by Valentin Schipfer

Together with die raumplaner  Inpolis will introduce a concept to continue the shopping street management for Potsdam’s historic city center and for Babelsberg. After having conducted several stakeholder interviews, Inpolis is in the phase of research and analysis right now. I want to present some impressions on Potsdam’s shopping area and thoughts on a retail center management in this entry.

Since 2009 there exists a shopping street management for Potsdam’s inner city. Before phasing out in 2013 the program is funded by the European Regional Development Fund.  Its continuation shall be based on the acquisition of new partners. The aim is to include retailers and other stakeholders as private financers, whereby the regional capital Potsdam will remain as a partner. Until now merely no financial resources are being provided by private stakeholders. In order to continue the management and to raise the stakeholders’ awareness and identification with the program, an organizational model has to be found. Before presenting possible models I want to describe my personal impressions on Potsdam’s shopping street – from my perspective as an assistant.

After having browsed through Potsdam’s shopping streets’ ranking, I was positively surprised at the official on-site excursion: The worst ranked shopping streets do not have more than three vacant stores; I did not see many discount stores either; only two abandoned buildings were spotted. Apart from that, the Dutch quarter does not suffer from any vacancies at all. Ample pedestrian zones with almost no vacancies gave ground for assuming that businesses are working well. On both sides of the pedestrian zones numerous stores of global chains lure consumers to drop in. In addition most of the one-storied buildings’ first floors are unused. They gave further ground for assuming that the well-running retailers from the ground floor pay sufficient rent. In addition, numerous buildings are accessible at day whereby visitors are attracted to the thoroughly cultivated backyards.

Later on a retailer stated that € 2.500,- was the common rent for a 150 m² store in a side street. He also lamented that the promotion in pedestrian zones was prohibited for side street retailers.  For the ones located there, it is allowed though. During summer the car-free areas are stacked with tourists, restaurant chairs and tables as well as with their promotional material. The closer you get to the center, the more global brands belligerently surround you.

The retailers mix contained medium-sized enterprises which operate through multiple outlets with a common format, well placed in the competitive local context; small entrepreneurial businesses with the use of employed work and the entrepreneur as a coordinating role; small “craft” firms with the firm performance closely dependent on skills and on the ability to differentiate the assortment; and few small “refuge” firms – small shops which are not competitive in the market and a lack of job alternatives.

Besides the PR conflict between main road and side street shops, the vacancies in the first floors and compared to a recently inspected shopping street in Berlin’s district Neukölln, my general impressions were rather positive. Apparently the ongoing shopping street concept is working. The foundation has been laid effectively and first activities are paying off. In order to install conditions similar to shopping-malls, shoppers get their money back for car-parking for example. The shopping street map is distributed and promoted successfully. Vacancies are announced in an online portal and events are organized on a regular basis (e.g. flea markets with antiques, open air concerts with classic music). After all these public investments, it is up to the retailers now. But who is going to organize the required coordination? Who is going to build a needed shared long term vision? Who is going to continue to promote the mix of trade and service activities? Who is going to provide the knowledge of marketing? And, first of all, how is the organization going to look like?

Fabio Musso suggests three different models. The centered model is based on the presence of a dominant player that is in the condition to define the type of organization. The player can either be the owner of real estates who is in the position to select business and leisure activities for the area. Or it can be a large retailer, able to prioritize specific firms. The supply of common services can then be centrally negotiated on a contractual basis.

The non-centered associative model is more about an association of retailers. Thereby the relationship between the coordinating subject and the individual firms is on a voluntary basis. There is no formal agreement to carry out joint activities. Each of the activities has to be negotiated – in order to benefit collectively.

The non-centered contractual model requires the hiring of a management company. Together with the retailers the company then defines a vision and objectives in a precise mandate. The firms delegate the activities and cover all costs. The participation to the management company can be voluntary or, where legally possible, mandatory.

Musso also states that there are two main difficulties: Firstly small retailers often distrust associations that could reduce, even partially, their autonomy. Secondly there is a recurring conflict between local governments and retailers. Local administrators are mainly seen in their role of taxation and for measures contrary to the interest of retailers. The non-centered associative model meets the greatest obstacles. The output of its collectively negotiated activities is difficult to define. Therefore no one has sufficient interest to afford the costs.

As you can see, Inpolis  is in the process of gathering and critically reflecting information. I am also thankful for helpful hints concerning useful articles, field manuals or guidelines. In case you know some, feel free to comment here.

"Energiestadt Flawil - We are sustainable"

by Hans Pul

Energiestadt Flawil, Energiestadt Bern, Energiestadt Zürich: Greenwashing or is there substance behind these claims? This blogpost introduces the Energiestadt label (“energy city”), a Swiss label certificated by an organisation with the same name. The organisation is occupied with the certification and support of municipality energy policies. After fulfilling certain criteria, a city is allowed to communicate itself as Energiestadt (i.e. “Energiestadt Flawil”). This makes visible the efforts and successes of a municipality’s energy policy.

Why an energy policy award for municipalities? The incentives for municipalities are manifold: to improve quality of life, to save money, to profit from existing know-how and to achieve image improvement. This is also put forward on the Energiestadt website:

“Clever energy management pays of financially. Not to mention image improvement and the possibilities in place marketing: an Energiestadt shows that it is future-oriented.”

Energiestadt is a project of EnergieSchweiz, the Swiss portal on energy and sustainability. As an independent actor, it reviews the energy-related efforts of municipalities. The certification process takes the form of a three-yearly audit that examines municipality energy measures. Based on this audit, municipalities achieve a score between 0 and 100%. Depending on the score, the municipality can either gain the Energiestadt label (>50%) or the more prestigious European Energy Award Gold (>75%).

