The following are noteworthy elements of Nonah during this current era of Miles Vorkosigan.
--- NONAH
Nonah is a bustling business town with vectors for lots of different industries right within city limits. But in contrast to the more tech-based De Chima, Nonah has a very strong manufacturing bent to its businesses. There are several factories on the edge of town that make or assemble parts for many different applications, the hover industry especially. This has resulted in, paradoxically, some citizens living in the city but commuting outward rather than vice versa.
Lots of business doesn't just mean large companies and factories, though; it also means lots of unique business opportunities. Nonah is famous for craft everything: craft beer, craft soda, craft cheese, craft ... crafting supplies. It's been joked that Nonah doesn't have a franchise anything in town, which isn't actually true but does say a lot about the town. It's unique and a bit off-kilter.
Naturally, the center of town is quite a lively place, with a gorgeous downtown lined with boutique shops and tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants. It's centered around the Aerial Garden, an enclosed glass building built over one of the busiest streets in the downtown area. The whole building is made of glass save for the flooring, with a thriving terrace of plants carefully cultivated by the parks & rec department. The Garden is a hub for many local events, including local symphony performances, ceremonies, and perhaps the occasional swear-in.
Current imPort businesses in town:
+ Neo Tokyo (Bike/non-hover garage run by Kaneda & Tetsuo)
--- CONTRIBUTIONS
+ Miles has opened an office in downtown Nonah for all your Ambassadorial needs! While the office hours are technically between 8 and 6 PM, Miles lives in a small apartment above the office when he's in town, so if you really need him, he's there at all hours. And he legitimately loves getting woken up in the middle of the night by a random emergency ... once he's gotten a cup of coffee in him, anyway.
+ In the wake of multiple outbreaks of city-wide emergencies, Miles has started up an emergency response network among the native population! ImPorts are strongly encouraged to join as well. At the moment, this mostly consists of renovating old phone booths and/or setting up similar small installations (think public mailbox sized) with cachés of supplies in case of supervillain or other widespread attack. These boxes also have an emergency call function that puts the caller directly in contact with 911 in case of an emergency.
+ On a similar note, Miles is always out there in the thick of things when something nasty is going down. It's not the slightest bit unusual to see the Ambassador out fighting whatever's overrun the city on that particular day, or at least tending to those affected. He made his new offices into a safe house during the blackout and riots, providing emergency supplies and shelter for as many people as he could hold. The Vor know all about withstanding sieges, after all.
+ With the help of his brother's good business sense, Miles has been making a lot of investments to local businesses lately, especially those geared more towards helping imPorts, even unregistered ones. His choices are ... eccentric, mostly being made up of whatever catches his eye rather than what, y'know, makes sense, but they're mostly good choices even so. He has also set up a fund specifically for imPort-run businesses to use as start-up capital - regardless of whether or not they are Registered. The only requirement is that said business serve both the imPort and native community in whatever it does. Even if it's something like knitting cat sweaters.
+ Miles doesn't hold town hall meetings (what are those? democracy is still weird for him), but he does respond to every request he gets from native or imPort alike if they contact him. Alas, this means that the best way to get something done in Nonah is to wave it directly under Miles' nose. But once he's seen it, he's like a bull after a bit of red cloth.
+ Miles has been ... working on setting up some more traditionally humanitarian endeavors, like pet adoption drives, soup kitchens, etc. The trick is that he's not great at following through, so he tends to leave a trail of half-finished good intentions behind him, especially on this specific items. He's better at grand plans than grounded practicalities.
+ Miles also writes (probably not fully legal) permits for people to set off fireworks. They're mostly pieces of paper saying "x can do what they want."
--- LOOKING FORWARD
The platform that Miles ran on was improving healthcare options for imPorts, regardless of whether they are registered or not. And, on the flip side, helping integrate imPort healers with the general populace so that regular citizens can also benefit from instantaneous healing abilities. His thought process is that having hospitals that utilize this unique blend will be a draw that brings in money to run the clinic for non-Registered.
He's still super committed to this! Obviously anything involving imPorts needs to be done ICly, so he's nnnot quite there yet, but I'd like to say he has laid groundwork for his first clinic set up. (He also needs to talk with Lucy ICly, since they have similar goals in that regard.)
He's also interested in furthering his city's emergency response plans, expanding on what I've got detailed above. Ultimately he'd like to work with the government to put at least Registered heroes on a notification system similar to what Registered heroes already get when the government has a request, but geared more towards responding to disasters and/or helping with problems that require non-violent, immediate solutions. Think evacuating civilians during a crisis.
He also accepts letters left for him both at his office and the Lucky Cat Café. Look, he's old-fashioned, okay. He still enjoys a good pen-and-paper message in addition to phone calls and the like.
FORMER AMBASSADOR