The Guimaraes logo

by Eduardo Oliveira

The nomination of the Portuguese city of Guimarães as one of the two European Capital of Culture for the year 2012 (ECC-2012) raised great expectations in the local community, in the northwest region and in the country as well.

As usual, politicians,  the media and local communities see the possible fame for country and region through an event of this size with enormous excitement. The hallmark events, such as the 2004 European Football Championship organized by Portugal, the European Youth Capital Braga 2012, bring the desire of achievements in the economic, social and cultural sense. Words, as ‘we can’, ‘we will continue working for the future’, ‘this is a signal that we are in the international realm’ are widely spread - with  little impact in the long-term.

Events and Place Branding

The relationship between events and place branding can be mutually beneficial, but for that, an approach to the event planning through a place branding strategy is necessary. Usually events are planned carefully by the host place, but less attention is paid to the event as a potential part of a wide place management or place branding strategy.

A place branding strategy asserts the place’s uniqueness and factors of differentiation. The assertion of uniqueness often emphasises the historical, social, human, and cultural values of the community, and destinations are progressively adopting brand and marketing approaches to emphasize those unique elements. According to literature, a range of local planning instruments are used by places in order to pursuit local or regional objectives. Events hallmarking are one of the place branding instruments favoured by spatial planners and place managers to formulate place branding strategies. Amongst others, cultural events are used to improve the overall reputation and stimulate development by attracting visitors and capital. Furthermore, events are able to contribute to a place´s range of tourist attractions, facilitate media coverage, gain brand value and promote awareness. The events are most effective as instruments in a strategic policy, often as demonstrations that a change in direction has already occurred and will be maintained through other policy instruments. Events hallmarking, as a place branding instrument, need to fit the event and the place attributes, including the relation with the community. This way, the event will contribute to the brand strategy for the place and the place will contribute to the event´s own brand. A strong brand is the path for an effective and efficient dynamic of development in the place, and the quality of the event influences the impact on the place brand.

European Capital of Culture

The European Capital of Culture (ECC) initiative has become one of the most prestigious and high-profile cultural events in Europe. The event was designed to:

i)               Highlight the richness and diversity of European cultures;

ii)             Celebrate the cultural ties that link Europeans citizens;

iii)            Bring people from different European countries into contact with each other’s culture.

The ECC event is intended to encourage cities to devise a programme with lasting effects and with impact on the long-term development of the city. Some cases around the past host cities did it, some others were far from that achievement. So, the question I attempt to discuss is to understand the ECC event in the building process of a place branding strategy, not only for the city of Guimarães, but for the northwest Portuguese region. How can the region as a whole benefit from the ECC-Guimarães 2012 event? Is the ECC creating momentum?

Guimarães as European Capital of Culture

The city of Guimarães, in Portugal, and the city of Maribor, in Slovenia, are the two cities host of the European Union event – European Capital of Culture.

The origin of the city of Guimarães goes back to the tenth century. It was in Guimarães, in 1128, that the Portuguese nation was founded, and Afonso Henriques was recognised as the first king of Portugal. The national castle, the statue of Afonso Henriques, and the UNESCO world heritage inscribed city centre are elements of the city’s identity.

According to the Fundação Cidade de Guimarães,  the institution in charge of the organization and promotion of the European Capital of Culture – Guimarães 2012, the event is built based on three goals:

i) Develop human capital: empower the local community with new human resources and professional expertise, by encouraging their proactive involvement in the European Capital of Culture programme;

ii) Develop the creative economy: transform the city’s economy, based on an industrial economic model, into an internationally competitive economy;

iii) Generate a new geography: transform a space that passively preserves memory into a space that constantly offers new and surprising cultural experiences.

The organizing team of the ECC event has been using a large number of communication channels, such as regional newspapers, social media and electronic marketing tools. The coverage of the cultural activities is beneficial for the public visibility of the city as cultural and historical destination. Besides a progressive enhancement of the image of the city throughout the year, opinion makers and the community in general, also are expecting urban regeneration of parts of the city, as well as new social and economic momentum.

