ABSTRACT
This chapter explores just one of the ways in which global representations of urbanisation come together with place-marketing to produce particular expressions in and of one place. It considers the remarkable power of the American dream as it is translated to a European and, indeed, specifically English context. Los Angeles has become a paradigmatic symbol of the postmodern city. Milton Keynes is a new town – or new city, according to its planners – located on the edge of the south-east of England. The chapter focuses on the example of Milton Keynes and representations of it, but doing so within the broader context of urban change in the south-east of England. It shows that the power of global image-making in shaping and influencing particular developments, but also to identify some of the ways in which those images may be negotiated to generate different meanings in specific places.
