ABSTRACT
Contemporary place marketing is an expression of urban entrepreneurialism, a symbolic politics that sells not just cities but the politics of neo-liberalism. Place marketing reflects the dominant political values of the time, something that explains its ubiquity. Yet it does not need to be an explicitly organized activity. The built environment may reflect any politics and it does so in ways that are very different from what we are currently used to. The built environment demonstrated the values and assumptions of social democracy and municipal socialism, when they were dominant. At times when the dominant politics is problematic, however, it may not be impossible to develop forms of place marketing that put forward alternative political values. If we look at this activity in this light, it may be possible to develop more socially inclusive forms. This paper examines how this process operated in the past in order to make suggestions about contemporary possibilities.
