Twice Mice

As a child, I spent many a long afternoon triumphantly building hotels on Trafalgar Square or sadly mortgaging Old Kent Road. When I visited to London last month, seeing the familiar names come to life was a magical experience. Now, I will soon be able explore the whole world in much the same manner. Would I be able to live happily in Brussels, knowing that it didn’t make the grade?

In February Hasbro announced that they would create a new Worldwide Monopoly, and the choice of cities will be determined by popular vote. The game pieces, Chance, and Community Chest cards will feature events and icons from around the world. I wonder what the unit of currency will be? Perhaps the Euro? Or will we have to exchange our Dollars for Lats to put a house on Riga? Will a tax treaty apply equally to all players? Will Rich Uncle Pennybags still be the icon?

Learning from their embarrassing incident for the French version, where all cities were available for vote and the winner was Montcuq (which sounds like mon cul – “my bottom”), Hasbro pre-selected 68 cities, on which over 5.6 million people voted. Only the two brown spots were open to write-in Wildcard cities.

For some reason, the Montreal Board of Trade coveted the top spot, and invested a huge marketing drive in pushing all residents to have their say. The voters were also mobilised in Latvia, as Riga had an official campaign supported by the government tourism body. These strategies seem to have paid off, as these two cities occupy the most prestigious spots on the new board. The winners are:

Related posts:

1. Montreal – Could I be a Québécoise?
2. Belgium – could I be a Brüsselerin?

This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 10:22 pm and is filed under Choosing our new home.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.