cities as popular places

Selling Cities

Belmont Area Revitalization Plan The Belmont Area Revitalization Plan is a planning effort sponsored and funded by the City of Charlotte and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission. This project focused on revitalizing one of Charlotte’s oldest inner city neighborhoods into a safe and sustainable community.

Theming urban space

The Cosmic City

Urban imagineering Blending imagination with technical know how Theming of goods and services Making place through themed urban design Material and discursive representations of space coupled with aggressive marketing and promotion strategies – to sell cities New emphasis on “culture” Changing geographies of capitalism

The urban architecture of theme and spectacle Urban development strategies that rely on the culture of consumption Towards the comodification and consumption of “culture” Reuse of old infrastructures Simulated tradition with available artifacts and relics Obscures city reality and history

Baltimore’s Inner harbor

Baltimore Inner harbor – symbolic centerpiece of city’s regeneration “regional playground” of city’s deteriorating waterfront The “festival marketplace” Nostalgic representation of historic public life “Harborplace” From “armpit of the east Coast” to “Cinderella city”