The Assertion: City Brands are Created

The prevailing discussion about city brands is largely based on a fallacy. The undeniable observation that cities are often, if not mostly, widely known brands, leads without further ado to the (at least implicit) claim that these city brands are the result of a deliberate and targeted process of brand development. This is probably less often true than true. Certainly, numerous actors try (have tried) to ‘draw’ a specific (positive or negative) image of cities. However, successfully disseminated city images usually originate from very complex, unpredictable, random, or unintentional processes. These errors and confusions of the evolutionary development of urban images and identities can only be confused with the concept of brand development with a high degree of ignorance and/or arrogance. Nevertheless, recent history has seen attempts to ‘enrich’ the evolutionary process of urban development with the achievements of the craft of brand making. How successful or helpless these efforts ultimately are depends on some prerequisites, which are explained in this chapter.