San Francisco mayor looking forward to Expo

SAN FRANCISCO: For Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco, a visit to the upcoming World Expo starting in May in Shanghai will have both professional and personal meanings.

Newsom is scheduled to lead a delegation of hundreds of members to stage San Francisco Week in June during the Shanghai Expo to showcase cultural diversity of the US city with ballet, opera and other performances.

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"You have countries that are participating but cities don't necessarily have sponsored weeks at the Expo. San Francisco may be the only city that have its own week, which we think is very significant," the mayor said Tuesday at a City Hall roundtable briefing with Chinese media.

San Francisco, with a large Chinese American population, this year is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its sister-city relationship with Shanghai -- the first such tie established between Chinese and US cities.

Recognizing its friendship with Shanghai and Shanghai's importance as an economic center in China, San Francisco in 2008 chose the Chinese city as the site of its first overseas office.

At the Shanghai Expo, San Francisco is also planning to showcase innovative projects including green buildings by participating in the Urban Best Practices Area, a specific exhibition section of the Expo.

Newsom has said that "Better City, Better Life," the theme of the Shanghai Expo, exemplifies San Francisco's urban strategy over all these years.

"I don't think you'll find a US city that does more in environment than San Francisco," the mayor told Chinese reporters, believing there is a lot for the city to share and to learn at the Shanghai Expo.

Newsom visited Shanghai as recent as in November 2008, when he went to site of the 2010 Expo and was given a "virtual tour."

"It's going to be a lot of fun to walk back in and actually see all these remarkable structures completely built, and I'm really personally looking forward to the Expo as much as I'm professionally," he said.

San Francisco hosted two Expos in the first half of the 20th century, with the Panama Pacific International Exposition held in 1915 having great economic implications for the city that had been almost destroyed by the great earthquake and fire of 1906.

Calling himself a "direct beneficiary" of the 1915 Expo, Newsom said he grew up in a San Francisco district that was rebuilt during the exposition when huge investment was made in the neighborhood.

He expressed the confidence that the Shanghai Expo will be a very positive thing for all of China, not just for San Francisco's sister city.

"I'm very enthusiastic for China, not just Shanghai. This will be the biggest Expo in history, it should be spectacular to experience it. That's why I look forward to it," Newsom said.