“Turn your brand into a destination”: toponymic commodification and the branding of place in Dubai and Winnipeg

ABSTRACT

The selling of naming rights to corporate sponsors has led urban policymakers to increasingly view the identities of public places as rent-generating assets to fund urban infrastructure. Yet few scholars have critically analyzed this emerging global trend of toponymic commodification and the seeking of “naming rent.” Through a combination of archival research, on-site field observations, and semi-structured interviews, this study examines how the practice of toponymic commodification is transforming the cultural landscapes of contemporary cities by considering two naming rights programs: Dubai’s Metro Naming Rights Initiative and the Sponsor Winnipeg Program. In each case, we explore the implications of commodifying public place names as well as the conflicting perceptions of such sponsorship programs. In doing so, the present study illustrates how the selling of naming rights is reshaping the built environment into a space of symbolic/economic capital transformations as brands become destinations and public places are reconceived as marketing opportunities.     

Who owns the name? Fandom,social inequalities and the contested renaming of a football club in Timişoara,Romania

ABSTRACT

Recent scholarship in critical toponymy has raised questions about the impacts on urban residents of selling naming rights and the possibility of contesting the commodification of urban place names. This article examines these issues using Poli Timi?oara, the major football team of Timi?oara, Romania, as a case study. The cash-strapped local authority sold the naming rights for the team to raise revenue. However, when the club’s private owner was unable to finance the team, the local authority reacquired the naming rights of Poli, now under the name Asocia?ia Club Sportiv Poli (a new team with a small fan base). Drawing on the everyday narratives of fans, this article explores how the commodification of a local club name can cause social tensions. This is important for understanding urban residents’ access, or lack thereof, to social capital resources and how this leads to the manifestation of social inequalities which co-determine fans’ reactions and responses to the change in the name of a sports team. The findings suggest that commodifying names can mobilize serious contestations among partisan groups about who owns the name, although such contestations appear to be on uncertain ground because of post-communist urban practices of delayed economic restructuring.     

Naming rights,place branding,and the tumultuous cultural landscapes of neoliberal urbanism

ABSTRACT

In recent decades, urban policymakers have increasingly embraced the selling of naming rights as a means of generating revenue to construct and maintain urban infrastructure. This practice of “toponymic commodification” first emerged with the commercialization of professional sports during the second half of the 20th century and has become an integral part of the policy toolkit of neoliberal urbanism more generally. As a result, the naming of everything from sports arenas to public transit stations has come to be viewed as a sponsorship opportunity, yet such naming rights initiatives have not gone uncontested. This special issue examines the political economy of urban place naming through a series of case studies that consider how the commodification of naming rights is transforming the cultural landscapes of contemporary cities. In this introductory article, we provide an overview of the geographies of toponymic commodification as an emerging research focus within the field of critical urban toponymies and propose several theoretical approaches that can enhance our understanding of the commodification of naming rights as an urban spatial practice. We then discuss the main contributions in this special issue and conclude by exploring potential directions for future research on the geographies of urban toponymic commodification.     

City renaming as brand promotion: exploring neoliberal projects and community resistance in New Zealand

ABSTRACT

Proposals to change the names of entire urban centres are rare. We examine the case of Blenheim, New Zealand, where in 2016, representatives of local businesses campaigned for its renaming as Marlborough City, in recognition of the region’s wine industry. Although defeated the proposal threatened to over-write established settlement history. It presumed to rename Blenheim under the aegis of New Zealand Inc., a shorthand for the pervasive yet nebulous economic nationalism that seeks to yoke all local and national identity to enhancing export growth. Drawing on media reports, we interpret this example of toponymic commodification as a neoliberalized project of place-making. Ironically, Blenheim and Marlborough are colonial names that displaced a long-established Māori name. The proposal highlights both the perversities and the deeply contested claims-making that often underlie and animate toponymic politics. Ultimately, it illustrates some of the limits of rights claimed under neoliberalism.     

Language contact and ‘the Catch’: Norfolk Island fishing ground names

The author uses Norf'k fishing ground names on Norfolk Island (South Pacific) to illustrate how toponyms can be exposed to geographic, anthropological, and linguistic scrutiny. The grammar of the names demonstrates how Norf'k, the language of the Pitcairn descendants, typifies an esoteric insider language because of its ecologically connected toponyms and pragmatic determinants. Norf'k fishing ground names vary in their linguistic form and hence in their geography and spatiality. The toponymic and linguistic landscape of Norfolk Island reveals several processes that are significant for understanding sea-based geographies and the intertwining of creole languages, other contact languages, and the environment.     

