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Are you interested in place branding?
Our summary today works with the book titled The Civic Brand: The Power & Responsibility of Place from 2025, by Ryan Short.
This is a great preparation to our next interview with Ryan Short in episode 366 talking about place branding and the civic brand.
Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how we can utilise place branding more than just a marketing tool. This book highlights space branding as a necessary strategic tool to combat fragmented, reactive urban planning and balance out people, profit and place, as the triple bottom line.
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Welcome to today’s What is The Future For Cities podcast and its Research episode; my name is Fanni, and today we will introduce a research by summarising it. The episode really is just a short summary of the original investigation, and, in case it is interesting enough, I would encourage everyone to check out the whole documentation. This conversation was produced and generated with Notebook LM as two hosts dissecting the whole research.
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Speaker 1: We are consistently confronted with this paradox of modern urban planning. Despite having access to advanced technology, loads of data, and frankly sophisticated planning expertise, cities everywhere struggle. They struggle with massive persistent problems, unaffordable housing, chronic fiscal instability, environmental degradation. The material we’ve looked at suggests that one of the most critical failures is fragmentation. These sort of siloed efforts of different departments, different interest groups. It’s even likened to the failure to manage forest undergrowth, which only guarantees larger, more destructive wildfires down the road. So this essential challenge of alignment brings us to our core question today is a formally defined civic brand, a documented shared identity and vision. Is that a necessary prerequisite, a true North Star for communities to effectively and sustainably overcome these really complex urban challenges, or is focusing on this identity, maybe an intellectual diversion that just delays essential, immediate physical and policy actions, actions rooted in existing localized needs. I contend that the civic brand is the crucial, missing strategic connective tissue. It’s the framework that I believe must proceed and guide all successful long-term action. Ensuring every investment contributes to a unified resilient future.
Speaker 2: I come at it from a different way. While I fully appreciate the aspiration for a cohesive vision, I argue that authentic identity is earned. It’s not declared upfront. Resources and political will, I think must prioritize urgent targeted policy and physical improvements right now. Interventions that demonstrably address fundamental community needs authentic identity, what the source material calls the civic brand that should emerge organically from those consistent actions. The real risk of waiting for some overarching North Star is that we prioritize maybe an intellectual exercise over addressing fundamental physiologic and safety needs, ultimately delaying necessary interventions that build essential trust in the first place.
Speaker 1: I see why you think that the proper sequencing is action first, but let me offer maybe a different perspective on that sequencing without a shared, articulated identity and vision. Every policy, every piece of urban design, every major investment will inevitably compete for limited resources and attention. The result is what we see all over the place, reactive, fragmented outcomes. We end up chasing immediate fixes, like endlessly widening roads because there’s congestion. Or approving these quick wind developments that completely fail to integrate into the existing urban fabric. This kind of piecemeal development, it only ensures financial liabilities down the line through excessive maintenance costs for non-sustainable infrastructure. The civic brand is the connective tissue that gives common direction. It serves as the strategic filter preventing communities from being pushed and pulled solely by the highest bidder, special interests and outside entities. It provides the framework that enables leaders to act with clarity and crucially long-term purpose. For instance, look at High Point North Carolina. The process of defining their core identity moved them beyond simply being the furniture capital. They realized their true identity was about making something. That brand realization then served as the catalyst to prioritize and align capital projects, specifically addressing community weaknesses like. Housing and food insecurities. The brand must guide, not follow if we’re going to achieve systemic change.
