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Published in:
Introduction: The City as a Kaleidoscope Read chapter Read first chapter

2024 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

3. The Assertion: City Brands are Created

Authors : Eric Häusler, Jürgen Häusler

Published in: How Cities Become Brands

Publisher: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden

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Abstract

The prevailing discussion about city brands is largely based on a fallacy. The undeniable observation that cities are often, if not mostly, widely known brands, leads without further ado to the (at least implicit) claim that these city brands are the result of a deliberate and targeted process of brand development. This is probably less often true than true. Certainly, numerous actors try (have tried) to ‘draw’ a specific (positive or negative) image of cities. However, successfully disseminated city images usually originate from very complex, unpredictable, random, or unintentional processes. These errors and confusions of the evolutionary development of urban images and identities can only be confused with the concept of brand development with a high degree of ignorance and/or arrogance. Nevertheless, recent history has seen attempts to ‘enrich’ the evolutionary process of urban development with the achievements of the craft of brand making. How successful or helpless these efforts ultimately are depends on some prerequisites, which are explained in this chapter.

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previous chapter The Observation: Cities are Brands
next chapter The Description: How City Brands are Created
Footnotes
1
Especially within the framework of internationally very successful television series, see: https://​de.​wikipedia.​org/​wiki/​Anthony_​Bourdain. Accessed on January 26, 2023.
 
2
One would also wish this level of emotional intelligence for professional brand makers.
 
3
“Mystification (or mystification) accordingly refers to a (more or less intentionally induced) state of entanglement or confusion of a fundamentally enlightenable subject in mystery, deception or error.” https://​de.​wikipedia.​org/​wiki/​Mystizismus. Accessed on 21.9.2021.
 
4
And the countless authors who follow suit in it.
 
5
Fundamentally Schwartz 2004. Cf. Häusler, 2021, pp. 7, 46, 82 and 130.
 
6
Where the ability is not only understood as permission, but above all as obligation. In English, “having choice” is understood as “having to make choices” (Rosenthal 2005, p. ix).
 
7
Jessen (2014, p. 18) advocates for the “historical contextualization and indeed the historicization of competitive relations and practices [because] talk of the ‘unleashing of competition’ should not lead to the fallacy that a present dominated by competition is contrasted with a past without competition. In all historical societies, there has been competitive action, which took place in specific constellations of values and rules, practices and behavioral expectations.”
 
8
There, it was mostly about rivalries between direct neighboring cities (such as Sindelfingen and Böblingen), at stake were, for example, the “status and reach of their markets” achievable thanks to “sovereign favor”, violence was often used as a “suitable means”, as well as unrealistic propaganda (false claims to be the ‘older city’), and in the end, the competition seemed to benefit neither side: “regardless of who was able to assert themselves, the competitive relationships always had a detrimental effect on urban development”—direct disadvantages (loss of significance, stagnation, regression) or opportunity costs of the practiced competitive behavior (fixation on local competition) ensured this.
 
9
Cf. Osterhammel 2009, p. 365. From 2009, this label (probably less heroically interpreted) was claimed by the city of Chemnitz—at least by those responsible for city marketing there: https://​www.​chemnitz.​de/​chemnitz/​de/​unsere-stadt/​stadtmarketing/​stadt-der-moderne/​index.​html. Apparently, this city slogan only convinced until 2021: https://​www.​lvz.​de/​Region/​Mitteldeutschlan​d/​Neuer-Slogan-Chemnitz-will-nicht-mehr-Stadt-der-Moderne-sein. Accessed on 23.2.2022. For the sense and nonsense of city slogans see Sect. 4.​5.
 
10
For example, for centuries in Berlin (culminating in the Third Reich): “Only after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 did the Brandenburg rulers [...] see the necessity to equip their capital Berlin [...] so that it could compete in the European city competition” (Pehnt 2021, p. 157).
 
12
At the beginning supposedly were the first British seaside resorts in the middle of the eighteenth century. Cf. on the history of tourism Hachtmann 2010.
 
13
“But more important [for the history of European cities in modern times] is the mutual sense of competition between the two metropolises [London and Paris]” (Lenger 2013, p. 28).
 
14
Reinhardt (2019, p. 11) already refers to the importance of the (internal and) “external competitive pressure” for urban development for pre-Christian Rome.
 
15
For the preceding classical modernity (1750–1950), the “industrial city” stands: “On a spatial level, the functional city is the crystallization point of organized modernity” (Reckwitz 2017, p. 44).
 
16
The Economist, March 13, 2008. https://​www.​economist.​com/​briefing/​2008/​03/​13/​the-rivals. Accessed on September 3, 2021.
 
17
Another reference to British humor in The Economist. The actual quote from Samuel Johnson (from 1777) is: “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. ”
 
18
So said the economic advisor of the then mayor of London.
 
19
In the 2020 Anholt-Ipsos City Brand Index, London was listed as the world-leading “City Brand”. https://​www.​ipsos.​com/​en/​2020-anholt-ipsos-city-brand-index. Accessed on February 26, 2022.
 
20
The causes of this development are also discussed there. Essentially, technological change is mentioned, especially the “radical reduction of transport and transaction costs,” and the relative devaluation of “natural factors, raw material deposits”. It is also explained what subsequently constitutes location quality—more on this later in Sect. 3.3 and 3.4.
 
21
For city rankings in a Marxist-materialist perspective, see Anttiroiko 2014.
 
22
Examples see Mäding 2006, p. 279 and Besecke and Herkommer 2007, p. 14. The dam against the flood wave of rankings was broken in 1961 in Germany by the competition “Our village should become more beautiful” (later “Our village has a future”) (Klüter 2012, p. 52).
 