HIDDEN PLACES AND CREOLE FORMS: NAMING THE BARBUDAN LANDSCAPE*

The decline of fieldwork in human geography in the United States is reflected in place name studies of the last 30 years, which have been founded on maps alone. Research in Barbuda, Lesser Antilles, demonstrates the importance of human informants and observations in the field for gathering toponymic information, and shows the axiom that place names alone are evidence of past landscapes and land uses to be unreliable. The study tests some accepted principles of naming against field observations and proposes the significance of creole language and diglossia in the place names of creole speech communities.     

“This venue is brought to you by…”: the diffusion of sports and entertainment facility name sponsorship in urban Europe

ABSTRACT

Drawing on a database of 193 football (soccer) grounds and 115 indoor arenas, as well as press releases and media reports associated with them, this study charts the diffusion of sporting and entertainment facility name sponsorship across metropolises, cities, towns, and smaller settlements in six European contexts. Our results show the emergence of naming rights deals in the 1990s, their peak in the mid-2000s, and the current situation with a steadier growth of name sponsorship. Thus far, the corporate re-branding of venues has remained less prevalent in Italy, Norway, and Scotland than in England and Wales, Finland, and above all Germany. In financing newly built venues, however, the corporatized landmark language in focus has become a practically invariable part of local growth, austerity and (re)branding policies. Despite voices of resistance in all regions studied here, pressure towards the corporate renaming of even hereditary, communally endorsed football stadiums is increasingly being felt by municipal and private-sector venue owners.     

Mapping the Urban Debtscape: The Geography of Household Debt in Canadian Cities

Abstract

Vulnerability resulting from debt is part and parcel of the risk society and a salient characteristic of current neoliberal times under financialized global capitalism. Rising indebtedness increases the susceptibility of homeowners to housing and labor market restructuring, and if the degree of leverage is very high, can threaten the solvency, living standards, and social stability of local communities. However, very little is understood regarding how levels of household indebtedness are spatially distributed within or across cities, and how private debt maps onto the geography of race, class, housing, urban form, and other social variables, especially outside of the United States. It remains unknown whether and how higher and unsustainable levels of indebtedness might be associated with urban growth, decline, suburbanization, gentrification, immigration, racialization, and/or greying. This article examines the spatial distribution of household debt in Canadian cities at multiple scales of analysis. It analyzes how levels of household debt relate to a number of key socio-demographic and housing variables from the census, including those related to changes occurring over the 2000s. It simultaneously models the geography of debt at the metropolitan and neighborhood scales using multi-level hierarchical linear modeling methods, and in doing so, it identifies some key drivers and correlates of household debt and the scales at which they operate. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the empirical findings for understanding the role of the emerging urban debtscape in the restructuring of the social geography of the city.     

Policy Boosterism,Policy Mobilities,and the Extrospective City

Abstract

This study develops the notion of “policy boosterism,” a subset of traditional branding and marketing activities that involves the active promotion of locally developed and/or locally successful policies, programs, or practices across wider geographical fields as well as to broader communities of interested peers. It is argued that policy boosterism is (1) an important element of how urban policy actors engage with global communities of professional peers and with local residents, and (2) a useful concept with which to interrogate and understand how policies and policy knowledge are mobilized among cities. A conceptualization of policy boosterism and its role in global-urban policymaking is developed by combining insights from the burgeoning “policy mobilities” literature with those of the longstanding literature on entrepreneurial city marketing. It is supported by illustrative examples of policy boosterism in Vancouver: the city's Greenest City and Green Capital initiatives, the use of the term “Vancouverism” among the city's urban design community, and demonstrations of new urban technologies during the 2010 Winter Olympics that were used to market a particular vision of the city's governance to people from elsewhere, but also—crucially—to local audiences. The article concludes by highlighting four foci that might frame future work at the intersections of policy boosterism and policy mobilities.     

Green infrastructure,green space,and sustainable urbanism: geography’s important role

ABSTRACT

This paper is a broad review of green infrastructure theory and practice relative to urban sustainability and the space for geographers in these discussions. We use examples from various urban sustainability plans to highlight ways in which green infrastructure is being conceptualized and implemented. We explore how geography contributes research on green infrastructure as well as the emerging practices as seen within sustainability plans. We identify four areas in which geographers can influence both green infrastructure theory and practice: 1) scale; 2) mapping distribution; 3) sensitivity to place and locale; and 4) equity and access. We conclude that in these areas geographers have tremendous opportunity contribute more deliberately to sustainable urbanism.     

