ABSTRACT
The pressure of globalization and the harmonizing effects on the urban form of world cities put pressure on territorial entities to develop, manage, and influence their brand equity and there exists urban places which are on the verge of decay due to the loss of their past glory during the process of city development.
Looking at the port cities, Port infrastructure and water based transport induced most of these cities to develop proximity to water, a dependable and imageable natural asset to the city. Mass Industrialization and its later decline generated industrial backyards in these new industrial cities along its waterfronts, and the citizens were denied access/approach to experience the water (physically and visually).
The paper questions whether Place branding can be an effective method for the regeneration of such urban spaces and how the concept of branding can be integrated to the existing scenario of the urban development to rejuvenate or reclaim the area back to the city.
The paper aims to understand and analyze how decline of such industries led to changes in the urban fabric of the city core in the case of Howrah, and to what extend it affected the socio- economic as well as the spatial fabric of the city. It critically looks at the current potentials and opportunities of the site to promote a new brand image which leads to the rejuvenation of the place.
