Special Issue of Journal of Place Management and Development

Volume 6 Issue 1 is now available on early cite. This is the Special Issue: The Business of Place: Critical, Practical and Pragmatic Perspective that contains selected papers from the 3rd International Place Branding and 2nd Institute of Place Management Conference which is taking place 13th and 14th Feb. Congratulations to all our authors.

My Place is not Your Place – Different Place Brand Knowledge by Different Target Groups by Sebastian Zenker and Suzanne C. Beckmann

My City – My Brand: The Different Roles of Residents in Place Branding by Erik Braun, Mihalis Kavaratzis, and Sebastian Zenker

A Study on the Delivery of City Branding Advertisements in China: City Branding Advertisement on CCTV, 2007-2010 by Chunying Wen

Developing a Collective Capacity for Place Management by Tore Omholt

Slum Tourism, City Branding, and Social Urbanism: The Case of Medellin, Colombia by Jaime Hernandez-Garcia

The Tools for City Centre Revitalization in Portugal by Pedro Porfírio Coutinho Guimarães

Journal of Place Management and Development – Top 10 Articles

We have just had our download figures for the Journal of Place Management and Development for last year (2011).  Here are the 10 most downloaded articles with the download figures.  Congratulations to the authors!

Vishwas Maheshwari, Ian Vandewalle, David Bamber (2011), Place branding’s role in sustainable development, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp 198-213. (634 downloads).

Sebastian Zenker (2011), How to catch a city? The concept and measurement of place brands, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp 40-52. (622 downloads).

Melodena Stephens Balakrishnan (2008), Dubai – a star in the east: A case study in strategic destination branding, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp 62-91. (611 downloads)

Andrea Lucarelli, Per Olof Berg (2011), City branding: a state-of-the-art review of the research domain, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp 9-27. (601 downloads)

Helena Maria Baptista Alves, Ana María Campón Cerro, Ana Vanessa Ferreira Martins (2010), Impacts of small tourism events on rural places, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp 22-37. (479 downloads)

Leonard A. Jackson (2008), Residents’ perceptions of the impacts of special event tourism, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp 240-255. (326 downloads)

Mihalis Kavaratzis, Gregory Ashworth (2008), Place marketing: how did we get here and where are we going?, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp 150-165. (325 downloads)

Ares Kalandides (2011), The problem with spatial identity: revisiting the “sense of place”, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp 28-39. (297 downloads)

Gert-Jan Hospers (2010), Making sense of place: from cold to warm city marketing, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp 182-193. (253 downloads)

E.J. Cilliers, E. Diemont, D.J. Stobbelaar, W. Timmermans (2010), Sustainable green urban planning: the Green Credit Tool, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp 57-66. (226 downloads).

 

Our download figures for 2011 were just under 12,000.  That’s 4,000 more than last year.   All members of the Institute of Place Management can access the JPMD.

There’s beauty in the beast

I walked across Manchester a couple of times yesterday, in the pursuit of food and ale.  Nearly every road in the city centre is being dug up, either to replace Victorian water and sewerage pipes or lay new tramlines.  Roads that are normally busy with bumper-to-bumper traffic (like Deansgate) are strangely quiet, devoid of the normal background engine noise but, nevertheless, full of pedestrians.

Despite the people of Manchester returning a resounding “no” to the proposed congestion charge, the city centre is certainly less congested as motorists can no longer drive through it.  As my second husband’s grandmother used to say “there is more than one way to kill a spider than pull its legs off” (apologies to insect-lovers).

There is a very healthy debate going on about whether more of the city centre should be car-free on the Manchester Evening News website.  Feelings run high on both sides, from comments such as “why not go the whole hog and ban cars from the whole of the city centre? Then businesses can go to the wall and maybe that’s the only way to get rid of this anti car council” to “women like to totter about in uncomfortable shoes especially in pleasant surroundings free from noisy diesel engines with plenty of restaurants, cafes and bars to visit” (apologies to practical shoe wearing women).

Nevertheless, at the moment these additional pedestrian areas are only temporary and because of the construction work going on, they certainly aren’t particularly attractive. I fondly remember walking through a major German City a number of years ago and being amazed by the floral mosaic on massive sheets of plywood straddling a major thoroughfare. My companion informed me that German city councils insist that if you are performing construction this ‘cover up’ has to be in place before you start.  I am not suggesting that we should have our construction done under cover of darkness; but could we devise a similar method of adornment of ongoing works?

Most places are in a constant state of change.  New developments are introduced and existing buildings and infrastructure has to be maintained and updated. Not too far away from where I’m typing I can see out of my 11th floor window a building site of magnificent proportions. I am referring to the Media City development out in Salford Quays, where the BBC and a host of other companies will relocate and change the industrial focus of the area from logistics to media and technology.

Their website has a decent collage of images of the area over the years, however, an IT company situated across the water has been cataloguing the development process in a number of weird and wonderful ways. My particular favourite is this 360 view.

With a bit of imagination I think you can see some aesthetics in the site, from the vivid use of ‘safety’ colours, such as bright orange and yellow and the contrast of the activity with the calmness of the canal maybe there is some beauty even in this beast.

Luminescence in Place management- A bright idea?

denver-downtown-xmas-lights-3.tif
Illuminating!

This week, I introduced our very own Dr. Steve Millington who delivered an intriguing take on the use of illumination in towns and places and their long term effects on the towns therein.

Incidentally, Steve writes a blog which is a great read to all concerned with Place Management.

Some interesting research into the cultural aspects of lighting was uncovered by way of the widespread impact of Christmas Lighting in shop windows. (I never thought I would have to type a sentence like that!)

Within the post-mortem discussion, the IPM’s own Dan McGrath had an enlightening response to Dominic Martinez’s question about the environmental ramifications of major lighting schemes in towns. He said that he:

…. attended a RUDI conference earlier in the year and recalled a case study in France that used light to create spectacle and also highlight environmental concern (perhaps hypocritically).

Organisers bathed a large tree in the centre of the town/ city park in intense shadow-casting red and pink lights, coupled with a customised ‘soundscape’ (speakers strategically placed throughout the park). The effect of this arrangement made the tree appear as if a pair of lungs, a reference to Emile Zola’s comment that parks are the “lungs of the city”, engaging users of the park in a sensual and topical experience.

It is apparent that place managers must be aware of the impact of light and lighting (yet another place management issue!), not just in the creation of spectacle and for general place functionality, but for the fostering of community spirit through the inclusion of stakeholders in decision-making relating to such fixtures & fittings and event & activities in order to ensure that places are designed and managed for those they serve …”

The event was filmed in glitzy technicolour and shall be posted soon, watch this space. Although, apparently the guys in the office are currently revamping our Facebook Group to a bigger brighter and shinier Facebook Page!!