"Little Vienna" or "European avant-garde city"? Branding narratives in a Romanian city

In: Journal of Urban and Regional Analysis, Band 11, Heft 1, S. 19-34

Abstract

By connecting the literature on urban development processes in post-socialist
cities with debates from the area of place branding, this paper critically examines recent
narratives of city branding in Timișoara, Romania. The aim is to investigate one specific
case in the reproduction and adaptation of global urban development policies and to
examine its relevance for the context of post-socialist urban politics. Our findings indicate a
specific circularity between city branding and urban development, which is used to align the
city to the regional inter-urban economic competition and to promote it as a space of rapid
development. The outcome is a mélange of different narratives, based on disparate
histories and representations of the city, which are assembled in ad-hoc and often
contradictory branding discourses.