An Integrated Approach to Germanic Place Names in the American Midwest

Place names represent an established topic in sociocultural and critical scholarship on human space and place. Based on a comprehensive data set of Germanic names in the American Midwest, this article explores the value of a novel approach integrating advanced spatio-statistical measures with critical interpretation to revitalize the field of toponomy on a concerted methodological and theoretical level. Processed in a geographic information system (GIS) environment, the regional toponymic pattern provides a broad and reliable framework that evokes interpretative discussion of underlying structures and processes. This characterizes Germanic toponyms as versatile sociodemographic, political, and ethnocultural indicators.     

Place Spoofing: A Case Study of the Xenophilic Copycat Community in Beijing,China

This article coins a neologism, place spoofing, to describe the unique transformation of a place when it purposefully replicates another alien place, thereby enabling the residents to live in the vicarious environment of that imitated place. Place spoofing captures how a place disconnects from its indigenous culture and historical heritage during the transformation. This framing enables us to further reflect on the causes of this unique urban development. To deepen our understanding of place spoofing, we elaborate on its connotation, different spoofing strategies, and its goal of delivering an alien sense of place. We further analyze its market price and then discuss the perspective of place spoofing as a type of conspicuous commodity. To put the theoretical framework in context, the xenophilic copycat residential communities in Beijing are examined. Specifically, the copycat communities are sifted out from all available Beijing residential community transactions from an online real estate database. The distribution of copycat communities demonstrates the (re)production of place spoofing in the geographic layout of the city. The empirical results show that the copycat communities tend to have higher prices, implying that the residents pursue an alien sense of place and the symbolic meanings carried by its sentiment. This study also discusses how buyers, developers, and governments react to place spoofing. Overall, place spoofing provides a lens to frame this long-standing, but often neglected, urban development. This article lays the groundwork for geographers to explore the spoofing phenomenon by examining its underlying spatial characteristics, economic benefits, and social implications.     

An Approach To The Editing Of Massive Computerized Data Sources

Based on interviews with corporate executives, this paper examines several decisions to locate pulp and paper mills in British Columbia during the 1960's and early 1970's. It emphasizes locational evaluations of regions, communities, and sites interpreted as parts of wider investment decision processes and longer-run corporate strategies. Relationships between initial locational decisions and post-locational assessments and adjustments are also identified.     

Introduction: Rethinking Practices for Enhancing Diversity in the Discipline

This study explores the variations in household participation rates in recycling projects implemented in urban and suburban communities. A causal model is developed to compare the demographic attributes of residents, their awareness of the recycling programs, their environmental attitudes, and their overall willingness to recycle. The model is assessed by Linear Structural Equations Methodology (LISREL). The results suggest that household recycling behavior is not consistent across communities due primarily to variations in demographic characteristics of residents and their evaluation of program policies.     

Consultas and Socially Responsible Investing in Guatemala: A Case Study Examining Maya Perspectives on the Indigenous Right to Free,Prior, and Informed Consent

Since 2005, more than 78 Maya communities representing approximately one million Guatemalans have held referendums called consultas comunitarias, which ask the community whether they are in agreement with mineral, hydroelectric, and/or other megaprojects in their traditional territory. Participation in the consultas is a form of resistance to the granting of mineral rights to corporate interests. In Canada, where much of the Guatemalan mining investment is based, “socially responsible investment firms” (SRIs) promote corporate respect for Indigenous rights. Based on interviews and participant observation, we highlight the perspectives of Maya consulta organizers in three communities that have undertaken consultas to resist the mining licenses of the Canadian mining company Goldcorp, Inc. We argue that a strict policy of corporate respect for the right to free, prior, and informed consent of affected communities is a minimum requirement for Maya acceptance of SRI legitimacy.     