Currently 244 municipalities are certified as Energiestadt in Switzerland. In total 3.3 million inhabitants live in an Energiestadt, which represents 42% of the Swiss population. Communities that achieved the criteria are then allowed to use the Energiestadt logo. In multi-lingual Switzerland, the logos can be either in German, French or Italian. Also, municipalities are allowed to include energy policy related slogans to the logo, as well as their city name (see picture).

Once communities achieved the Energiestadt label, they are stimulated to further improve their energy policy efforts in order to earn the European Energy Award Gold. Currently, there are 18 cities with the European Energy Award Gold in Switzerland. On the basis of the standardized assessment, the scores of the municipalities are benchmarked on the Energiestadt website:

EnergieSchweiz stimulates participating municipalities to actively communicate their energy and sustainability efforts. In their communication toolbox for municipalities (in German) they state: „You’re doing the right thing – speak about it!”. Public administrators are stimulated to communicate their efforts, both internally and externally. It entails the communication to other cities, people or companies about the community’s sustainability efforts. The Energiestadt and European Energy Award Gold labels can fulfill internal branding purposes as well. The labels can help communicate the municipality’s efforts and successes to the public. It stimulates resident awareness about sustainability in their city. Moreover, it can trigger the active involvement of residents and civil society organisations in sustainable projects. The communication toolkit informs about best practices of communicating the Energiestadt and European Energy Award Gold labels. For example, they provide municipalities with ideas for organising events for relevant target groups, such as construction companies.

Energiestadt also forms a platform to share best practices between municipalities. It is a central place for materials on sustainability relevant to public administrators. The website presents projects from different communities and stimulates the exchange of know-how on themes such as spatial energy planning, energy efficiency, mobility and sustainable building. For example about smart LED street light systems.

In 2003 Energiestadt teamed up with municipal energy policy programs in Germany and Austria. Together they introduced the European Energy Award (EEA) to benchmark municipalities in different European countries. The European Energy Award aims to stimulate the exchange of know-how on municipal sustainable energy solutions between European cities. Within the Swiss context, the “Energiestadt” label is equivalent to the European Energy Award in other European countries.

Although the competitive element and the use of benchmarks might not be everyone’s cup of tea, I think the discussed program of EnergieSchweiz in stimulating and supporting communities’ sustainability efforts is valuable. It is valuable because of the exchange of know-how between communities, because it makes visible municipality efforts and because it stimulates the development of sustainability in cities.

Cover of the book "Urban Interventions - Personal projects of public space".

by Valentin Schipfer

I’d say no. There even exists a specific blog – where I found most of my inspiration for this entry – and a recently published book on this type of urban interventions. They are taking place in almost every city of the planet. Here I want to depict just a small selection of projects. All of them have something in common: They try to revitalize distressed or vacant places. At first I want to describe my latest, personal pop-up experience in Berlin – thanks to the Siberian high Dieter.

The last weeks have been some of the coldest in Germany’s meteorologic history with records like minus 28 degrees at night. This wasn’t only a good chance to go ice-skating but also to a pop-up rave on the frozen river Spree. Invited by a monthly changing mailing list I was lucky to receive one of the invitations for this unannounced party. It popped-out on a frozen backwater channel between a junkyard on the one bank and an abandoned factory on the other. While people were skating and dancing on the 30 centimeters frozen surface, the deejays played space and italo disco. In addition to the junkyard’s flood-lightning, the environment was dipped into multicolored disco lights hidden behind some trees. I don’t know if it was the hot wine punch or this charming atmosphere which made me wear a splendid smile.

This party on the ice is only one example for taking advantage of the frozen water as a new layer of public space. Some days ago the pop-up city blog reported about a similar intervention in the city of Leiden in the Netherlands, where a clever gastronomer used the frozen canal to set up his café.

Café on the ice in Leiden. (by René Boer)

One might think now that pop-up urbanism is only possible with frozen rivers. The next example shows that it is not. The urban office Raumlabor carried out the mission Hovercraft – Lifting Modernism. In order to find a temporary space for a student dormitory’s festivity an inflatable, translucent membrane wrapped the terrace underneath the modernistic building. Thereby the semipublic ambient was transformed to semiprivate. For three days the pneumatic hall gave home to concerts, speeches, dinners, a conference day and a party. Similar projects are done by Plastique-Fantastique.

The Cube could be seen as the natural counterpart to the Hovercraft. Instead of popping-up beneath, it stays on top of a series of European landmarks like the Parc du Cinquantenaire in Brussels, a mountain cliff in Switzerland or the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana in Rome. According to the pop-up blog The Cube was developed by Belgian event agency Absolute Blue and designed by Italian architects PARK Associati. It is a fully transparent structure with laser-cut aluminium walls conceived to dismantle easily. Inside, the dining room for 18 guests serves lunch and dinner prepared with locally sourced products by local chefs. The kitchen all equipped with Electrolux  appliances is at the center and allows the guests to interact with the chef.

In London they even go a step further and set up world’s first pop-up shopping mall, called Boxpark . As it is stated on their website Boxpark strips and refits shipping containers to create unique, low cost, low risk, “box shops”. Put them together with a unique mix of international fashion and lifestyle brands, galleries and cafés and you’ve got the world’s first ‘pop-up’ mall – so named because its basic building blocks are inherently movable: they can, and will, literally pop up anywhere in the world. For the next five years it is based in the heart of East London. The object was designed by Waugh Thisleton Architects.

