When you enter Prague's sixth district, you feel it. The houses look more expensive, the streets appear cleaner and the parks look greener.

And in case you don't know exactly where you are, banners bearing the district's corporate logo, a white figure 6 in a blue circle, flutter from lampposts, welcoming visitors in both Czech and English.

City Hall officials want you to notice that their district is different. To help, they employ a synchronized marketing exercise, trumpeting their civic pride though their own newspaper, Web site and glossy brochures, all carefully stamped with a distinctive brand.

"We are creating a self-image that is independent," says the district's ambitious 31-year-old mayor, Tomáš Chalupa, a member of the right-of-center Civic Democrat Party (ODS).

"It's not that we want to split up from the rest of city and be independent," Chalupa adds. "That's crazy — we are still a part of Prague." But he points out that Prague 6 is unique in several ways: It's the largest of the capital's 22 districts, with 105,600 residents and an area of 41.5 square kilometers (16 square miles) that includes Ruzyně Airport — where foreigners often form their first impression of the country.

The area also has a strongly international flavor: Of the 75 buildings with diplomatic status in the Czech Republic, such as embassies or ambassadors' residences, 65 are in Prague 6, located in plush buildings often dating from the 19th century. Many are in the leafy, upmarket northwestern neighborhoods of Dejvice and Ořechovka, where former President Václav Havel has a villa.

If Prague 6 is richer than most districts — it has a higher-than-average number of companies registered locally, their taxes feeding City Hall coffers — it makes use of its money carefully, according to Chalupa, who says that tightening financial discipline is his biggest achievement as mayor.

The need for speed

The local authority takes pains to protect its lustrous image. One way is declaring war on graffiti, which City Hall aims to remove within 24 hours, although owners of private buildings have to apply to join the program. The scheme, which Chalupa believes is the only one of its kind in the country, is modeled on one operated in Chicago.

Dirt-free streets are another priority. "When I was elected we cleaned the streets once a year paid for by Prague City Hall, and once a year paid by Prague 6," says Chalupa, who studied history, political science and law and then worked as a government press spokesman before being elected mayor in 2002. "Today we have streets in the center of Prague 6 that are cleaned twice a day, seven days a week."

Miroslav Najman, managing director of development consulting firm Angermann, says Prague 6, where he has his offices, is a model of good local governance. "The management ... is very progressive," says Najman, who is the consultant for the 4.5 billion Kč ($183 million) 100,000-square-meter (1.08 million-square-feet) Dejvice Center project scheduled to open in 2009 on Vítězné náměstí, encompassing office and retail space and two university campuses.

Expats such as American Grady Lloyd, 60, who set up Laundry Kings laundromat and dry-cleaning services near Hradčanská metro station 14 years ago, say the district is "a place where people can function and live. We have our home in Prague 1 and we much prefer the administration of Prague 6."

More than clean streets?

Mayor Chalupa's record at City Hall could well serve as a launchpad for a career in the bigger political arena. He has good contacts inside the ODS, currently the senior opposition party but predicted to win most votes in parliamentary elections next summer.

He describes Pavel Bém, the ODS mayor of the city of Prague and his predecessor as head of Prague 6, as an old friend.

Would Chalupa be tempted by the offer of a senior post in any future ODS government?

He says that for now he is happy where he is. He wants to lend his support to projects like the extention of line A of the metro to Ruzyně Airport and the construction of a new shopping center.

And after that?

Chalupa pauses and then answers, "There are so many people sleeping with their dreams that the next morning they will be ministers. ... I don't want to make them nervous."