Responsible place marketing can
make sustainable places?
Professor Cathy Parker
Centre for Retail, Place and Consumer Change
www.business.mmu.ac.uk/crpcc
@placemanagement
profcathyparker
“a city designed, built,
and managed in a manner
where all its citizens are
able to meet their own
needs without
endangering the wellbeing of the natural world
or the living conditions of
other people, now or in
the future”
Place Making
New urbanism, old villageism
Walkability
Mixed-use and diversity
Quality urban design
Environmental sustainability
Smart transportation
Dongtan, China
“Our biggest challenge in
the new century is to take
an idea that seems
abstract sustainable
development and turn it
into a daily reality for all
"... last time I went to Dongtan,
this world’s people”
there was a farmer selling
tickets to watch his pigs jump
Kofi Annan
through hoops of fire in a field.
But no eco-city".
Greenwasher of the year: Arup still pushing Dongtan
UK engineering giant Arup is keen to be seen as your sustainable
project manager of choice. For years Ethical Corporation pointed
out its claims to be the lead developer on a non-existent
“sustainable city” – Dongtan, near Shanghai in China. The project
has been cancelled and nothing was ever built even though lots of
farmers were forced off their land in preparation by the Chinese
government. And while the project was on hold and going
nowhere, Arup executives were touring the world touting their
credentials as master developers.
Their chutzpah is admirable. It takes real b***s to spend years
discussing a non-existent eco-city in your Powerpoint
presentations to beef up your marketing.
http://www.ethicalcorp.com/communications-reporting/greenwasher-%E2%80%93-december-2009-january-2010
Detroit
Place Making
Place
Maintenance
11
Place Making
Place
Maintenance
Place
Marketing
Transport
Security
Planning
Place Making
Place Maintenance
Urban design
Place Marketing
Tourism
Cleaning
Inward investment
What are places marketing for?
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•
•
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Mobile investment
Population
GDP
Public funds
Hallmark events
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The place promotional paradox
Public or quasi-public policy should embody
notions of public good and social benefits, but not
promote one place at the expense of another.
Gold and Ward, 1994
What’s the future for place
marketing?
From exogenous to endogenous activity
• Economic development
• Innovation
• Education
• Jobs
• Communicating the vision