Most events, as the ECC are relatively small and have little lasting promotional impact and also limited impact upon the place brand. My argument is that the ECC in Guimarães could be used as an effective instrument in a strategic policy and become a demonstration of a change regarding the future. The ECC in Guimarães has the potential to enhance the reputation of the city and the northwest region, but for itself does not produce results, unless it is integrated in a wide place branding strategy. The ECC – Guimarães 2012 could be seen as an opportunity to create momentum, for the city and extrapolated to the region (by positive contagion), and legacy for the future in terms of development of the arts, of culture in general, and together with urban regeneration, contribute to economic and social development.

A view of the village entrance in Archanes

by Ares Kalandides

Dimitirs Mavrakis leaves his kitchen just for a couple of minutes, his face lined with flour, to say a warm hello and talk about the crisis.  “What do the Germans say about us?” is the first thing he asks. Together with his wife Maria they have run the restaurant Kritamon on Crete for the past 5 years and they depend on tourists to survive. “We have our regular guests, but generally locals don’t come very often”, explains Dimitris. “We offer home-made food, a contemporary version of what our mothers and grandmothers used to cook. When people here go out they need something special, not the kind of food they traditionally make at home”. Yet Kritamon is probably one of the best restaurants in Crete, located in the small town of Archanes, about fifteen minutes from the island’s capital, Iraklion, in the midst of a large vineyard valley.

The quiet courtyard of “Kritamon”

To the west stands “Youchtas”, the holy mountain of the Minoans, where remains of a human sacrifice were found, probably in the last days of the last disastrous earthquakes that ended the Minoan civilization. For Dimitris Youchtas is where he goes to collect wild herbs and salads (“only until April, after that everything is dry”) for his kitchen. Surrounding the leafy square of Archanes are the typical “kafeníon” and some tavernas, ubiquitous in every Greek village. But the gems or Archanes are bound to be lost for the hasty tourist. The archeological museum, the old oil press and in one of the side trees Maria’s and Dimitri’s “Kritamon”.

Dimitris Mavrakis and his home-made pasta

Cretan cuisine is considered to be one of the healthiest in the world. Based on excellent olive oil and everything that the blessed land has to offer, it is of a huge diversity and versatility. It makes it even more shocking to see that tavernas in Iraklio all advertise “moussaka” and “gyros”, neither of them local specialities, but deeply engraved in the tourist mind as typically Greek. Do you decide to service stereotypes or do you develop your own identity in order to attract tourists? In most places people go the easy way: if tourists want gyros (a rather disgusting concoction of bad quality meat) then give them gyros. Chances are that they will not even try escargots – not even the Cretan variety “bourbouristi” with olive oil, vinegar and rosemary.  Although tourists go chasing after the images they already have in their minds, more and more people are looking for new and “authentic” (with all the difficulties to define the term) experiences.

Escargots “Bourbouristoi”

Tourists are consumers, but we are far from the time where a consumer was considered a passive participant of the sales process.  We now know that the consumer also forms the product she consumes. A visit to the tourist areas of northern Crete (Chersonissos or Mallia) with the hordes of drunken, sunburned and sex-crazed northern European youths in the summer is enough to turn you off the island for good. Yet for years, tourism marketing for Greece was based on stereotypes attracting exactly this kind of mass tourism.

“In 2012 there is a drop in tourism between 40%-80% depending on the area” says Dimitirs while he generously pours his own home-made liqueur, based on Cretan “tsikoudia” and a mix of wild lemony herbs. “On the one hand it is the Greek political instability, but that can not be all”. The truth is that tourism numbers in Greece were falling rapidly in the past years (with an exception in 2011 which was interpreted as a side-effect of the Arab spring). It seems that tourists were getting tired of Greece or that they could find similar (or better) services at competitive prices elsewhere.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. I have still to see a serious economic analysis of the local benefits vs. costs of tourism. It is not enough to look at numbers of overnight stays or arrival at the airport. How much is left in the hands (or pockets) or international tour-operators and how much benefits the locals? How high are the infrastructure costs of the local communities to serve tourism? Is there a competition between tourism and other economic activities, e.g. when both tourism and agriculture fight over the same limited resources such as water? Let’s not even start talking about other types of cultural effects on local communities.

Kritamon. Inside the restaurant.

