Risks in City Marketing

Reviewing the response from a variety of commentators and news outlets, Grist examines ways that marketing efforts can bring unintended consequences to cities.

"[W]hen governments and the private sector scramble to market urban areas, both can trample on the cities they are touting -- in effect killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

You can see it in Manhattan, which has been relentlessly promoted as a product for years by government and by privately owned media, from Seinfeld to Sex and the City to Gossip Girl. Sadly, what we have in Manhattan today is a Disneyfied city core that has lost much of its local flavor, as small retailers, artists, and working-class people are forced out by rents that only multinational corporations and the super-rich can afford.

You can also see the pattern in Istanbul, which recently finished up a year as the official "European capital of culture," spending $3 billion and welcoming 8 million tourists."