Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
leading to a degree of uniformity in the visual
environment of many contemporary Western
cities. The paradox, therefore, is that while cities
perceive it as highly important to engage in
marketing strategies— one of the key features of
which is to isolate distinctiveness and difference—
both the means of communicating that message
and the physical entity that is the subject of such
communication demonstrate a high degree of
convergence. One of the major challenges for the
future, therefore, concerns the way in which the
activities of promotion and marketing will
respond to this convergence. It may be that such
agencies will respond by fashioning more and
more 'fake heritage' in a vain attempt to create at
least the illusion of distinctiveness. Alternatively,
the intriguing prospect arises that one way in
which standardisation can be prevented is through
paying much more attention and respect to 'real'
local traditions and identities.
A further paradox, and one that is closely
related to the main theme of this topic, concerns
the management of city promotion strategies,
especially through city development and planning
departments. The paradox lies in the fact that
planning, as an activity practised in local
authorities, came into existence in order to
prevent the worst excesses of the 'market' from
dominating urban development, yet in place
promotion, planners are in effect wholeheartedly
embracing that 'market'.
Despite this development, a further issue that
arises in consideration of the main agencies
responsible for city marketing concerns the
immense gap between the ideal and the reality in
marketing strategies. Although it is not difficult to
outline the ideal city marketing strategy, the extent
to which it may then be put into practice is
another matter. At least one large-scale survey of
UK local authorities has demonstrated that, while
most authorities claim to be doing some form of
marketing, their objectives and target groups are
often vague and ill-defined. Furthermore, the
frequent fragmentation of responsibility for
marketing within a local authority undermines
attempts to formulate a strategic approach
(Millington 1996). On a larger scale, van der Veen
and Voogd (1987) have characterised local
authorities as inhabiting two extremes of a
spectrum from minimal marketing, simply
reflecting a view that the place sells itself, to
aggressive marketing; the latter, however, is often a
panic response when something has gone wrong.
Burgess and Wood (1988) and Wilkinson (1992)
document the changes in image presentation for
London Docklands and Tyneside, respectively,
when it became clear that all was not well with
the initial campaigns.
Related to this issue is the fact that there is a
relative paucity of genuinely evaluative studies of
place marketing. This applies both to local
authorities themselves (Millington 1996) and to
academic assessments of the activity. There are
many studies that are critical of the activity in a
general way but few case studies that specifically
evaluate promotional campaigns or strategies. For
this reason, although most 'places' undertake some
form of promotional or marketing activity, many
of the same places keep recurring in the academic
literature. Where some evaluation has been carried
out, it tends to be of a mainly economic nature
and, as noted earlier, its conclusions are generally
negative, especially when placed in the context of
the wider urban economy. For example, a review
of one of the prime examples of 1980s urban
regeneration (Baltimore) demonstrated that little
employment was created for local people (Levine
1987). The jobs created may not be suitable for
local populations, local rents and land values may
be pushed up with consequent displacement
effects, resources may be consumed in promoting
the 'flagship scheme' that otherwise may have
been used for public services and infrastructure,
and there are often problems of accountability in
relation to such developments. Several other
studies suggest that most of the economic benefits
are only marginal, that dual labour markets are
often a consequence of flagship developments
(Loftman and Nevin 1994), contributing to
deepening social polarisation (Boyle and Hughes
1991), and confirm that the opportunity cost of
prestige projects is most often borne by the poorer
sections of society (Madsen 1992; Sadler 1993). A
wide-ranging assessment of one specific aspect of
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