I am not speaking here against tourism. I am just sharing my thoughts with you on whether we need to rethink tourism and its potential benefits, rethink the way we market places and cultures, but also the way we then manage tourism. Crete is for me an excellent example of how parallel universes can exist so close to each other. On the one hand the tourist resorts in the north and on the other Dimitri’s “Kritamon” in Archanes. Do we have a way to bring tourists to places they don’t know? And do we even want to? I’m open to your ideas…

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Links

Restaurant Kritamon: http://www.kritamon.gr/en/

Archanes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archanes

Cretan gastronomy: http://blog.visitgreece.gr/gastronomy-in-greece-crete-food/

Spiegel Online article: Greece Holiday Bookings Plunge due to Turmoil

Filed under: opinions Tagged: Archanes, Crete, gastronomy, Kritamon, mass tourism, tourism, tourism management ]]> http://blog.inpolis.com/2012/05/23/crete-blessed-by-nature-and-cursed-by-tourism/feed/ 2 aresk Archanes Kritamon1 Dimitris chania_recipy_50 Kritamon2 http://blog.inpolis.com/2012/05/21/ethics-of-place-making-and-altering-a-k-a-place-branding/ http://blog.inpolis.com/2012/05/21/ethics-of-place-making-and-altering-a-k-a-place-branding/#comments Mon, 21 May 2012 14:40:24 +0000 Efe http://blog.inpolis.com/?p=4561 Continue reading →]]>

Ethics for Sale? (Image from BrandChannel.com)

By Efe Sevin

Last year, the Journal of Place Branding and Public Diplomacy published a special issue on ethics of place branding, and I had the opportunity to put my two cents in with my article “Thinking about Place Branding: Ethics of Concept“. With recent encouragements from several colleagues, and the Turkish government’s most recent attempts to redesign national commemoration day celebrations, I decided to revisit some of the main arguments I made in the paper.

The “provocative” argument I made was that the way we think about place branding limits our thinking. We put several boundaries on ourselves and thinking as we try to conceptualize the term based on current practices, or the needs. This is why I decided to take a step towards critical theory, and discuss the concept in normative terms. Place branding is not only a communication attempt, it is a communicative attempt. It is not an only urban development project, these projects can change the nature of places we live in.

The question that led me to a critical view of place branding was about its necessity. When do we need place branding? If we look at the practice, we will end up with answers about tourism revenues, or import/export numbers. Borrowing some terms from Jurgen Habermas, I claim that we need place branding when there is a disagreement (if not an argument) about what a place is (what a place’s brand image and identity are). The starting point is not an economic or functional necessity, but is a clash of ideas. In the case of Turkey, for instance, the clash is obvious between old elite and new elite (secular bureaucrats  vs conservative government).

I proposed a Habermasian approach to better understand what is going on. Practically, place brands are the products of a two-step communicative process. In the first step, domestic communicative action takes place to build up place brand identities. Second step, international (or domestic stakeholders and target audiences) communicative action produces place brand images. I propose that scholars and practitioners take two questions in consideration. And I definitely do not promise to give any generalizable answers.

• Who has the “authority”, “power”, “legitimacy”, (or any other buzzword in sociology) to (re)brand a place?

A constructed place image includes functional and representational claims. This is to say, the image should include the physical characteristics and also normative values. So, while making truth claims à la Habermas, who has the authority, who has the final say in deciding the physical and normative peculiarities of a place? Public sector? NGOs? Individuals? Corporations?

So, I say, in this first step of communicative action, we should be careful about (i) legitimacy, and (ii) inclusion issues. (But I am definitely NOT saying all place branding campaigns should be all inclusive)

• Which aspects of a place’s constative identity (or “reality”) should be included in place branding campaigns?

In short, even though place branding is ethically “neutral”, we are walking on thin ice. We should be careful as:

- Ethics in place branding is contextual. The framework I propose is for “thinking about place branding”. Be aware of the social context you operate in.

- Place branding is political. Power and legitimacy are important concerns. It is not a construction or a promotion project! Place branding is a great demonstration of power!

- Place branding is “social” and “communicative”. Place branding is about norm production, it has the potential to change a place’s identity.

