What cities could be "internationalized"?

Erizium

Today, no cities are truly internationalized under the sense of being under the jurisdiction of multiple states or under the sole control of an organization (i.e, UN headquarters is controlled by the UN, or only the OIC has jurisdiction over Mecca)

What cities could potentially be internationalized to a certain degree? Hear are some of my ideas:

1. Constantinople: Russian and Ottoman collapses during World War I leave the city vulnerable to the Entente. Giving it to Greece, Bulgaria, or the nascent Turks will pretty much guarantee a shooting war sooner rather than later so the Entente turns it into the League of Nation's Capital

2. Jerusalem: Direct UN administration before the creation of the State of Israel (with protection of the city under joint Israeli, Islamic, UN, and Christian control)

3. Danzig/Gdansk: Whatever German entity ends up controlling the country after World War I agrees to joint control of Danzig with Poland in exchange for an alliance

4. Mecca/Medina: Probably need to do something about the Saudis and the Hashemites for this one. UN administration with an international task force comprised of Muslims from multiple countries?
 

AussieHawker

Banned
Chinese treaty port cities. And perhaps other lingering holds of colonial rules, like Portugal's holdings in India being ceded to joint control, but not fully taken over by India.
 

Roches

Kaliningrad, if there had once been a West East Prussia and an East East Prussia.

Rome consists of two sovereign countries OTL, so change the situation to match what you're looking for.
 

Aloha May

Both Tangiers and a part of Shanghai were international zones in reality, so to keep an international zone to this day, it would be easiest to select changes that can keep those areas like that (with maybe the exception of Shanghai, which would require China to keep being corrupt and militarily impotent, which is a difficult thing to pull off).
 

overoceans

Erizium said:
4. Mecca/Medina: Probably need to do something about the Saudis and the Hashemites for this one. UN administration with an international task force comprised of Muslims from multiple countries?
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What would be the rationale for this? Are Mecca and Medina currently the object of international disputes? Because other than that, I'm not really seeing any reason for them to be put under UN administration, than, say, Vatican City or Fatima.
 

Look More Closely Later

Erizium said:
Today, no cities are truly internationalized under the sense of being under the jurisdiction of multiple states or under the sole control of an organization (i.e, UN headquarters is controlled by the UN, or only the OIC has jurisdiction over Mecca)...
Click to expand...
I guess Vatican City is too small/too low a population to be considered a true 'city' controlled by an organization?
 

Byzantion

Erizium said:
Today, no cities are truly internationalized under the sense of being under the jurisdiction of multiple states or under the sole control of an organization (i.e, UN headquarters is controlled by the UN, or only the OIC has jurisdiction over Mecca)

What cities could potentially be internationalized to a certain degree? Hear are some of my ideas:

1. Constantinople: Russian and Ottoman collapses during World War I leave the city vulnerable to the Entente. Giving it to Greece, Bulgaria, or the nascent Turks will pretty much guarantee a shooting war sooner rather than later so the Entente turns it into the League of Nation's Capital

2. Jerusalem: Direct UN administration before the creation of the State of Israel (with protection of the city under joint Israeli, Islamic, UN, and Christian control)

3. Danzig/Gdansk: Whatever German entity ends up controlling the country after World War I agrees to joint control of Danzig with Poland in exchange for an alliance

4. Mecca/Medina: Probably need to do something about the Saudis and the Hashemites for this one. UN administration with an international task force comprised of Muslims from multiple countries?
Click to expand...
Genf.
 

Joshua Ben Ari

Erizium said:
Today, no cities are truly internationalized under the sense of being under the jurisdiction of multiple states or under the sole control of an organization (i.e, UN headquarters is controlled by the UN, or only the OIC has jurisdiction over Mecca)
Click to expand...

The UN doesn't control New York City, it governs its headquarters within New York City. The OIC is the exact same way, they don't actually govern the city of Mecca. Internationalizing a city like that is really just an occupation by every country (or whichever countries participate). And the UN doesn't exactly have the best track record with it so any internationalization would mean either: a) the city merges into another country, or b) the city becomes an independent city-state.

Actual international zones and cities, like Tangiers, Danzig/Gdansk, Istanbul/Constantinople, and Trieste, might actually be possible in the right POD. It wouldn't be easy but I think it could be done.

Jerusalem (the corpus separatum was supposed to include Jerusalem and Bethlehem) is, IMO, not going to work since the British actually didn't do any work to build up the infrastructure and they left a power vacuum when they left before war broke out. It would be a nightmare for the UN to actually govern. In the end, it would have been fought over anyway by the Israelis and the Jordanians because of the historical, cultural, and religious claims on that city.
 

Lalli

Keep Cold War going and Germany divided and you have Berlin.

There could be way keep Trieste as international territory.
 

Deleted member 109224

Must it be a condominium?

There are plenty of towns, cities, and metro areas that cross national boundaries.

Tijuana and San Diego are pretty much one city with a fence going through it.
East and West Berlin were sort of the same.

You could probably have a situation where two countries each own their half of a metro area and come to an agreement where residents of the metro could cross very easily. For example if Greece owned European Constantinople and Turkey Asian Constantinople, residents of each half could get an ID allowing for visa-free movement to the other side.
 

David T

overoceans said:
What would be the rationale for this? Are Mecca and Medina currently the object of international disputes? Because other than that, I'm not really seeing any reason for them to be put under UN administration, than, say, Vatican City or Fatima.
Click to expand...

Last I heard the Vatican is indeed under the control of a transnational organization! :p
 

Peg Leg Pom

How about,...

Rome remains under the authority of the Vatican as the last remnant of the Papal States after Italian unification.
After WWI but before the Fascist take over the Vatican hands the city over to the League of Nations as it's Headquarters and it proves useful enough as a neutral meeting point/spy center during WWII that it's left alone. It is then Transferred to the UN.
 
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