While it is all about shopping in London, Vancouver prefers to relax in public realm. In Summer 2011, downtown Vancouver was spiced up by Picnurbia , a big yellow wave for relaxation creating an inland zone for people to gather and picnic in the heart of downtown. As stated on their website: This undulating landscape provides spaces for people to hang out and play in alternative formations, providing a new experience of urban picnicking. Picnurbia was designed by Loose Affiliates and endorsed by the City of Vancouver. The project aims to address the shortage of decent public spots for gathering, relaxing and picnicking.

We got a similar pop-up in my hometown Vienna. Designed by PPAG architects the so-called Enzis have become a part of Museumquarter’s brand. The glogg stands are made of single elements with the vision to use them also in other combinations or individually. The special geometry enables a lot of different formation types. In summer they invite the visitors to sit, lie, chill, chat, eat and relax on them. In winter they give home either to a wine punch site or the freezing cinema.

In London a collective of young artists, designers and architects try to bring new life to neglected urban public spaces by turning these into some unexpected, creative happenings. In one of their projects, they turned an old petrol station into an extravagant cinema, the Cineroleum. Enclosed by an ornate curtain strung from the forecourt roof, the Cineroleum hosted screenings from sundown four nights a week. The Cineroleum was an improvisation of the decadent interiors that greeted audiences during cinema’s golden age.

For a more individual end, New York-based Alexandra Pulver invented the Pop-up lunch bag. This pop-up furniture helps to change public urban places into temporary lunch spots. The bag can be instantly transformed into a seat and attached to all sorts of fences with two solid clips. It is easy to take and can be removed when you’re done.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these examples of urban intervention and pop-up urbanism. Maybe you even got inspired to put your own pop-up idea into practice. Anyhow, I am going to keep my eyes open for you here in Berlin.

SWOT analysis according to wikipedia

by Ares Kalandides

I am sure most of us have already used some kind or other of a SWOT model to analyse something. In my business it is often used as an analytical tool to understand “places”, where they stand and what should be developed, but also to foresee possible changes.  The people who pay us to do the job love SWOTs: they are clear, schematic, straightforward, unambiguous. But social reality is rarely any of the above. I would like to share with you my thoughts, after having used SWOT analysis for many years, and I would love to hear yours.

SWOT as an instrument was developed in a business environment. It is used to identify factors (favourable/unfavourable and internal/external) that influence the success in reaching an objective. I have used SWOT in my own (small) business and I must say it has worked rather well. Yet, I have found it increasingly difficult to use it in a similar way to analyse places.

First of all, places are not really businesses, though I admit that it can sometimes make sense to look at them that way. Nonetheless, in order to do that we need to simplify, reduce and abstract. This may be helpful in looking at single factors, but we risk missing the forest for the trees. Places are not simply the sum of the elements that constitute them.

With most social phenomena, it is hard to find straightforward causal relations, e.g. A is the cause of B, not only because A doesn’t come alone, but also because there is often a reverse process taking place (where B causes A after A has influenced B), that makes that relation circular. Talented people leave a place because there are no jobs and no jobs are created because there are no talented people to do them (the typical case of brain-drain). Does it mean that if I manage to get more talented people around, then more businesses will follow? Hardly. So is it the chicken or the egg? The more complex the question, the more complicated the answer.

Yet, in order to create a SWOT analysis I need this type of causal relation. The “OT” part is about hypotheses: “If X external thing happens, then what are our chances and opportunities”?  And as I just said, it rarely works like that. But even if we accepted that we can answer the question (in a business environment I think it is easier), it still presupposes that you already have an objective and you assess the impact of external factors for that objective. Doesn’t that mean that first you have the objective and then you do the SWOT? In that sense it is not really an instrument that helps you find your goal, but can rather be used as a strategic tool to design your next steps after you have defined a goal.

There is one more thing. It is not always very easy to say what is a Strength and what a Weakness in place, because it also depends very much on the “who” or “for whom” question. For example: at the moment, we are analysing an area of lignite mines in the German state of Brandenburg (s. blog entry here). Are the mines Strengths or Weaknesses? For the workers in the mines, they are the source of their daily bread and of that of their families, for others they are the destruction of nature – and I could give you a lot more. High unemployment is horrible for the unemployed and those around them, but some companies may be very happy to be able to choose at low wages when unemployment is high. So is unemployment a Strength or a Weakness? It depends on whether you are the unemployed or the business.

Of course I could analyse unemployment (or the mines) and see what it means in terms of SWOT, but then I am not really analysing the place, am I? Even if I were able to break down the place to the trillions of elements that make it up and SWOT each one of them, I would still not know how these things come together in place, will I?

These are open questions I have here, mostly from my own work and 20 years of professional experience. I’d be glad to hear your experiences and thoughts on the subject. I have a presentation tomorrow and the institution that commissioned us is expecting a SWOT analysis of the place…

Screenshot from urbaninform.net

by Valentin Schipfer

Having introduced a blog on Rio de Janeiro’s favelas in my last post, I’ll present another  new web-tool which serves as a communication channel for places, namely UrbanInform.net. It gives  a voice to social investments in urban informal settlements.

The website’s creators are three architects  from Zurich/Switzerland. As the provision of proper housing, infrastructure, and public services has become the major challenge for municipalities, informal settlements are considered legitimate bottom-up responses. Planners and officials today aim at avoiding eviction and integrating those settlements into the city. This integration corresponds with a different attitude towards bottom-up urban economy. Green and social entrepreneurship strengthen the equitable urban development. Civic society and private industry are playing an increasingly important role in urban governance. It is the urban population that is constructing the city, doing business, cooperating, socializing and organizing it. Theory is all well and good – what does this look like in practice?