PS: I wrote a little bit more about the Turkish experience in my own blog, Reaching the Public.

The logo of the Siberian city Omsk and the Omsk Region

by Irina Shafranskaya

Russian cities have caught the virus of city branding. The competition of  cities that can be branded is extremely wide among more than one thousand of Russian ones.  Every city proclaims its brand as a tool of socio-economic development but surprisingly (or not) the branding process does not start from the city improvement or economy boost. It starts from the logo. Who, when and how taught the city mayors (who are the main decision makers of branding in most cases) that the logo is the most appropriate start – we do not know. It seems like an epidemic disease with quite clear symptoms. Moreover, the mainstream is city logo development is ‘alphabetical’ branding. The brand sign (official or unofficial but well-known) is to be the first letter of the city’s name. As a result we now have a lot of logos (of course, not brands) which contain no message. For me, the objective of the logo (as the complimentary part of city brand strategy) should be the communication of place-related associations, especially when the brand is targeted on the external place consumers. But what’s the sense of using letters (especially Cyrillic ones), colouring them just because it looks bright?

Let’s proceed to the examples.  The first one is my city logo – Perm. A red first letter as a brand sign was developed by a well-known Russian designer, and just at the moment it appeared – it became the point of aggressive discussion. At the very beginning the whole branding process became the quarrel which involved a lot of people, and most citizens still estimate it negatively. How could we create a strong positive association in such a negative context? – I have no idea.

Another example of discussion is the logo of the Siberian city Omsk and Omsk Region (see main picture). This logo didn’t win in the official contest, but gained popularity among Internet-user – at the unofficial web-site. Again we see the first letter which adds nothing to our knowledge – what is this city about?  A “lovemark” is a good idea when a product or a company (even a city) is well-known, but I doubt whether it is a good way in city branding. Omsk is a large Russian city but I have no idea what is that special thing which makes it multi-coloured, for example, or so emotional.

Let’s go further: The next letter is N with “NEVINOMYSK City – Innovation” as the tagline.  Do you see innovation in the logo? Maybe it is hidden inside the black boxes which surround the letter ‘N’ in Cyrillic?  I am not quite sure that the logo is official and I even can’t imagine what souvenirs could be produced in such a ‘black-n-white’  manner. It looks unattractive and again creates no positive idea about the city.  What will be the brand strategy, I even can’t imagine.

To make a long story short let’s go to Moscow. Moscow is well-known all around the world and being the capital it should be the brand automatically. The discussion about Moscow’s positioning and brand strategy is currently quite lively. Fortunately, they do not start with the logo, they are going to start from a master plan for the city and so on. But while urban development issues are just spoken at different forums and congresses, the logo aspect is in process. The contest among leading design agencies shows us the same symptoms – some of them again use the first letter. It’s another funkier version of something  familiar to metro users: voila, it’s the letter M! Nothing to add.

The problem of Russian city branding is quite predictable: we start from the logo, we develop a brand book, we design the souvenirs and official sites but we forget that a brand (even a visual one) is the symbol of quality. And by the end we have a huge number of angry tax-payers who ask: “But what have you done besides the logo? Where are those improvements which brand reflects, where are those tourists and investors who are attracted here by this brand?” And the whole branding process becomes the useless wasting of money. And this destroys the reputation of city branding both as a  professional sphere and the way of city development. So, should we start here from the alphabet?

Karlsruhe

By Hans Pul

Regional marketing booms. Small (and big) cities team up in regional cooperations, in order to get noticed in the international arena. Together, regional actors aim to attract investors, potential employees and tourists. Career opportunities and quality of life play an important role in this respect. Richard Florida’s well-known book The Rise of the Creative Class, Cities and the Creative Class (2002) proves to be influential once again.

In a benchmark study conducted by in:polis, the Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion was compared with 10 European regions, comparable in terms of R&D and regional spatial characteristics. The choice of regions with similar R&D characteristics was based on a 2008 study by the European Commission: “Europe’s regional research systems – current trends and structures”. In this series, I will discuss a number of these regions and their regional branding efforts, including Karlsruhe, Uppsala, Nuremberg and the Rhein-Neckar Metropolitan Region. Aspects such as brands, cooperation models and marketing instruments will be discussed.