Speaker 2: That’s a compelling argument for clarity, but have you considered the cost of the delay? The delay inherent in that kind of top-down branding process, waiting for the official definition of the North Star can drastically delay necessary immediate interventions. Interventions rooted in specific localized insights. The material is very clear on this. Authentic identity is uncovered, not invented, and importantly owned by no one. So when you spent six months, maybe a year defining the vision through agency workshops and committee meetings that highly controlled upfront branding exercise, it risks being superficial. It can become just a high gloss place. Marketing campaign designed to attract outside attention, often masking the erosion of substance underneath. This is the danger I think, of using a brand to cover up extraction and think about how that extraction works, right? A beautiful new brand is launched. It attracts external capital that invests in high-end real estate, which then drives up property taxes, rental rates, effectively displacing long-term residents. The shiny veneer of the brand masks the underlying economic inequality being made worse. We read the anecdote shared in chapter 10 about the mother walking up that steep heat soaked hill, pushing a stroller full of groceries in a food desert simply because there was no sidewalk. That problem is immediately apparent through simple qualitative observation. It requires immediate human-centered action. It doesn’t need a prolonged engagement process to determine its priority within some formal civic brand framework.
Speaker 1: That is a powerful image. Absolutely. It illustrates a clear, immediate safety and humanitarian need, and I agree those needs should be addressed rapidly. However, my concern is that those reactive solutions are often unsustainable if they are not guided by a foundational forward looking vision. Let’s go back to the forest analogy for a second. When we react solely to crisis, like just putting out localized fires without understanding the larger forest ecosystem, we disrupt the natural cycle, allowing excessive fuel to accumulate, ensuring the next fire is catastrophically worse in an urban context. A sudden decision to build that sidewalk while laudable might be done in isolation, does it connect to a future transit stop? Does it integrate with a citywide plan for active transportation? If not, we’ve simply addressed one isolated symptom, possibly leading to future planning conflicts or increased unexpected maintenance costs years down the line. The brand provides the foundational framework needed to guide growth and ensure it’s the right kind of growth steering away from those long-term financial liabilities and ensuring coherence across multiple departments.
Speaker 2: I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy that. The definition of an abstract grand concept is required before we build a sidewalk or solve a food desert issue. Let me tell you why. Data and human-centered design insights provide sufficient strategic direction without the lengthy, often costly branding process. That observation of the mother on the hill is strategic data. It’s qualitative, observational data that is immediately actionable. It tells you exactly where infrastructure spending is failing to meet basic needs. The material itself advocates for being data inspired if we use these clear human-centered insights to implement basic fixes. Now. We build credibility, we demonstrate that action can and must precede the formal branding project. The focus should be on shaping the place itself, the product, by implementing immediate policy and physical changes like aligning placemaking permits with community priorities, ihin deals, the legitimacy necessary for a brand to truly stick, rather than being some upfront declaration that might just be met with immediate cynicism from residents.
Speaker 1: But your approach risks that the action while immediate. Lacks that crucial intentionality and leads directly to the very problem you’re trying to avoid. Homogenization, if every city simply responds to immediate needs or just copies, best practices from successful peer cities, building the same mixed use developments or creating the same IP pedestrian zones. Without deeply consulting their own unique cultural DNA, they inevitably follow global design trends. This creates what the material calls a homogenized landscape, coffee shops, apartment complexes, public spaces that all frankly look the same and could exist anywhere in the world. Without a clear established civic brand, communities are prone to imitation, trying to be the next Austin or the next Portland. Rather than focusing on their unique, differentiated character.
Speaker 2: But that risk of homogenization speaks precisely to the dangers of trying to formalize identity too quickly, which often results in fixation on some surface level attribute. We see this roadside attraction approach where cities fixate on one hyper-specific gimmick, high point’s, largest chest of drawers being a historical example of this kind of thinking. Risking a shallow, gimmicky identity, true resilient identity. Like the Pura Vida concept in Costa Rica, that’s not a marketing strategy. It emerges organically because it is deeply ingrained in the local culture, developed over generations and owned by everyone. It wasn’t invented or controlled by an agency. Trying to define that culture upfront often just results in a visual identity refresh That’s merely a marketing campaign completely disconnected from the substantive issues people are facing.
