EUROCITIES 2010 Zaragoza_ Interview with Greg Clark

I think the importance of city branding has really changed am twenty five thirty years ago people thought of city branding as esentially a mechanism for attracting tourists you had a city brand in order to attract people to come and visit your city now I think city leaders are increasingly realising that city branding is not as it was simply a way to sell the city is actually a way to build the city. I'm more than really means is a city brands are now being developed the talk to the citizens and all of the stakeholders within a city and talk to the neigbours and the higheties of government as well as possibly tourists and others who might visit so that's one change another change is the range of things that are in a city's economy has become much more mobile so is not only tourits that cities are looking for it's students it's investors innovators entrepreneurs, institutions, companies, so there is a much more complex match of different kinds of mobile activities that might land in a city. So city brand this days has to be something that's quite multifunctional it consorts to different audiences. and then I think the last thing to say is that these days also is being realised that so much changes happening in cities that that change has to be shaped there has to be a story that helps us to connect the past the many changes that are happening in the present and some idea of the future and a brand is one of the ways that you can try to connect people to the idea that cities can change and actually is a good thing cities can become even more themselves rather than becoming different The political leader of the city is the key person often is one individual often as well is a team but the city leader really has to do three things the first thing is that only the city leader can take responsibility for talking to the citizens, listening to the citizens and then trying to articulate as he was the first citizen of the city the common agenda of all of them so somehow the city leader has to do that. the second thing is city leader has to be decisive has to make choices. Cities can't be every thing they can't do everything. They have to focus their attention in one or two areas where they are able as it was to lead they are able to supply to their own strenghts the leader has to understand what those are to really make the decissions to take every one there. and then thirdly because cities have a very uneven an even pattern of governance where many different organisations are somehow involved in managing the city. The role of the elected city leader is to bring them together to create his team so that cities have some kind of functional arrangements and can be managed well, despite the fact the responsibilites are spread and dispersed amongst many bodies