In this introductory post, I will present the marketing efforts of the Karlsruhe region, where several municipalities, cities and other regional actors teamed up in the Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion.

Typology of regions – from “Europe‘s regional research systems”. Karlsruhe is highlighted with a red circle.

Karlsruhe, a city with 300.000 inhabitants, is located in Germany’s southwest state of Baden-Württemberg. Karlsruhe is known as the place where the bicycle was invented and frequently makes it into the headlines of German and European media because of the Bundesverfassungsgericht, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. In total the 3200 km2 region is home to 1.2 million inhabitants.

As in many other places in southern Germany, there is an abundance of high-tech companies, institutes and universities. The R&D expenditure is 3,8% as percentage of GDP, well above the goal set by the European Commission. Karlsruhe is one of Europe’s leading best performing high-tech regions, for example in terms of patents (4th), number of researchers (8th) and public sector R&D expenditure (7th). Based on these and other R&D indicators, the Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion is a “business-oriented, R&D-driven region”, according to the aforementioned study “Europe’s regional research systems – current trends and structures”. Other “hard” location factors, such as infrastructure conditions are superb.

Interestingly, “soft” location factors, such as quality of life (nature, culture, etc.) play a central role in the regional marketing efforts. Of course, “hard” location factors are brought afore as well. The combination of hard and soft location factors is also reflected in the regions slogan: “HighTech meets the Good Life” (in German: “Hightech trifft Lebensart”). A diversity of instruments is used, including glossy 60-page brochures, a trilingual website, DVDs and Youtube-videos (see above).

Cluster or sector oriented networks are incorporated in the regional marketing. Most notably these include bioValley and nanoValley.eu. On the website it appears as if these networks exist “under” the umbrella brand Karlsruhe TechnologieRegion. However, geographically these networks only partially overlap with the Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion.

Homepage of Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion, “High Tech meets the Good Life”

In terms of regional marketing, Karlsruhe was an early-adaptor. The brand Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion exists since 1987. Since then, many other regions in Germany and Europe catched up in terms of regional marketing. Since 2005 the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region, located directly north of the Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion, is one of 11 German Metropolitan Regions. Karlsruhe itself, however, is located outside a European Metropolitan Region. As such, it is the largest German city outside a Metropolitan Region (!). This clearly is a competitive disadvantage: all larger -and many smaller- cities and towns are able to present themselves as part of a Metropolitan Region in the international arena, while Karlsruhe cannot.

Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion

In addition, the fact that the major city of Stuttgart, as well as the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region are not mentioned in the glossy brochures of the region is another indication of the fact that Karlsruhe is focused on itself, on its own relatively small 1.2 Million inhabitant region. This focus on the own region is also reflected in the halfhearted cooperation of Karlsruhe in the so-called “Trinational Metropolitan Region Upper Rhine” (see this interview with Karlsruhe’s mayor [in German]). As a cross-border cooperation it seems to be more of a political project, rather than the cooperation of a region that actually functions as a metropolitan region (for example in terms of commuting). Nonetheless, I think an Upper Rhine cooperation could make sense, for example with regard to the region as a tourist destination.

How does the regional branding of Karlsruhe compare with other European regions? In upcoming posts of this series, regional marketing efforts of other European high-tech regions will be compared with that of the Karlsruhe region.

Quality of Life as important location factor; taken from brochure of the Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion (not available in English yet)

Traveling the world as an adventure (or a luxury) undertaken by young adults has become a well-known part of life of today’s younger generations. Multiple blogs are filled with online diaries, pictures, videos, links, and other pieces of information that are shared with friends and the world wide web for various reasons. Rick Mereki, Tim White, und Andrew Lees have been on a six-week travel around the world and made three short movies with impressions from the eleven countries they visited. Each movie has been framed by a specific theme, and they all highlight (indirectly) many aspects of traveling the world and understanding its heterogeneity and complexity – both, as I would say, with regard to leisure activities as well as research.

