The business of place: critical, practical and pragmatic perspectives

Citation

Kalandides, A. (2013), "The business of place: critical, practical and pragmatic perspectives", Journal of Place Management and Development, Vol. 6 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jpmd.2013.35506aaa.001

The business of place: critical, practical and pragmatic perspectives

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Place Management and Development, Volume 6, Issue 1

Place branding, place management, place marketing, strategic spatial development, public-private partnerships, town teams, all synonyms describing one thing – the application of business principles to place. The language and conventions of business and marketing have spread across the world, to places of all scales, from district centre management through to nation branding.

Manchester Metropolitan University, in partnership with the Institute of Place Management and INPOLIS was delighted to host the leading international academics and practitioners for a two-day conference in February 2013 (14-15). The conference was dedicated to understanding the similarities and differences in our interpretation and application of business principles, such as management, marketing and branding, to places of all scales and all types.

Various parts of the debate have been chosen for this special issue, and are reflected in the papers published here. There is a common assumption that some business principles can be applied, although there is still a gap between what is conceptually possible and desirable on the one hand and practically realised on the other. There is also a wide variety of terms to describe place intervention synonyms. Are we planning? Are we developing? Are marketing, managing or branding places?

In the first paper, “My place is not your place – different place brand knowledge by different target groups”, Sebastian Zenker and Suzanne C. Beckmann see place brand management as a key part of urban management. Taking Hamburg as its focus, the study identifies the different perceptions of the city held, concurrently, by various key stakeholders (visitors, residents and workers, business and industry and export markets). They identify that the current images of Hamburg marketed do not fit with residents’ images of their city. In mainstream marketing, the concept of segmentation and targeted communication has a long pedigree, but this does not seem to inform all place marketing or branding practice.

Following on from this, the second paper “My city – my brand: the different roles of residents in place branding” by Erik Braun, Mihalis Kavaratzis and Sebastian Zenker offers “resident orientated” approach to place branding. The paper identifies three different roles played by residents:

1. 1.

   as an integral part of the place brand through their characteristics and behavior;

2. 2.

   as ambassadors for their place brand who grant credibility to any communicated message; and

3. 3.

   as citizens and voters who are vital for the political legitimization of place branding.

The researchers also see place branding as a very strategic activity, “building a strong shared vision” but recognise there may be some discrepancy between the potential of place branding and its current practice, as “(r)esidents are largely neglected by place branding practice and that their priorities are often misunderstood”. This again, highlights a gap between place branding potential and practice.

The third paper “Developing a collective capacity for place management” by Tore Omholt uses the language of place management and development and draws from social systems theory as a meta-theoretical framework to integrate various theoretical perspectives on place interventions to deal with problems of uncertainty related to place development. Second, it shows how a combination of place interventions can be organized to deal with the uncertainties and contribute to a collective capacity for action. Finally, it concludes with presenting an integrated framework for planning and supporting place development, and applies this in two cases of place development to illustrate how it works. Place development or a collective capacity for action in this paper, could be seen to be synonymous with place branding, but as the paper also documents practice, then the term management is used. In addition, the paper also draws from a different theoretical basis than place branding research.

The fourth paper “Slum tourism, city branding and social urbanism: the case of Medellin, Colombia” by Jaime Garcia-Hernandez offers a bridge between place development and place branding via “social urbanism”. Social urbanism is “becoming a brand of Medellin”. It is the name under which all housing upgrading and community participation projects are undertaken as well as social services, public realm and other regeneration projects. It is a holistic approach to the development of the poorest areas in Medellin and has led to the city building a more authentic and inclusive image for the city. Again, the principles are familiar, but the label “social urbanism” is different. This raises the interesting notion of a place branding brand (or is it place brand branding?).

The fifth paper, “The tools for city centre revitalization in Portugal” by Pedro Porfírio Guimarães focuses on revitalization, which is a term often associated with retail and service centres such as town and city centres. Coming from a “commercial urbanism” perspective the paper looks at the type of interventions in planning and policy, focussing on retail planning policy and town centre management. In relation to the latter, whilst a lot of town centre management activity has undoubtedly taken place in Portugal, there has been a lack of evaluation of its effectiveness or impact. This lack of evaluation echoes findings from other studies that investigate city centre interventions which may be labelled “marketing” or “branding”.

The final paper, “A study on the delivery of city branding advertisements in China: city branding advertisement on CCTV, 2007-2010” by Wen Chunying documents the proliferation of city advertising in China. “Between 2007 and 2010, the number of cities producing advertisements for their city image has increased from 237 to 306 – a growth rate of 29.1 per cent. Similarly, the total duration of city branding advertisements has also increased year by year at a more robust speed when compared to increases in advertisements in other categories. In 2007, the total duration of city branding ads was 177.5 hours, while in 2010 this number rose to 455.9 hours – an increase of 156.9 per cent annually”. However, in line with the last paper, whilst the study documents activity it does not quantify effectiveness. This seems to be a major weakness for many place initiatives. If we seriously want to improve the application of business principles to place, for the good of all place stakeholders (internal and external) we must start measuring the impact of what we do.

Ares KalandidesGuest Editor