ABSTRACT
In this book I have investigated the politics of place marketing in post-Wall Berlin through an analysis of the phenomenon as public policy, as discourse and as imagery. By deciphering the ‘hieroglyphs of the spatial images’ (Kracauer quoted in Frisby, 2001, p. 152) produced by various actors, I have uncovered some of the tensions and debates which have surrounded the symbolic and material production of the new Berlin post-1989. The combination of multidisciplinary approaches (from public policy, cultural geography, urban sociology and planning) and of qualitative methodologies used here sought to reconcile urban political economy and cultural semiotic approaches. It can pave the way for further investigations of the politics of reimaging and the production of ‘symbolic economies’ in contemporary urban development and governance processes. In this concluding chapter I return to the questions at the core of this investigation: what has been the role of place marketing within the political economy of post-Fordist urban restructuring? What are the linkages between ‘image politics’ and the politics of urban development and identity construction in Berlin – or, to repeat Beauregard's question (2008, p. 301), how much do place marketing, branding and the politics of image production ‘matter to the development of a city and the crafting of public policy?’
