City branding,flows and cross-boundary governance from perspectives of Neo-regionalism:A case study of Zhangjiang Yangtze River Delta Hi-tech City
This article starts from the concept of Neo-regionalism with comparison between the Neo-liberalism and China's socialist marketized regime,holding that city branding is gradually regionalized from urban scale.By analyzing the politico-economic essence of city branding,which is the use of brands to guide spatial value differentiation,this article combines with the conceptual framework of city diplomacy from the West and articulates China's regionalized city branding as brand mobility.It takes the cross-border enclave industrial park(Zhangjiang Yang-tze River Delta Hi-tech City)at the Shanghai Zhejiang provincial boundary as a case,adopting semi-structural interview and context analysis as prime methods,to analyze the process of utiliz-ing the brand"Shanghai Zhangjiang"(specifically a special economic zone in China)in the in-dustrial park,specifically achieving cross-boundary development through localized promotion,appropriation,and re-localization.Through empirical studies,this article draws the conclusion that China's city branding is influenced by top-down dictates,which is not only rooted in local-ized locus of space production but could be appropriated to elsewhere through brand mobility as well.Based on this,the article proposes that the regionalization of city branding in the Chinese context is different from the negotiation of local benefits in terms of"diplomatic relations",where brands are exposed by institutional mobility to achieve regional integration by brand of places.It concludes that regional branding integration demonstrates the outcome of urban politi-cal,economic,cultural and spatial interweaving relations based upon adequate flow of spaces.
city brandingNeo-regionalismlocalized brandsmobilityZhangjiang Yangtze River Delta Hi-tech City
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NSTL
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