City Branding and the Link to Urban Planning: Theories, Practices, and Challenges

Abstract

Through a critical reading of city branding theories and practices, this article identifies a nexus between city branding and urban planning related to master planning and placemaking. It brings attention to the challenges facing city branding including asymmetrical political processes, social inequity, tokenism, and gentrification. While city branding’s recent turn to participatory approaches unveils a rampant adoption of planning processes repackaged as master planning the place brand strategy, this stream of research and practice remains isolated and disconnected from urban planning theory and ethics. Recognizing this link, the article suggests, could help city branding address its challenges and develop its theoretical basis with more socially responsible and normative underpinnings.