Rethinking planning-branding relations: an introduction

Kristof Van Assche [University of Alberta] Raoul Beunen [Open University of The Netherlands] Da Silva Oliveira, Eduardo Henrique [UCL]

In this special issue, we present a number of distinct contributions to recent debates on the interlinkage between place branding with spatial planning theory and the embedded of both in governance. The idea to organise this special issue emerged from our common research interests. For us it was rather puzzling that planning and branding had not been connected in a systematic manner, either in theory or in practice. The encouragement towards this special issue occurred after a post-conference meeting in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in September 2017. As guest editors, we had been convinced of the potential of place branding as a way to make planning more sensitive to its own potential for encouraging value creation and support spatial transformation. We never considered this a way to maximizing value or to subjugate spatial planning to a capitalist system. But we did believe that spatial planning in a capitalist context would make itself very vulnerable if it was not sensitive to issues of economic value, and also sensitive to arguments and lobbying by developers, property owners, and citizens. We had a strong feeling that place branding perspectives could render planning more sensitive in this regard, and we were, to some extent, exhausted with schematic discussions of planning being seen as an opponent of free enterprise and property rights and place branding represented as the ‘handmaiden of capitalism’. We believed that place branding had the potential to protect and preserve what is valuable to a community, but that it had to develop at least a greater awareness of the issues of democratic legitimacy engendered by its claims to importance. We wanted to get a deeper understanding of this problematic separation and invite authors from two sides of the divide to think about the other side. And it was not easy. The marketing roots of place branding made it hard for some authors to envision branding in the frame of governance, and in that frame to consider how it could get closer to planning. While in planning, intellectual but also administrative traditions made it hard to make connections at first. But we believe we did succeed in bringing together a group of competent and open minded authors who were willing to cross the divide and think about various possible ways to relate planning and branding. Sometimes, tough discussions were part of the game, and both contributors and guest editors had to re-examine their assumptions. We believe this happened, and we are proud of the result. This collection of papers, is certainly not the ‘last word’ in this debate but it is for sure a major step forward in the search for synergies between planning and branding. We assume that many possible relations are imaginable and practicable. When considering those possible synergies, one need to take into account the diversity of forms of planning and branding, as well as the diversity of situations, marked by different issues and assets. Many critiques of place branding and its former incarnation, place marketing, have focused on the bias towards economic development. This raised questions regarding the power of a small circle of experts (especially in places with a strong tourism sector), but also regarding the narrow focus of community development implied, the limited set of assets appreciated, the limited range of possible futures envisioned, or the small number of common goods articulated. The idea of spatial planning has been similarly captured, according to much of the academic literature, by narrow economic development goals, with old ambitions being routinely ditched to redefine planning as simply creating space for developers. A key argument of this special issue, one found in different forms in most of the contributions, is that effective synergies between planning and place branding requires a thorough understanding of planning and branding practices and the embedding of both in governance. This means looking beyond the labels, and beyond the self-presentations of both sets of professionals, and mapping out in detail how planning and branding really work in the given location. It also means that the actual (versus formal) position of each in broader governance configurations requires attention. Once an image of actual practices in a bigger governance system is sketched, the current impact of both planning and branding can be better understood, as can be their current relations, and some possibilities for re-configuring those relations. Furthermore, an understanding of the evolution of the governance system and its modes of self-transformation, helps to see how current forms of planning and branding might be transformed and brought into more fruitful relations. For most of the authors included in this special issue, two important concepts shared by planning and branding, are assets and narratives, with branding offering a promise to stabilize communities by creating place-based value sensitive to assets and narratives.