The two initiators are fascinated by the flexibility and adaptability of self-built and self-organized systems which have proven to be most resilient to the current economic crisis. Therefore urbanInform wants to associate this immense know-how developed bottom-up with professionals and experts on a global level. urbaninform connects new urban economies with urban design strategies, formal with informal actors, bottom-up with top-down organizations, and micro with macro scales in order to support an equitable and sustainable urban development.

The map view of urbanInform's mini docs.

Most of these ideas and social innovations have not reached a large public before. Thus they chose to set up this website which is accessible even for people with low bandwidth. Since the website’s launch in September 2009 projects from informal settlements related to the tool scale (techniques), the architecture scale (design) or the working scale (strategies, finances or urban design layout) can be presented there. UrbanInform calls them “Mini Docs”. To maintain an easy upload and access these mini docs are kept in a simple flash format.

During a short period of time the website became very popular among local stakeholders, NGOs, city officials, architects, urban design students, and other actors – mostly from the southern hemisphere. More than 100 currently listed projects are meeting questions like: How can we reconfigure existing production modes and re-urbanize finances, resources and social capital? How can we redesign sustainable urban economies? How can we redirect city building into a sustainable practice?

In 2009 and 2010 urbanInform has launched two competitions looking for social businesses, green businesses and good urban governance as new domains combining entrepreneurship with social and ecological values. To provide you with an example of a mini doc, the winner of the latest first prize is presented here. You can now choose to either watch the mini doc by clicking here  or to read the following three paragraphs.

Kibera - the biggest slum in Sub-saharan Africa.

The Kibera Public Space Project from Sub-Saharan Africa’s largest informal settlement in Nairobi/ Kenya is led by the Kounkuey Design Initiative which tries to transform the impoverished community by collaborating with residents to create low-cost and productive public spaces that improve their daily lives. In 2007, Kounkuey Design Initiative and engineering partner Buro Happold designed the simple, stone and wire-mesh gabion system—with input and costing advice from Eco-Build Africa and the residents in Kibera—to create flood control for a viable recreation and economic space.

The pavilion as a flexible space for the community.

Together with Kounkuey Design Initiative participating residents constructed a shade pavilion to serve as a flexible space for the community. The pavilion can accommodate more than 200 residents. Operable tin panels open and close to regulate air and light, and are used as a drying rack for harvested water hyacinth. The roof of the pavilion funnels rainwater into two 10,000-liter tanks. The water is then sold by the community group that operates the site. Since its construction, both a school and a church have requested the use of the pavilion for their activities and now rent the space from the community group.

"Grow Kenya's" compost from collected vegetable waste.

Income-generating activities were introduced at the site in order to pay for maintenance and operation. Each enterprise contributes a percentage of their profits to a site maintenance fund. The small urban farm is used for group members to grow and wholesale vegetables to local kiosk operators. In this same space a business called “Grow Kenya” produces compost from collected vegetable waste from kiosks around Kibera that is in turn packaged and sold to residents. A third group, “Kiki Weavers,” is a women’s weaving cooperative that harvests water hyacinth, an invasive weed choking the nearby Nairobi dam, to create, sell and export eco-friendly baskets and crafts. The implementation of the project was completed in March 2010. In case you have not clicked on the mini doc’s link above, I’d like to invite you to have a short look on urbanInform’s website . I am sure you’ll find something new to you.

"Kiki Weavers" - a women's weaving cooperative.

In order to return to the question about UrbanInform’s role in social place branding, I would like to add a few words. I am going along with Anholt’s suggestion that brand management for cities  should be treated as a component of regional policy as well as that cities should find clearer domestic agreement on societal goals and install a climate where (social) innovation is prized and practised. Thinking a couple of steps ahead: This could also be seen as an invitation to talk about existing and well functioning projects like the one above. Why not giving a stronger voice to socially innovative programs, spreading its know-how on the one hand and stimulating the image of the place on the other? In my eyes a good idea! UrbanInform is ideally suited for this.  It spreads practices from informal cities which probably could be adapted to problems elsewhere. In addition it could be a helpful tool for the last steps of the brand management process – the communication of the progam’s/project’s success and stimulate the place’s image.

Apart from that I am convinced that sooner or later the urban societies from the northern hemisphere will look for know-how from self-organizing communities satisfying local needs with local materials– especially in times of change. Entirely in accordance to the trend that global movements from South to North are not limited to humans, cultural practices and cheap commodities anymore but expand to governances treating poverty alleviation, social exclusion and violence. UrbanInform.net will be a welcome addition!

In my first article on cultural flagship projects*, I tried to conceptualize the topic. Now, I will connect the flagship idea ‘Western style’ with the Middle Eastern North African (MENA) region. My last article will deal with the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt based on a case study conducted during a field trip this month (tbc due to the currently unstable and tense situation).

Finding a cultural flagship project in the MENA region has been much harder than I expected it to be. As the most prominent examples are often named: the opera houses in Damascus (Syria) and Cairo (Egypt), the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the corresponding Egyptian city, Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, and the recently opened opera house in Muscat (Oman). Taking into account this relatively short list of cultural flagship projects, we can already understand a key difference between Europe and the MENA region: Having been dominantly influenced by Islamic religion and culture, some performance/art institutions do not have an easy standing in many countries of the MENA region. Often rooted in colonial ruling (with all its positive and severely negative impacts), some countries were more open to the idea of theaters or opera houses as institutions of public life and leisure time. On the other hand, museums have a very different past and are often very prestigious institutions of culture and education in the MENA region.