Inserting scales of urban politics: the possibilities of meso-urban governance shims

This article explores the geographic literature on governance at smaller-than-urban but larger-than-household scales, identifying a relative inattention to neighborhood and other partial-city scales of governance. Hegemonic power relationships are institutionalized at particular scales of state government (e.g. national, regional, municipal) and state-sanctioned governing units (e.g. jurisdictional districts or supranational bodies), which in turn shapes urban research. We propose a new analytical term, governance shims, to describe the insertion of new scales of governance between those already reified and reproduced; institutions at such scales may be unusually grounded in authority beyond the state. Geographers seem well positioned to explore the characteristics of governance shims at the meso-urban scale. We illustrate this by briefly tracing how common interest communities (CICs), housing cooperatives, and community land trusts (CLTs) might be analyzed through a shims approach. Provocatively, emergent governance at the meso-urban scale often leverages idiosyncratic structures of property ownership to produce institutional authority.     

Introduction: Geographic Contributions to Agrobiodiversity Conservation

Abstract

Since the period of bank deregulation in the 1980s, deferred deposit loan operations, better known as payday lenders, have become commonplace in the landscapes of many American cities. At the same time, traditional banking facilities have become less common, especially in the inner city. Growing disparities in the type of and accessibility to credit in the inner city has generated calls for greater regulation to curb practices by payday lenders that critics claim disproportionately affect poor and minority consumers. Payday lenders argue that they serve communities neglected by traditional banks. This article analyzes the site-location strategies of banks and payday lenders in metropolitan Louisiana, and in Cook County, Illinois, and finds that disenfranchised neighborhoods are simultaneously targeted by payday lenders and neglected by traditional banks. The implications these findings have for public policy and for ongoing discourses on the urban condition, race, and class are briefly discussed.

     

Changing urban governance in Ghana: the role of resistance practices and activism in Kumasi

ABSTRACT

This article examines traders’ resistance practices in Kumasi, Ghana and their significance for changing urban governance in Africa. Conceptually, we introduce “activism” as a new variable into the present concept of urban governance as decentralization, entrepreneurialism and democratization (DED). From an empirical study in Kumasi, Ghana, findings reveal that activism by non-state actors does not only occur at the crucial earlier phases of the urban regeneration process, but extends into the subsequent phases, because urban governance is a continuous process. We demonstrate that activism and a multiplicity of resistance practices are embedded and significant dimensions of everyday urban governance in Africa. This paper argues that the additional dimension – activism – is necessary in rethinking urban governance in Ghana and Africa. This conceptualization views non-state actors not as resisters of urban governance but as activists whose resistance practices and innovations produce tangible and far-reaching changes in city governance. We learn that non-state actors do not rely on the state to control all aspects of urban governance but invent new practices to secure their socio-economic interests and provide them with leverage where they have to negotiate with or stand up to authorities. The study shows that successful change in urban governance is a function of the complementary and strategic adoption of contention, subversion and co-production. When the state perceives that the intervention of other key stakeholders legitimizes the grievances of non-state actors, it responds positively.     

Living the good life? The rise of urban mixed-use enclaves in Metro Manila

Gated communities and other forms of privatized enclaves have become features of many cities. The rise of urban mixed-use enclaves, which integrate functions of work, entertainment and living, is a relatively new and understudied phenomenon that is expanding rapidly throughout the Global South. In this article, we advance the concept of enclave urbanism through a case study of Eastwood City in Metro Manila, the Philippines. We trace the enabling factors for mixed-use enclave creation and assess how the different functions are marketed and integrated in practice into one “live–work–play” development. Based on extensive qualitative research, we argue that the global capital accumulation strategy of real estate developers leads to a strong focus on production and entertainment functions, but neglects questions of liveability. We reflect on the implications of our findings for mega-urban regions and urban studies research.     

Traces: Philosophy,Interpretation, and Method in Postqualitative Human Geography

This article attempts a double reflection: a methodological interrogation of myself and an autointerrogation of my methodology. Following Ernst Bloch, I structure this reflection around the idea of traces, which are brief, narrative, aphoristic speculations on a particular theme. In this article, I (re)produce my own narrative traces, engaging with and representing several moments of strangeness in my methodological praxis as they are recorded in field notes from prior fieldwork with urban secession movements in black and white communities of Atlanta. Building from Bloch’s hermeneutic, I treat these moments as traces to be pursued, rather than simple social artifacts of the relational, intersubjective activity of research. Finally, I demonstrate how a geographer might develop that which crystallizes in the interpretation of the trace (i.e., through the intentional reconsideration of the uncanny and recurrent moments of everyday experience) toward the methodological worlding of philosophy as a vibrant, reflexive, human praxis. Key Words: Bloch, interpretation, method, postqualitative analysis, praxis.