesn't even have a Chinatown anymore. I couldn't find a thread on it here. Out of curiousity, does anyone have a background on how this partnership came to be, which Detroit mayor signed it into being, and how these two cities are so much alike that they became sisters?

I googled Sister Cities International and Wikipedia said the sister cities program was originated by President Eisenhower to develop partnerships between two cities and a "sister city .... becomes official with the signing of a formal agreement by the top elected officials of the two jurisdictions. This is usually done during a ceremony..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_..._International