Another difference is the role of mosques that are supposed to play the cultural flagship role with regard to architecture, design, and image, as well as to function as public institutions of religion, culture, education, and politics. For the sake of the comparison between Europe and the MENA region, I will focus on cultural flagship projects that can be found on both sides.

Therefore, I would like to briefly present the example of the Royal Opera House in Oman’s capital city Muscat. Since it was built upon the edict of the sultan, it underscores the often different starting point for cultural flagship projects in the MENA region – until 2011, all MENA countries were non-democratic. When the opera house in Muscat was opened last year, it drew a lot of attention, because even the idea of playing an opera in an orthodox Islamic country is considered a sin by more than only a tiny minority of people on the Arabian Peninsula.

Typical for a cultural flagship project, the opera house was an expensive project (est. 1.8 billion US-Dollar) and can proudly advertise itself as one of the best equipped opera houses in the world with regard to technical features and interior design. Furthermore, the “Who’s Who” of the global opera scene is part of the opera’s program. One has to recognize that the opera was not developed from the scratch, since Oman has had a recognized symphony orchestra since 1985.

Recalling some of the success factors of cultural flagship projects in Europe (see Part I), decision makers in Muscat can underscore that they integrated the opera house in a long-term policy that has already made Oman one of the world’s best countries with regard to education. Founded on the extensive wealth from its oil, the state will be able to secure plenty of financial resources for its flagship (in contrast to most European city administrations’ empty coffers).

So far so good, but the opera house in Muscat also exemplifies the short-comings of cultural flagship projects (in the MENA region): protests against the excessive construction costs coinciding with public anger against corruption were immediately countered by increased public spending for salaries, welfare, and other support programs. The flagship project was the exact opposite of a participatory planning process. Furthermore, the opera is – and this is also a weak point of some European examples – foremost there to attract more tourists to Oman and thus lacks a strategy to invite locals to the world of art/performance. Also, the opera has only a minor positive impact on local economies. One can hardly imagine that it is thought to provide a space of unplanned/unintended uses by Muscat’s citizens.

Nevertheless, there is room for hope: decision makers see their opera house as a cultural flagship in an over-politicized region full of conflicts**. Having played the role of a mediator in political crises before, Oman is seeking to establish the opera house and corresponding events (like the Aspen Creative Arts World Summit) as a platform for a global dialogue of the arts scene in an upcoming, but still challenging (market)place for culture of various types.

The example of the opera house in Muscat seems to be different from Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island where a Guggenheim, a Louvre, and a national museum are planned to be constructed. Here, it does not look like a well-designed cultural flagship project with a broader agenda for the state or region (as in Oman where the project is integrated in a long-term cultural education policy). Abu Dhabi rather continues its supersized Westernization (globalization?) with mega projects that ignore historic roots or local potentials. From what I have read about the two cases, I see Oman trying to make a difference in and for the region, while Abu Dhabi seeks to become/stay a member in the ‘league of global cities’.

In summary, drawing conclusions from only a small amount of actual cultural flagship projects in the MENA region runs the risk of bold assumptions. What can be said is that the implementation of cultural flagship projects with respect to technical-organizational features is very similar in Europe and the MENA region. The political setting, however, provides a vastly different foundation for these projects in the MENA region – project realization is so much ‘easier’ as no citizens groups interrupt it. Unfortunately, locals can hardly benefit from these projects. Besides these aspects, I think that the cultural-religious context and the Arabic-Islamic society need to be studied closely: Building a cultural flagship project can implicate controversial initiatives that necessitate a great deal of audacity by the decision makers. Furthermore, European cities are designed with/around public spaces – this is not the case in the MENA region. Therefore, cultural flagship projects can play a much more important role as public spaces/places than they do in Europe. I will try to further elaborate on this highly significant aspect in my last article on the Bibliotheca Alexandrina’s role before/during(/after) the Egyptian revolution.

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Comment: Writing about the MENA region is a very challenging task, since language barriers, complex settings on the ground, and restricted media coverage/research all complicate a sound understanding. Therefore, I am fully aware and apologize in advance that this article can probably not completely live up to the standards of an equivalent research article by an expert/insider of the MENA region.

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* The corresponding research has been conducted by the following members of a study group: Pieterjan Dom, Pia Haus, Lea-Sophie Natter, Renard Teipelke.

** Sigurd Neubauer on Oman (Huffington Post)

by Hans Pul

Especially since the Place Branding Conference of last month, the concepts competition and cooperation have been the theme of some recent posts on this blog*. In this post I will follow-up on this topic and discuss some aspects of the Holland Art Cities project (2009-2010). This project was a cooperation between 10 museums in 4 Dutch cities, aimed at attracting foreign visitors. Holland Art Cities was initiated and organised by the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions (NBTC).

I will finish this post arguing that cooperation can be seen as a strategy within a competitive context.

Holland Art Cities is a temporary project by NBTC. This organisation also runs Holland.com, which is the central platform for foreign tourists visiting the Netherlands. Unlike what the NBTC claims on its website, “The Netherlands” and “Holland” are referring to two different concepts. The former refers to the country as a whole, while Holland refers to two out of twelve provinces within the Netherlands. However, in English the term Holland is more frequently used to refer to the country as a whole, while The Netherlands is seen as a more formal way to refer to the same entity. The same holds true for many other languages as well. Apparently, the NBTC does want to get away with the lack of clarity about these two concepts: On the “Did you know – funny facts about the Netherlands” page of Holland.com, it is stated that “The Netherlands and Holland are one and the same place”.