Video: MOVE

MOVE

This movie shows us every possible type of transportation and a lot of movement. However, it is apparent that not every move is part of traveling. You do not only want to go from one place to another. A certain place also wants to be experienced. And this is possible by putting your feet on the ground. With respect to studying the urban fabric of a particular place, we might want to think about an experience by moving. Or to put it into other words: the urban fabric wants to be walked on, passed by, crossed etc.

Video: EAT

EAT

While research on organic food, green labels, and fair trade has increasingly become prominent in economic geography, the social role of food and the practices or customs of producing, preparing, and consuming it, can be considered as one of the most neglected issues or research perspectives in the studying of places. Activities related to eating do not only include work but also often pauses: situations of slowing down and taking in impressions of a certain place. The way we think about, judge, and remember places is heavily influenced by the food we consume in them. It is fundamentally important to keep this in mind and to ‘consume’ consciously if we want to reach a good understanding not only of places but also of our ideas and conceptualizations of these places.

Video: LEARN

LEARN

If you want to get to know a certain place you have to make an effort. You have to invest yourself – otherwise, you will only ‘enjoy’ prepared generic experiences for a place’s typical visitor. Learning something in and/or about particular places is a question of comprehending in the most basic sense. It is, then, a question of delivering messages and, on the next stage, communicating with each other. If these three steps are taken successfully, the final point of understanding can be reached. But learning and understanding (in) a place necessitate investing all your senses. Furthermore, it means taking the risk of making mistakes. And it is an interconnected process of learning and teaching. This is of high relevance to both leisure-time visitors and on-the-ground researchers, and cutting edge studies on the mobility of knowledge (see for instance Peck, Urry, or McCann) tell us a lot about this aspect.

… I always think these ratings are amazingly stupid, even if they are supposed to be humorous. I would not mind if the author used the first person (i.e. the best places for ME in the world), but he uses the second and tells me where it would be best for ME. I kept reading the article in terms of social benefits, human rights, quality of life (for ME)  etc. and I only came up with one of his places after all. What do you think?

Here is the link to the article:

_______________

The five best places to live in the world, and why | Money | The Guardian.By

Tom Dychoff on the Guardian

“Bored with Blighty? Then why not up sticks and move somewhere else? Tom Dyckhoff spotlights five perfect places – from a surfer’s paradise in Hawaii to a bohemian rhapsody in Portland, Oregon”

Reblogged from in Loco:

Massimo Giovanardi

In Italia è molto raro scorgere il brand territoriale come tematica dibattuta all’interno di una campagna elettorale o più in generale nel dibattito politico. Un paio di anni fa ricordo un documento programmatico di Matteo Ricci, presidente della Provincia di Pesaro Urbino, in cui si parlava di branding territoriale. Per il resto, a parte dozzine di loghi turistici lanciati ogni stagione estiva, non vi sono tanti altri esempi.

Read more… 782 more words

Hong Kong tenement buildings

by Rowena Lee and Patricia Woo*

Dave never quite enjoys climbing the five flights of dark, narrow staircases to his home.  The landing on each floor is so small, he thought as he put one foot in front of the other, he would be pushed off to the stairs if a pregnant Christie emerged from one of the doors.

Christie and Dave love each other.  She is 26, saleslady in a high-end fashion boutique.  He is 35, an experienced merchandiser in a medium-size clothing enterprise. Together they earn HK$28000 (about 2800 Euros) a month.  HK$3300 goes to rent, for a “sub-divided apartment” 2 blocks away from Dave’s office.

Dave stops at the “door” of his apartment – more accurately, the once-existed door of the original 60 sq.m apartment which was transformed into 3 smaller apartments for profit.  He and Christie live in the “medium” size one, 15 sq m.  Another couple and their 6-year old son live in the biggest sub-divided part, 20 sq m, and a quiet middle-aged bartender lives in the smallest apartment, 10 sq m.

Dave’s sister Marion was utterly amazed by the first sight of Dave and Christie’s dwelling.  “An apartment completed with shower cum toilet, kitchenette, bedroom and living room in 15 sq m!”  She exclaimed.  “Stay calm, sis,” said Dave, “The Lee family next door got two rooms, a living room, kitchenette and shower cum toilet in their 20 sq m.”

