“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.     

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.     

Entrepreneurial urbanism, state restructuring and civilizing 'New' East Manchester

This paper draws on the 'entrepreneurial turn' literatures to examine the current redevelopment of East Manchester. It makes three contributions to our existing empirical and theoretical understanding of what is termed here 'entrepreneurial urbanism'. First, attention is drawn to the spatially selective nature of entrepreneurial urbanism within cities; second, it argues that entrepreneurial urbanism actually demands a qualitative shift in the state's role in urban redevelopment and third, using the example of East Manchester, these two theoretical issues are explored empirically.     

朝向马克思主义地理学：探寻城市化与正义问题的本质——哈维著《社会正义与城市》述评

马克思主义地理学既是人文地理学的重要流派,也深刻影响了其他学科领域。大卫·哈维的《社会正义与城市》是马克思主义地理学的奠基之作。由于该书理论性强,涉及很多大而复杂的问题,因而也很难解读。哈维试图从整体视角理解和剖析城市(化)问题,创新了“社会进程—空间形式”的理论。通过比较自由主义与马克思主义的城市研究方法论,得出理论的本质在于方法和哲学的综合,空间的本质在于人的实践,正义的本质取决于社会进程的运行,城市化的本质是资本生产的需要和产物的结论。该书开创了马克思主义地理学的知识地基,开辟了城市研究的批判路径,开拓了当代马克思主义的生长点。中国知识分子应该密切关注不平衡的城市化,提出新发展阶段的“城市总问题”,坚持和强化思想研究,通过对不同经典理论的症候阅读,围绕时代问题大胆进行理论革命。