Staging the New Berlin : place marketing and the politics of urban reinvention post-1989 / Claire Colomb.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Colomb, Claire.

Series:

Planning, history, and the environment series

Planning, history, and environment series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Urban renewal--Germany--Berlin.

Urban renewal.

Place marketing.

Germany--Berlin.

Place marketing--Germany--Berlin.

Germany--Economic conditions--1990-.

Germany.

Economic conditions.

Physical Description:

x, 358 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2012.

Summary:

This book explores the politics of place marketing and the process of urban reinvention in Berlin between 1989 and 2011. In the context of the dramatic socio economic restructuring processes, changes in urban governance and physical transformation of the city following the Fall of the Wall, the 'new' Berlin was not only being built physically, but staged for visitors and Berliners and marketed to the world through events and image campaigns which featured the iconic architecture of large-scale urban redevelopment sites. Public-private partnerships were set up specifically to market the 'new Berlin' to potential investors, tourists, Germans and the Berliners themselves. The book analyzes the images of the city and the narrative of urban change, which were produced over two decades. In the 1990s three key sites were turned into icons of the 'new Berlin': the new Potsdamer Platz, the new government quarter, and the redeveloped historical core of the Friedrichstadt. Eventually, the entire inner city was staged through a series of events which turned construction sites into tourist attractions. New sites and spaces gradually became part of the 2000s place marketing imagery and narrative, as urban leaders sought to promote the 'creative city'. By combining urban political economy and cultural approaches from the disciplines of urban politics, geography, sociology and planning, the book contributes to a better understanding of the interplay between the symbolic politics of representation' through place marketing and the politics of urban development and place making in contemporary urban governance. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction: the Reinvention of the 'New' Berlin Post-1989 1

What Can We Learn from Berlin? 5

Approach and Structure of the Book 7

2 Understanding the Politics of Place Marketing and Urban Imaging 11

From Baltimore to Berlin: Urban Boosterism, City Marketing and Place Branding in the Post-Fordist Era 12

Place Marketing through the Prism of Urban Political Economy: Reconciling the Material and the Symbolic 20

Place Marketing as Public Policy, Discourse and Imagery. An Analytical and Methodological Framework 26

Conclusion 35

3 Selling Berlin in the Twentieth Century: Historical Perspectives 39

Urban Modernity and the Birth of Contemporary Place Selling Practices (1871-1933) 40

From Cosmopolitan Weltstadt to Imperial Germania. Berlin and the National-Socialist Propaganda (1933-1945) 47

Promoting Berlin during the Cold War (1945-1989): Between Tourism Advertising and Ideological Image War 50

Conclusion 67

4 On the Way to Weltstadt? Unification and Metropolitan Ambitions, 1989-1993 71

Debating Possible Futures for the German Democratic Republic, November 1989-December 1990 74

Berlin Year Zero. The Aftermath of Division 76

On the Way to Weltstadt? Metropolitan Ambitions and Olympic Marketing, 1991-1993 89

Conclusion 105

5 The Actors of Place Marketing in the New Berlin 112

The Creation of Dedicated Place Marketing Organizations, 1991-1995 112

Other Actors of Place Marketing: A Wide-Ranging Constellation of Interests 127

The Politics of Place Marketing: Goals, Target Audiences and Instruments 134

Conclusion 138

6 Marketing the Global Service Metropolis and the National Capital 144

Potsdamer Platz as Emblem of the Aspiring Global Service Metropolis 147

'Capital City Marketing' for Berlin and the New Berliner Republic 168

Conclusion 182

7 Staging Urbanism: Construction Site Tourism and the City as Exhibition 188

Staging Urbanism: From Site-Specific Panoramas to the Entire City as Exhibition 189

The Pedagogy of the New Berlin 201

'Recreating' the European City. 'Critical Reconstruction' and City Marketing 208

Conclusion 215

8 'Poor, But Sexy': Marketing the Creative City, 2001-2011 222

Worst Practice Urban Governance'? Anatomy of a Financial Crisis and Its Aftermath 223

Place Marketing, Economic Development and Tourism Promotion in the 2000s 226

'Poor, But Sexy': Pushing the Visual and Discursive Urban Frontier in the Branding of the Creative City 237

'City in Search of Its Identity Looking for New Motto. Contact City Hall with Ideas' 258

Conclusion 264

9 Contested Place Marketing, Contested Urban Images, 1994-2011 270

Coordination and Accountability: The Contested Organizational Arrangements of Place Marketing 273

The Rationale of Place Marketing: Substantive Critiques 277

From Symbolic Reimaging to Real Gentrification: Fighting the Extension of the Urban Frontier 289

Displaying Other Berlins: Alternative Marketing and Artistic Subversions 295

Conclusion 303

10 Contemporary Urbanism and the Politics of Reimaging 307.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 318-345) and index.

ISBN:

0415594030

9780415594035

9780415594028

0415594022

9780203137543

020313754X

OCLC:

606776877