Speaker 1: I agree that the roadside attraction approach is a failure, but that is not civic branding, not as it’s intended. True civic branding is explicitly designed to prevent imitation and resist that pull towards sameness. It seeks to reflect and serve authentic culture, not invented out of thin air. The goal isn’t creating a logo. The process is meant to be an anthropological deep dive to uncover what makes a place unique. This is why the brand process insists on moving beyond cliches. It uncovers complex shared values like Selita. Colorado’s Guide Culture, which is about resilience, mentorship, navigating difficult territory. It’s far beyond simple tourism high points, realization that their identity is centered on making something. Is much bigger than just furniture. It’s about skill craft ingenuity. This rigorous uncovering process provides the essential strategic framework to make long-term decisions that protect local character and avoid being co-opted by global trends. It gives local decision makers the actual evidence they need to say no to homogenized projects that don’t fit.
Speaker 2: Okay. Let’s shift the focus back to power for a minute, because this is where the sequencing of brand versus action truly matters. I think. The brand is supposed to be the North Star for everyone, but we know that significant decisions are still often made by elites, enclosed rooms in places the material calls the headliners club. Can a beautiful, well-defined civic brand truly shift power away from entrenched business leaders and politicians, or is it just a feel good exercise that maybe doesn’t reach the policy implementation phase? I question whether defining the vision first actually guarantees equity. If the brand says the community values inclusion, but the city council then approves a massive luxury development that requires displacing low income residents, the brand is rendered instantly meaningless, isn’t it? The only way the brand proves its value is through action and busking in a music city like Hamilton. That’s the only way the brand demonstrates that it matters to the people on the street. This implies to me that immediate, verifiable action must come first to build trust and collective ownership among residents.
Speaker 1: But that’s precisely where the strategic power of defining the brand first comes into play, the brand through the explicit incorporation of the triple bottom. People, profit and place serves as the essential lens to hold decision makers accountable. Without this formally agreed upon framework, how do you challenge those decisions made in the Headliners Club? The brand allows a resident group, for example, to challenge a proposal not merely on an emotional basis. On a strategic one. Look, this development fails to align with our collectively defined commitment to place by increasing traffic congestion, and it doesn’t provide proportional, affordable housing, which is our people commitment. It unifies the language used by the entire power structure, government, developers, universities, hospitals, forcing them, or at least attempting to force them to raise the economic ceiling for everyone within the community. Not just a select few. It’s the common purpose that makes effective collective action possible against extractive interests. If you don’t define the common purpose first, you simply have a messy, fractured group of stakeholders who aren’t held accountable to a single unified set of values. I agree that accountability
Speaker 2: is the objective, absolutely. But if we don’t start by getting the foundational basics done, the things that address physiological needs and build trust, that misalignment will persist. If people feel like their immediate, visible needs are ignored, while the city spends time and money on abstract vision statements, their sense of ownership just erodes entirely. The belief that they can shape their community is forged by seeing immediate substantive changes that make their lives safer and better, not by reading a shared vision statement developed by consultants. However well-intentioned, you can only demand accountability to the brand if the community first believes that people in power are genuinely committed to improving their lives today.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, my position remains that fragmentation is the fundamental threat to long-term community health and resilience. The civic brand is the non-negotiable strategic filter that ensures growth is guided, ensures investment serves locals first, and connects diverse stakeholders through a common documented purpose. It moves us beyond reactive solutions towards proactive sustained stewardship,
Speaker 2: and I maintain that placing the definition of the brand first risks both superficiality and dangerous delays in addressing immediate observed community needs. A strong, authentic identity isn’t a blueprint. You draw up a forehand. It is the natural consequence of collective action and physical improvements. It is forged in the execution of policies that tangibly improve life. You build the great place first and the strong identity follows.
Speaker 1: This is an insightful tension, isn’t it, and one that the source material itself suggests is sometimes necessary. Great places like New York City perhaps are often born from embracing complexity, tension and contrast, rather than seeking simple, immediate consensus.
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