Responsible place marketing can make sustainable places?

Professor Cathy ParkerCentre for Retail, Place and Consumer Change

www.business.mmu.ac.uk/crpcc

@placemanagement profcathyparker

“a city designed, built, and managed in a manner where all its citizens are able to meet their own needs without endangering the well-being of the natural world or the living conditions of other people, now or in the future”

Place Making

Dongtan, China

New urbanism, old villageismWalkabilityMixed-use and diversityQuality urban designEnvironmental sustainabilitySmart transportation

“Our biggest challenge in the new century is to take an idea that seems abstract sustainable development and turn it into a daily reality for all this world’s people”

Kofi Annan

"... last time I went to Dongtan, there was a farmer selling tickets to watch his pigs jump through hoops of fire in a field. But no eco-city".

Greenwasher of the year: Arup still pushing Dongtan

UK engineering giant Arup is keen to be seen as your sustainable project manager of choice. For years Ethical Corporation pointed out its claims to be the lead developer on a non-existent “sustainable city” – Dongtan, near Shanghai in China. The project has been cancelled and nothing was ever built even though lots of farmers were forced off their land in preparation by the Chinese government. And while the project was on hold and going nowhere, Arup executives were touring the world touting their credentials as master developers.

Their chutzpah is admirable. It takes real b***s to spend years discussing a non-existent eco-city in your Powerpoint presentations to beef up your marketing.

http://www.ethicalcorp.com/communications-reporting/greenwasher-%E2%80%93-december-2009-january-2010

Detroit

Place MakingPlace

Maintenance

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Place MakingPlace

Maintenance

Place Marketing

Place Making Place Maintenance

Place Marketing

Planning

Urban design

Transport

Security

Tourism

Cleaning

Inward investment

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What are places marketing for?

• Mobile investment• Population• GDP• Public funds• Hallmark events

Public or quasi-public policy should embody notions of public good and social benefits, but not promote one place at the expense of another.

Gold and Ward, 1994

The place promotional paradox

What’s the future for place marketing?From exogenous to endogenous activity• Economic development• Innovation• Education• Jobs• Communicating the vision