Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
city marketing, to promote or create a favourable image for incoming and
resident firms.
City marketing
Promotion of cities as places for industries to move into, on the basis of the
city's infrastructure and support from the municipal authorities, was practised
earliest in the USA and was prominent in the 1950s and 1960s. In Europe the
idea has become popular in the 1980s and 1990s, but in a more extended form,
including the promotion of the social environment and quality of life generally,
with such items as the availability of city parks, lack of urban pollution, and a
strong educational programme, as attractors both to endogenous firms and
incomers.
This is not simply a local-scale regional programme, but constitutes a change
from older concerns for welfare and help to consumers to a supply-side policy,
helping to raise production and productivity through attention to the
environment. It also focuses, in all recent cases, on the partnership potential
between the city authorities and the private sector. New entrepreneurship is
encouraged by support from the city, but not commonly or most importantly in
the form of financial incentives, but in advice, consultancy, and information
provision for the young firms. City marketing fits closely into the new industrial
mould because the new firms' location policies, as suggested above, are based on
people rather than materials, transport costs, and the like.
Again in the case of central Scotland (Paddison 1993), the city marketing of
Glasgow has included special events, such as the Garden Exhibition (1989), the
City of Culture (1990), and a massive effort at physical rehabilitation of the inner
city and the riverside. These efforts are useful for attraction of the high-order
service industries, not only for their important executive and professional staff,
but also to promote a positive image of the firm itself, associated with interesting
architecture or proximity to attractive scenery. In the case of Glasgow, the main
need is to change the image of the city itself. Glasgow has been associated for
the previous 150 years with heavy industry, working-class society, and the
conflicts this economy generates between workers and factory owners, as well as
with an undesirable physical environment of air, land and water pollution. This
image has not wholly changed, despite the recent events and restructuring.
This kind of policy is, of course, not a real regional policy, and the degree to
which the surrounding Strathclyde region benefits from it is uncertain. Such
effects are likely to be seen only over a long period, in any case, during which
perceptions of the city change.
Conclusions
This chapter has shown the high and rising importance of service industries in
general, especially in the more advanced nations of the world. These must be
