Selling Places: The City as Cultural Capital, Past and Present

ISBN-10: 0080413854
ISBN-13: 9780080413853
Series: Selling Places
Pages: 316
Language: English
Published: 1993
Publisher: Pergamon Press
Authors: Chris Philo, Gerard Kearns

Description

Places, particularly cities, often strive to sell themselves to encourage inward investment. In doing so, the managers of these places seek to manipulate the interwoven cultural and historical attributes of their localities to create attractive images, ambiences and lifestyles. This is a contentious process involving a fierce battle between alternative cultural sensibilities and historical visions. Much of the existing literature on place marketing either provides a practical handbook of how-to-do-it, or an economic analysis of this new facet of urban capitalism. Selling Places focuses more explicitly on the cultural-historical context of what is being sold. Thus it enriches the economic picture whilst drawing upon newer arguments about the complex politics of cultural and historical representation.