By sub-divided his apartment into three units with self-contained facilities, the landlord makes a monthly total of HK$9300 in rent, a whopping 55% more than what he would make if he rent the original apartment out in market price.  Each sub-divided apartment is equipped with its own electricity and water meter.  The landlord charges HK1.2 for each unit of electricity consumed, 30% higher than the HK$0.9 charged by public utilities.

“Are you going to live here for another 1, 2, 3 years?” exclaimed Marion.  “What’s there in it for you?  How about I lend you the downpayment for buying a proper apartment, say 40 sq m in Ngau Tau Kok district?  You just need to take a 40-minute bus to work.”

“That sounds good,” said Christie. “But how are we going to live after paying the monthly mortgage of $8000? Plus the additional transportation cost of $360 per month for each of us?” “For the same price, we can get a 55 sq m apartment in Tuen Mun district, the apartment will be comfortable for a family of four, Christie…””Are you crazy?  That would cost each of us $900 more for transportation…”

Marion couldn’t quite understand this.  She was brought up in Mainland China by granddad and grandmom.  To her, two persons spending months and years in a toy-size flat of 15 sq m is inhumane even by Chinese standards.

Dave knows.  The building is some 50 years old.  The drainage system is approaching collapse, with two in three original apartments being sub-divided into 3 units.  To make the sub-divided apartments more appealing to tenants, landlords create long, narrow corridors that had never existed in the mind of the building’s architect.   The building is not under any proper management.  Each tenant (yes, tenants) pay $50 a month for daily garbage-removal service by a woman worker.

Lack of proper maintenance

Hundreds of such buildings stood on the forgotten streets of aging urban districts in Hong Kong.  In June 2011, one of the tenement buildings at the end of the street caught fire, killing 4 plus an unborn child, and injured 19.  It was only after this killing fire that the Government started to show some real interest in sub-divided apartments.

Tear them down?  Ask the owners to make sure that their apartments follow fire regulations?  Force the whole building to come up with a solution?  Provide affordable housing in these areas to shift the demand-supply curve?

The staircase

Dave has something to say.

“I know this is not the most ideal environment to live in,” he shrugged his shoulders, grinning, “but the landlord and I each get what we want.  He earns money, I get my own place.  Small as it is, I save valuable transportation time and money.  Mom does want me to move back.  But elder brother John, his wife Fan and their Mainland-born child Joseph are already sharing the 40 sq m public housing apartment with dad and mom.”

“Hey, isn’t that true Hong Kong Government allows “splitting” of growing families to separate public housing apartments?  John can apply for a split.”

“Marion, I admire your knowledge of Hong Kong public housing policy, but you miss the crux here – Fan and Joseph are not Hong Kong residents.  They are “invisible” in the eyes of the Government although in reality, they spend more than 10 months here using a visitor’s permit.”

The tiny living room is only 1.5m wide

“More and more owners of decrepit buildings are joining this wave.  They flock to where the greatest profits lie.  For people in my income group, we have passed the threshold for Government public housing.  Even if I am still in, you will have a hard time convincing me to move to public housing in those faraway districts.  What is the point for me to end a normal working day at 6pm, spend 90 minutes cramming in a bus, just to arrive home empty-stomach and seeing the “pleasant” surroundings of a new town in darkness?  Why do I want to move away from where jobs are, right in the urban centre?”

“Dave, the morning news said the Urban Renewal Authority is going to redevelop your street!  Go get the compensation and move to a better place.”

“The ownership of these old tenement buildings is so scattered, I doubt how long URA will take to collect the critical mass of ownership.   My landlord already heard this, he said he’s going to hang on as long as possible.  He’s milking good money from his apartments, what’s the point of selling his apartments to URA now?  Mind you, the URA pays compensation by interior area, but owners of saleable apartments in the market charge you for buildable area!  They told you, you can get a 7-year old apartment of similar size in the same district, and you believe! Ha!”

Although many are appalled by the tragedies of fire in sub-divided apartments in Hong Kong, not that many are willing to tackle the root of the problem head-on.  Flat land is scarce in Hong Kong.  The Government has not been moderately successful in decentralizing job opportunities from the traditional urban centre.   Focus on building new towns, serviced by railway trunks, in the past 30 years has left many flat spots right in the middle of town unattended.