Although NBTC calls it an “event”, Holland Art Cities is pretty much a straight-forward cooperative marketing campaign with a clear target group. The target group is constituted by a well-off, art-interested public from nearby countries (Belgium, France, Germany and the UK). In 2009 and 2010, the top ten museums in the four biggest cities in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht) worked together in an art event under the Holland Art Cities umbrella. (Interestingly, Utrecht is not located in one of the two Holland provinces). These cities are located within a range of 1 hour. Holland Art Cities had 3 themes: International influences, Dutch Masters and Young: modern and contemporary art.

According to the NBTC, the campaign was a great success:

“With 41 expositions in the main programme and 51 in the side programme, Holland Art Cities had a strong appeal on both Dutch and foreign visitors. Around 5 million people visited the expositions in the main programme of the ten museums; 2.9 million Dutch visitors and 2 million visitors from all over the world. For 25% of the foreign visitors the Holland Art Cities expositions was one of the main reasons for their visit to the Netherlands. To underline the quality of the programme: many of the visitors came specifically to the Netherlands and/or the city to see the exhibition and were delighted with their visit.”

The campaign generated a lot of media exposure in the target countries, especially on art websites. The fact that Holland Art Cities caught a lot of attention is probably due to the fact that it is a clear concept: four cities, ten high-end art museums. However, exactly this aspect of the campaign touches on my first point of critique. This point of critique is that only a very small fraction of Dutch art museums received a massive amount of international media attention, while other cities and museums did not. Other cities in the Netherlands and other museums in the four cities profited from Holland Art Cities only indirectly, if at all. A second point of critique on the Holland Art Cities event is pointed at in an article in Recreatie & Toerisme (in Dutch) by Stephen Hodes. The author is content with the focus on art in positioning the Netherlands as a destination. However, he argues that the event seems to be part of the regular programming of the involved museums. According to Hodes, the “Holland Art Cities” event seems to add less of innovative art programming (content), but rather is a “fancy packaging” around already existing products.

My main argument in this blogpost is that in place branding, cooperation can be of competitive advantage. Places cooperating in place branding efforts can be more effective, as they have a more complete product to sell and share costs. In that sense, cooperation and competition are often related, and are different aspects of the same process. For me, the Holland Art Cities campaign example shows that cooperation is a way of withstand within a competitive context.

Within the European context, the Holland Art Cities cooperation effectively positioned the museums/cities involved against competing European cities with great art museums. Within the Dutch context, however, the Holland Art Cities cooperation excluded dozens of other great art museums, in order to keep the concept clear and easy to communicate to foreign publics. From the perspective of the excluded museums, the cooperation of Holland Art Cities museums constituted strong competition.

What is your stance? Is cooperation an alternative to competition? Or is cooperation just a nice-sounding word, but effectively a strategy to achieve competitive advantage?

* Overview of some of our recent posts on the competition/cooperation topic:

• “Generic competition no more” (Efe Sevin)
• “After the conference: First impressions from Utrecht” (Ares Kalandides)

by Valentin Schipfer

Since Brazil and especially its cidade maravilhosa Rio de Janeiro have become the second half of my soul (and my master thesis) some years ago, I’ve been keeping an eye on its urban development. Lately a new Brazilian blog has caught my attention. I am convinced of its socially innovative content as a best practice example for social place branding. It is about the Unidade de Polícia Pacifacadora, abbreviated UPP – the Pacifying Police Unit of Rio de Janeiro. A new type of police which literally pacifies gang-controlled favelas in long-term mediation processes.

The law enforcement program UPP, inaugurated in the state of Rio de Janeiro in 2008, was implemented by and is associated with Governor Sérgio Cabral Filho and State Security Secretary José Mariano Beltrame. The establishment of an UPP in a favela is spearheaded by Rio de Janeiro’s elite police battalion, BOPE. At first they announce their mission to the local drug lord and then invade the favela. By doing so no single gun-shot was fired by reclaiming the biggest favela of Latin America Rocinha, paradoxically located next to the luxury districts Leblon and Ipanema. Then it’s the turn of the UPP. The members of the UPP have received special education in mediation and human rights. They aim at establishing peace and return full citizenship to these long-neglected sections of the population.

Being the host-country of the Soccer World Cup 2014 and two years later of the Olympic Games, it is more than time to polish Brazil’s image. The country and especially Rio de Janeiro sees itself confronted with its notorious image for relentless violence in a war on drugs. The doctrinal and operational departure from usual police strategy marked by the UPP does indeed stimulate this image in a positive manner. And as the author of this article states, the UPP program moves away from the heavy-handed approach, and instead establishes a permanent, peaceful police presence in the community.

In other words, rather than raiding and leaving, the police enter to stay. The real innovation in the UPP strategy, then, is the claim to community-based policing. Members of the Unit are able to draw on sound intelligence, using their physical proximity to the community to gather valuable information to better combat crime. UPP police officers are highly visible, as they establish a base in the strategic heart of each favela – usually in the same place from which drug dealers formerly staged their operations. Moreover, they conduct frequent patrols on foot, and organize skill development workshops for residents. In some favelas, the officers even create youth sports clubs and schools to encourage the replacement of drug-related violence with a more peaceful form of socialization or initiate urban farming projects.

What does this program have to do with place branding, though? It’s place branding’s aim to create positive associations with a place with an unwanted image. From my perspective the following projects depict possible steps towards this goal: Babilônia, one of the first pacified favelas, in Rio de Janeiro’s wealthier South Zone, has been offering eco-walks  through the woods to the top of the hill. Leading the expedition, which gathered tourists as well as citizens from the community and from other districts, were first time guides Captain Felipe and Tenant Coque, both from the local UPP. The place is only now being rediscovered. In a not so distant time, the hill was considered to be dangerous ― the woods served as a hiding spot for drug dealers who oppressed the people.

