ABSTRACT
Representations of urban cultural diversity have become a staple of citybranding strategies for metropolitan centers across the globe. The “rich mix” (Evans and Foord 2004) that many cities can offer fi gures prominently in contemporary place marketing, most important against the background of growing interurban competition for tourism, creative talent, and investment. In many locations, ethnocultural diversity has come to be accepted as a key asset and requirement for urban development by city offi cials, business executives and planners alike. “An attractive place doesn’t have to be a big city, but it has to be cosmopolitan”—as Richard Florida (2002) insisted in his infl uential Rise of the Creative Class (227)—has certainly been taken to heart by urbanmarketing strategists. Urban ethnocultural diversity, as Florida and others have argued, contributes to the climate of openness and tolerance in which innovation and creativity can fl ourish, and thus translates into economic success in a postindustrial era. Economic growth now depends on cities being able to share in the fl ow of the “creative classes,” and the new human motors of growth will be both attracted by and contribute to a city’s diversity.
