Towards Credible City Branding Practices

Towards Credible City Branding Practices: How Do Iran’s Largest Cities Face Ecological Modernization?

Noori, F. (TU Delft Organisation and Governance; Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam)
de Jong, W.M. (TU Delft Organisation and Governance; Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam; Fudan University)

2018

City branding is not only increasingly practiced in cities in established economies, but also among municipal governments in countries, until quite recently, rather closed off from the outside world. One country with a strong drive to engage in urban (re)development in the post-oil era through enhancing its ‘ecological modernization’ is Iran. Megacities in Iran have all begun to venture into making profiles of what they think they are or would like to be. However, some of the adopted city branding strategies lack sophistication. In this article, the authors examine what indicators can be used for evaluating the credibility of city brands and apply these to Iran’s 15 megacities. After offering brief descriptions of the generic features of each of these cities, they map their use of city brand identities and popular city labels related to ecological modernization and analyze the credibility of their city branding practices. Based on their findings, the authors distinguish five types of cities and explain what makes some types more credible in their use of brands than others. Generally speaking, compared to cities in other nations, Iranian cities pay special attention to historical, natural, cultural, and religious aspects.

city branding
ecological modernization
brand credibility
Iran
megacities
OA-Fund TU Delft

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:5301d889-a340-4250-ad28-7b36e71707e0

https://doi.org/10.3390/su10051354

2071-1050

Sustainability, 10 (5)

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2018 F. Noori, W.M. de Jong