Furthermore a reforesting cooperative has been doing work on the area since 2001. The council representative for the Babilônia community and president of this cooperative says: “We take advantage of the eco-walks to spread the word about the reforesting work we’ve been doing at the community, as well the environmental education classes, the eco-tourism project, the community council and its partners. When we reach the top, we invite people to join in a symbolic hug for environmental protection. The presence of the police has helped a lot with the security issue.”

In the favela City of God, which gained international attention through the movie of the same name, infrastructural slum-upgrading can finally take great strides forward. Now the city hall invests in the renovation of the street lighting system, including its extension to places where people are still living in the dark. The money will also be used to dredge the river running through the community. All of this is made possible by the so-called “kite-strategy”  which aims to promote interaction between UPP members and the local community. Officers therefore win the kids’ trust by donating kites of thin paper and bamboo sticks. Until 2009 they have had distributed over 250 kites among the kids.

In order to communicate the turn of the favela’s image, the program also makes use of filmmaking. The Nova Brasília Cinema Club, at Complexo do Alemão, Rio’s North Zone, welcomed a special preview: the documentary 4 X UPP . The film was directed by four young filmmakers who live in pacified communities in Rio, and the project was coordinated by one of the most prominent Brazilian filmmakers. Divided into 25-minutes short films, the documentary shows different aspects of the UPPs. Each episode investigates a different social group involved in the project: the criminals, the residents, the police officers and the residents of the neighborhoods surrounding the favelas.

Even though first doubts exist concerning the long-term funding of the permanent police presence and its turn into a quasi-police state, I think that it helps to improve 1) the urban living quality of the favelas‘ residents and 2) their social prestige and self-esteem as well as 3) Rio de Janeiro’s international image.  As I’ve already suggested in this post’s first comment, place branding should focus much more on what types of innovative social policies yet exist in their cities. This would be a way of taking into account what Anholt(1) suggested: Brand management for countries should be treated as a component of national policy, not as a discipline in its own right, a “campaign”, or an activity that can be practised separately from conventional planning, governance, economic development or statecraft. [...] If brand management is treated as a separate discipline from statecraft, and put into a separate silo of “communications”, “public affairs” or “promotion”, then there is very little it can do. When, on the other hand, it becomes implicit in the way the country is run [...], it can speed up change in the most dramatic way.” Further Rio de Janeiro’s UPP policy goes along with Anholt’s idea (2) that cities should find clearer domestic agreement on societal goals and a climate where (social) innovation is prized and practised.

The UPP definitely is one of the most fitting examples and could even be copied to other problematic urban areas.  In addition Rio de Janeiro understands how to make use of it on an international level. Many projects, described in the blog, intend to attract tourists to peaceful favelas – like renting a room with special view. They’ve also installed this interactive timeline where  they keep record of all the UPP’s actions.  Even United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon or politicians  like Obama’s Housing and Development Secretary, Israel’s Public Security Minister and other celebrities like Alicia Keys have been invited to visit UPP’s projects.  I am convinced that by investing in this social program, Rio de Janeiro is on the best path to change its bad boy image and even something in the academic place branding’s discourse. We’ll see if it’ll cause some ripples in the water. Until then, I wish them all the best!

(1) (2) Anholt, Simon (2007): Competitive Identity: The New Brand Management for Nations, Cities and Regions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. (p.32), (p.28)

by Hans Pul

Although it is still freezing (at least here in Berlin), it is the time of the year for starting planning and planting this year’s vegetables. Around this time of the year, you can start planting carrots, spinach, lettuce, and radish. Depending on the location of your gardening efforts, this can contribute to the livability of your neighbourhood. Especially relevant in municipalities struggling with shrinking budgets, more and more residents make efforts to greenify, beautify and diversify public space through gardening. Not only can urban gardening contribute to city quality, it’s also a lot of fun. As an unexpected intervention in urban space, guerilla gardening surprises and triggers reactions from the public. The video above nicely captures that.

In this blogpost I will present some examples of urban gardening in Berlin that contribute to urban quality.

As a first example, Prinzessinnengarten is a neighbourhood gardening project, located on a formerly empty plot at Moritzplatz. Currently, over 1200 people have been involved in gardening in Prinzessinnengarten. The project proves that resident efforts have the potential of beautifying urban space, transforming concrete plots into a neighbourhood meeting point with park-like qualities.  The Prinzessinnengarten project was initiated by neighbourhood residents, which highlights the important role citizen initiatives can have for urban green spaces, similar to the crucial role this played in the development of  New York’s High Line.

The garden is open to the public and attracts thousands of visitors yearly, as well as massive media exposure, nationally and internationally. Prinzessinnengarten features a garden café (see picture) and a small fruits and vegetables market, whose revenues support the garden. The project runs without financial support of the local government. As such, this bottom-up initiative is also sustainable financially, an often overlooked aspect of sustainability.

Probably the most interesting aspect of the Prinzessinnengarten is the social function for the neighbourhood. The garden functions as a meeting point, a playing ground, a place to have a coffee or a beer. Urban gardening has the potential to get people in contact, that otherwise have little in common. The shared interest brings together gardening enthusiasts, hobby cooks, urban interventionists, migrant mothers, and creative industry hipsters. As such, it can contribute to neighbourhood liveability and possibly even to a sense of belonging and neighbourhood identity.