23
What this can look like in the case of success is shown by the website of the city of Vienna, where almost 20 rankings with the respective placements of the city are listed (a list that is obviously updated with great effort). https://​www.​wien.​gv.​at/​politik/​international/​vergleich/​. Accessed on 26.2.2022. Basically on the importance of “counting, naming, ordering” within the framework of a “sociology of distinguishing” see Fourcade 2022.
 
24
For the list of rankings examined, see Besecke and Herkommer 2007, pp. 31 and 56.
 
25
The authors give all cities advice on how to deal with the rankings: “In light of the methodological shallowness [applies] as for immediate reactions to newly published ranking results [...] also for warming up old placements, definitely exercise great caution and sufficient serenity. [Cities should] start to prepare their own statistics in a useful way in order to counter the often dubious rankings with arguments, to make them superfluous at best.” However, their trust in the better argument collides with their own assessment regarding the driving force behind rankings: “The opinion-forming and entertainment function of city comparisons often precedes the information function” (Besecke & Herkommer, 2007, pp. 103 and 107).
 
27
Although divergent voices also exist. Jessop (1998, pp. 78–79) observes “important shifts in the role of cities as subjects, sites and stakes in economic restructuring and systemic (or structural) competitiveness [that] made cities and their hinterlands more significant as nodes and vectors in organising economic, political and social life [and] highlighted the importance of cities’ differential capacities to reflect on and secure the conditions of economic dynamism”. Similarly, Reckwitz 2017, p. 383; see Sect. 2.​6.
 
29
See the informative case study by Termeer (2010, pp. 56–123), referring to the city of Münster.
 
30
Tanner (2020, p. 149) points out that the image of the ‘two sides of a coin’ not only refers to the fact that (a) things often have two sides, which (b) usually belong together, but also that (c) it regularly applies that one can always only see one side of the coin, so that the view of the one side (positive effects) systematically obstructs or at least hinders the view of the other side (possible negative consequences).
 
31
Sobering contrasting perspectives are provided by Gessen and Squibb (2014) with their 37 “Dispatches from the American Metropolis” or the authors of the “Noir Urbanisms” (Prakash 2010a): “the city often appears as dark, insurgent (or forced into total obedience), dysfunctional (or forced into machine-like functioning), engulfed in ecological and social crises, seduced by capitalist consumption, paralyzed by crime, wars, class, gender, and racial conflicts, and subjected to excessive technological and technocratic control” (Prakash 2010b, p. 1).
 
32
In Vanolo 2017 (pp. 7–9), it is presented as one of the currently dominant positioning strategies.
 
35
An example would be the cross-border urban area of Geneva.
 
36
See Siebel 2015, pp. 161-173, on the “new demand” in Germany. Very skeptical about the current future prospects of city centers in the USA in the times after the Covid pandemic: Gupta et al., 2022 and van Nieuwerburgh 2022; for a summary see Edsell 2022.
 
37
The following data is taken from Numbeo: “The world’s largest database of user contributed data about cities […] worldwide. Numbeo provides current and timely information on world living conditions including cost of living, housing indicators, health care, traffic, crime and pollution”. https://​www.​numbeo.​com/​common/​. Accessed on August 18, 2022.
 
42
The specific periodization of topics is, of course, part of the core business of historians and almost always gives rise to intense interdisciplinary debates: “However, the question is whether the current profiling efforts of cities in the competition of urban centers really represent a new phenomenon, an attempt to respond to globalization” (Biskup & Schalenberg, 2008b, p. 9).
 
43
For example: Kavaratzis, 2004 and Kavaratzis & Ashworth, 2005. For the broader context of these studies see Sect. 2.​6.
 
44
Biskup & Zimmermann, 2008b express criticism of this idea of a linear process with increasing professionalization based on the contributions to a long-term study of Berlin (Biskup & Zimmermann, 2008a).
 
45
The underlying term definitions: “designating place promotion essentially as advertising of a location, place marketing as deploying methods and techniques to understand and influence target groups relevant to this location and place branding as a long-term strategy to alter its reputation embedded in a broader economic and ecological agenda with a range of policy instruments” (Ma et al., 2019, p. 15, emphasis by us).
 
46
The authors repeatedly point to terminological and conceptual ambiguities and overlaps—only to then categorize and periodize everything very clearly.
 
47
See also Lucarelli and Berg (2011).
 
48
Robust data on neglected or failed attempts at brand development are not available (also) for city brands.
 
49
Sorting the three problem complexes is based on the categorization in prominent studies interested in city brands of “urban political geographies” (Rossi & Vanolo, 2012; Vanolo, 2017). Discussed there are three central “dimensions of contemporary city life: the urban-marketing campaigns, the growth-led strategies of urban development and their contestation” (Preface by Ola Söderström in Rossi & Vanolo, 2012. p. ix). Described is the “triad of urban politics [:] politics as representation […] government [and] contestation (Rossi & Vanolo, 2012, pp. 12–17, emphasis by us).
 
50
For a general definition see Knoke, 2006, p. 71: ”Collective action involves cooperation among social actors to achieve agreed goals and interests in goods and services or public policies.“
 
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Metadata
Title
The Assertion: City Brands are Created
Authors
Eric Häusler
Jürgen Häusler
Copyright Year
2024
Book
How Cities Become Brands

Print ISBN: 978-3-658-43775-6

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-658-43776-3

Copyright Year: 2024

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-43776-3_3

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