What could be a more sustainable land use policy, if we look another 30 years ahead?  Building condominiums on wetland and country parks, reclaiming land from the sea to make new buildable land, even renting land from nearby Shenzhen, or sensible and well-planned re-invigoration of developed areas?

Re-invigoration often means gentrification for policy makers.  While this approach is not objectionable in some spots, the lure of a gentrified, middle-class environment can overshadow many genuine social needs.

Encouraging safe, simple, affordable housing as a new option for the urban “too-rich-for-social-welfare-but-way-too-poor-for-buying-their-own-home?” If the median income for an average Hong Kong household is $20500 (s. Note 2), how much is affordable for a young couple trying to build their own home?

(to be continued…)

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* Rowena Lee and Patricia Woo will be writing from Hong Kong regularly as of this week.

Note 1 – For details, please see http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201107/13/P201107130222.htm

Note 2 – Government statistics as in 2011, please see http://www.census2011.gov.hk/en/main-table/E201.html

For facts about HK population and households:

http://www.censtatd.gov.hk/hong_kong_statistics/statistics_by_subject/index.jsp?subjectID=1&charsetID=2&displayMode=T

Conference venue: The new Business School of the Manchester Metropolitan University.

Manchester Metropolitan University 13th-16th February 2013

The Business of Place: Critical, practical and pragmatic perspectives

Conference Chairs: Professor Cathy Parker and Dr. Ares Kalandides

Place branding, place management, place marketing, strategic spatial development, public-private place partnerships, all synonyms describing one thing – the application of business principles to place.  The language and conventions of business have spread across the world, to places of all scales, from district centre management through to nation branding.  This widespread extension of market principles to places (districts, towns, cities, regions, countries and even continents) is not without critics, with many economists explaining that it is firms that compete not places. Nevertheless, those charged with place leadership chant the mantra of place competition, hence the expanding business of place.

The aim of this conference is to accept these alternative realities and provide a ‘green zone’ for contributors to bring their perspective on the business of place for the explicit purposes of theoretical and practical development.  Based in Manchester, the original modern city, delegates will play a pivotal role in making sense of the state of the knowledge for academics, practitioners and policy makers.

Contributions are welcome that explore the various perspectives of place branding, management or any other type of ‘orchestrated action’ that investigate or apply business principles in or to places.  If you wish to discuss a paper or a proposal for a special session, then please email the Conference Chairs Cathy Parker (c.parker@mmu.ac.uk) or Ares Kalandides (kalandides@inpolis.de).

The Conference is sponsored by INPOLIS Berlin, The Institute of Place Management and Development and Manchester Metropolitan University. Conference delegates that are members of the Institute of Place Management are entitled to discounted delegate fees.  Conference delegates that are not members of the Institute of Place Management are entitled to 6 months free membership.

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In addition to the conference, there are a number of other key events.

Master Class : Principles of Place Management (leading to the International Certificate in Place Management)

A one-day Masterclass (12^th February) which explores place management, marketing and branding from an inter-disciplinary perspective.  Delegates will examine the global drivers of change in relation to the governance of place and learn the principles of place management, marketing and branding.  The Masterclass will also provide delegates with a range of theoretical frameworks in order to be able to critically reflect upon the conference content and get more from the conference presentations and workshops. Delegates that wish to be awarded the Institute of Place Management’s International Certificate in Place Management can choose to submit an assignment, applying the learning from the Masterclass to a place of their choice.  The International Certificate in Place Management is an access route to Manchester Metropolitan University’s MSc in Place Management.

Place Management and Branding Research Colloquium (13^th February)

A one-day workshop, suitable for students of place management and branding and early career researchers in the area to develop their research proposals, presentations skills and learn how to get published.  In addition, those attending the colloquium, who have a paper accepted in the conference, have an opportunity to compete for one of the ‘best new researcher’ slots in the full conference programme.

Study Tours (16^th and 17^th February)

A choice of walking tours of Manchester, exploring its industrial past and heritage from a place management and branding perspective (including best and worst practice!).  The study tours will be supported by material that can be used by delegates wishing to use Manchester as a case-study in their classes or presentations.

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Additional information will be provided soon.