Although gardening projects can and do bring people together, this is not always the case, as projects can also be organised as loose networks. In a guerrilla gardening project on an other location in Kreuzberg a vegetable garden was managed through a scheme tracking watering and weeding activities. Interestingly, some of these participants supported their shared garden, although they hadn’t even met each other, but only knew each other through the watering scheme.

Other urban gardening projects focus on local food production. “Frisch vom Dach” (“fresh from the roof”) aims to use under-used roof tops for urban agriculture purposes, starting at Malzfabrik. The initiators of  Frisch vom Dach argue that the local production of vegetables and fruits can improve the sustainability of cities, as it reduces transportation costs and its environmental impact. They present their project here. As a side note: the city of San Francisco recognized these positive aspects of urban gardening and legitimized urban farming last year, allowing gardeners to sell their products on site.

Importantly, urban gardening is not an isolated urban function, but can increase a city’s livability through spin-off projects as well. In the case of “Ton, Steine, Gärten” at Mariannenplatz in Kreuzberg this includes a fruits and vegetables market, as well as a neighbourhood cookbook with recipes from residents titled “Kreuzberg cooks: portraits, interviews, recipes” (see picture). These activities are aimed at increasing food and sustainability awareness among urban residents.

The success of bottom-up projects like Ton, Steine, Gärten and Prinzessinnengarten triggered the Berlin government to dedicate parts of Tempelhofer Freiheit for urban gardening. Tempelhofer Freiheit is a park located on the area of former airport Tempelhof, and was opened in 2010. Although more top-down, the project stimulates residents to actively shape and organise their gardens themselves. The city, in other words, provides the framework but leaves space for input of city residents. Interestingly, the three “pioneer fields” of the project have been “filled in” differently by residents. On pioneer field 2 (bordering Neukölln’s Oderstrasse) a wide variety of gardens was created by residents, as can be seen in the above video (more here; in German).

Back to bottom-up: What are your urban gardening plans for 2012? Which flowers, vegetables or fruits have you planted, or are you planning to plant? And where; in your private garden, on the streets, in a neighbourhood garden or simply on your balcony?

by Ares Kalandides

Though I have more or less abandoned research on the issue of the Creative City, I am still often invited to participate in discussions or seminars on the subject. It is rarely satisfactory, as I find that we are recycling our knowledge of the past decade without any important progress – of course with the occasional exception. One of these exceptions was the two-part seminar on the “Villes des créateurs”, the first in Lausanne in October, the second in Lyon in January, organized by POPSU Europe, an applied research programme of the French Ministry of Environment, Sustainable Development, Housing and Transportation. One of the characteristics of the francophone context, is that it has its own intellectual traditions and this way it often offers insights that are not totally dominated by the Anglophone hegemonic discourse.  Using this seminar as an excuse, I would like to gather my thoughts here and explain why I am tired of the subject, but also why I think that we still have some chances of finding seeds for fertile approaches:

First of all, almost every single discussion starts with a (new) attempt at a definition. Here I think it is quite important to make some basic distinctions: 1) Creativity as a basic capacity of the human being, an ontological concept that is best analysed by philosophy or psychology 2) the Creative Industries, which is a business-oriented model, 3) the Creative Economy, which deals with the phenomenon from a broader socio-economic point of view, 4) the Creative City which is a more interdisciplinary approach linked to urban studies and deals with the issue within an urban context and 5) the Creatives (or creative professionals) a more sociological and anthropological approach. Usually definitions mix these different things making dialogue quite absurd. I am very happy with a statistical definition that defines the Creative Industries as particular “market sub-segments”, but I would like the rest considered, too.

Secondly, we need to distinguish between a life-style/milieu discussion and a broader socio-economic one. I realize that we very often tend to think of the “creatives” as a kind of urban elite, the way we look upon artists (at least since 19th century romanticism) as playing children, cute and important – but not part of the real life. Of course, many creatives themselves have a tendency to define their milieu through particular patterns of consumption and entertainment, clothing and modes of communication. We should not forget though, that there is often a much less glamorous side to creative professions, one of precariousness, of hard, irregular and badly paid work. What is more interesting here is to think about these “new” concepts (and reality) of work. I use quotation marks for the word “new”, because I am not even convinced they really are.

Thirdly, I think that it is important to link the questions of the creative economy with the creation of value – and that brings us to value-chains. Value-chains are not limited to the creative work, but include education, production, financing, distribution etc. Seen this way, one needs to ask, how these are interlinked, how work at different steps of the value-chain influence each other. In a sense, this means dissolving the distinction between creative and non-creative (the latter a rather offensive term).

"Space-Invader" - Street Art in Paris

Finally, a lot has been said about the urban context of the creative economy: about upgrading and gentrification, about reputation and branding etc. There are three lines of thought here that I think are quite interesting: The first is on the specificity of place (you can call it identity or intrinsic logic). How do particular place-specific factors influence the development of the creative economy? Are there particular spatial patterns that make it possible or that hinder it? The second line of thought, linked to the first one, is on the role (and importance) or density and proximity. If this is an interconnected world, where allegedly almost everybody and everything can be reached through the internet, why do we still see such concentrations in urban agglomerations? Probably because face-to-face relations, trust or the possibility to co-operate project-wise are central to new modes of work. Here research on networks, milieus and scenes can give us some very interesting insights, including a discussion on formal and informal exchange. The third line of thought is on urban governance. How can administrations deal with this highly volatile, constantly changing, protean group (if it is a group)? Are there new patterns of cooperation? Is there anything the administration has to offer?

The above are truly open questions which have been partly covered by research, but can profit from a more differentiated look on how people and space interact – leaving behind the rather unproductive hypes of the past decade.