{"id":13259,"date":"2012-08-28T10:00:19","date_gmt":"2012-08-28T17:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingvancouver.ca\/?p=13259"},"modified":"2013-01-21T07:02:23","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T15:02:23","slug":"book-review-branding-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/vancouver\/2012\/08\/28\/book-review-branding-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Branding Cities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-13267\" title=\"9780415965262\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/network\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/9780415965262-374x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"374\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/vancouver\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/9780415965262-374x600.jpg 374w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/vancouver\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/9780415965262.jpg 404w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 374px) 100vw, 374px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/spacingmedia.com\/spacingvancouver\/wp-content\/uploads\/features\/book-reviews_feature-VAN.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"72\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Edited By: Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Eleonore Kofman, and Catherine Kevin (Routledge, 2012)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Can a city be described in just a few words? Paris as the City of Love or Rome as the Eternal City.\u00a0 While history has bestowed these cities with their unique nicknames, more recently it has been city governments that have actively developed unique city brands.\u00a0 In 2005, the City of Toronto undertook an extensive exercise in branding the city as \u2018Toronto Unlimited\u2019.\u00a0 Likewise, Berlin developed the \u2018Be Berlin\u2019 brand in 2008 to capture the potential of the city as a creative metropolis at the centre of Europe.\u00a0 Yet branding a city is no easy process and the results can have unanticipated outcomes, as described in the book <em>Branding Cities<\/em>, edited by Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Eleonore Kofman, and Catherine Kevin.<\/p>\n<p>But why do cities brand themselves in the first place?\u00a0 The case of Toronto in 2005 is common to many western cities.\u00a0 The aim was to promote the city as a major global tourist and business destination.\u00a0 In a world in which cities are competing and not nation-states, the onus rests with city leaders to create a distinct brand that can be easily digested by investors.\u00a0 This may sound paradoxical, but the city brand is rarely for the city-dwellers themselves.\u00a0 Whether it is \u2018Toronto Unlimited\u2019 or Vancouver\u2019s \u2018Green City\u2019, the emphasis is often on inward investment; jobs and money to boost the city balance sheet.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->In <em>Branding Cities<\/em>, Paul Kennedy describes the case of Manchester and how it has successfully leveraged its industrial heritage to forge a new urban renaissance.\u00a0 Since the mid-1990s the city has undergone large-scale regeneration and is the UK poster child for Richard Florida\u2019s theory on creative cities. \u00a0The Manchester brand has attempted to capture the creativity and cosmopolitanism of the \u2018original industrial city\u2019 of the early nineteenth century.\u00a0 As a result, the city is now home to a host of digital and media companies, with the BBC recently relocating a number of departments to MediaCityUK.<\/p>\n<p>Diversity and cosmopolitanism are other frequent themes stressed in city branding.\u00a0 Yet as outlined in the book, when city branding draws on these two concepts\u2014as Manchester and many others do\u2014there is an inherent tension at work.\u00a0 If a brand is meant to signify something unique, how can a message about cosmopolitanism, which by definition stresses the global above the local, capture the unique qualities of place?\u00a0 The danger is that the brand becomes detached from reality. This raises some interesting questions about cities which trumpet their diverse populations as an economic and cultural strength, but have strained relationships with certain ethnic groups.<\/p>\n<p>The case of London is a good example.\u00a0 Many commentators believe that London successfully won the rights to host the 2012 Olympics over Paris because it stressed the diversity of its population.\u00a0 In his pitch to win the Games, Mayor Ken Livingstone described London as, \u2018a city in which 300 languages are spoken every day and those who speak them live happily side-by-side\u2019.\u00a0 Fast forward to the summer of 2011 and this harmony was less evident as riots engulfed the city.\u00a0 Though the issue of race in these disturbances was a complex one, the riots were sparked by a police shooting in the predominantly black area of Tottenham which has a history of strained relationships with a predominantly white police force.<\/p>\n<p>London is not alone in developing a brand that has stressed cosmopolitanism and diversity.\u00a0 Following their 1998 World Cup victory, the French soccer team were held up as an example of the country\u2019s strong \u2018cultural mosaic\u2019, with the squad containing a number of players with roots in various parts of Africa.\u00a0 Yet, 2005 saw a series of riots in the banlieues of Paris and other cities as the frustrations of mostly North African youths boiled over against the police and government. \u00a0Suddenly the French brand of social integration was no more.<\/p>\n<p>The disconnect between the brand and the reality should come as no surprise.\u00a0 Those fans of TV drama <em>Mad Men<\/em> will understand that creating a brand for Jaguar cars can be achieved in a matter of a few whisky-fuelled hours in an office.\u00a0 But creating a distinct brand for a city or country is much harder and will never be able to capture the messiness of city life.<\/p>\n<p>Vancouver is no exception in this sense.\u00a0 Significant efforts have been made to brand the city as a combination of liveable, green, and sustainable.\u00a0 This was on display most recently when a trade delegation visited London as part of the Olympic Games to woo European investors in the \u2018green and creative sectors\u2019.\u00a0 But with housing affordability, or lack of it, recognized as a key challenge for Vancouver, it is pertinent to ask who exactly the \u2018Liveable City\u2019 is being branded for.\u00a0 For many local residents the brand that most resonates is the \u2018Unliveable City\u2019, or in more light-hearted moments the \u2018Rain City\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully the essays in <em>Branding Cities<\/em> bring a critical perspective to this topic and do more than just describe the attempts of various cities to develop attractive brands.\u00a0 Though a little too European in outlook, the collection makes us recognize the tensions within city brands and the need to challenge the messages that our city leaders are developing.<\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Chris Quigley<\/strong> is a qualified urban planner who has recently moved to Vancouver after time spent as a planning consultant in London, UK. He has a wide ranging interest in contemporary cities and regions, in particular planning policy, architecture and city branding. His personal blog explores international episodes of urbanism and can be found at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.musingsofanurbanist.blogspot.com\" target=\"_blank\">www.musingsofanurbanist.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Edited By: Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Eleonore Kofman, and Catherine Kevin (Routledge, 2012) Can a city be described in just a few words? Paris as the City of Love or Rome as the Eternal City.\u00a0 While history has bestowed these cities with their unique nicknames, more recently it has been city governments that have actively developed<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/vancouver\/2012\/08\/28\/book-review-branding-cities\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Book Review: Branding Cities&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6022,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,11232],"tags":[9794,1085,1984,1266,52,9790,9795,6831,9787,1489,9791,9792,1272,9796,5533,785,11610,565,9789,6832,6833,5909,2043,9788,6733,860,137,1817,9793,214,6834],"class_list":["post-13259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-features","tag-1998-world-cup","tag-africa","tag-bbc","tag-berlin","tag-book-review","tag-catherine-kevin","tag-centre-of-europe","tag-chris-quigley","tag-eleonore-kofman","tag-europe","tag-ken-livingstone","tag-liveable-city","tag-london","tag-mad-men","tag-manchester","tag-mayor","tag-media","tag-paris","tag-paul-kennedy","tag-planning-consultant","tag-qualified-urban-planner","tag-richard-florida","tag-rome","tag-stephanie-hemelryk-donald","tag-the-2012-olympics","tag-the-olympic-games","tag-toronto","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unliveable-city","tag-vancouver-2","tag-www-musingsofanurbanist-blogspot-com"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Book Review: Branding Cities - Spacing Vancouver<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/vancouver\/2012\/08\/28\/book-review-branding-cities\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Book Review: Branding Cities - Spacing Vancouver\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Edited By: Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Eleonore Kofman, and Catherine Kevin (Routledge, 2012) Can a city be described in just a few words? 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