Spatial imaginaries and tech cities: place-branding East London's digital economy
Max Nathan, Emma Vandore and Georgina Voss
We explore place branding as an economic development strategy for technology clusters, using London?s `Tech City? initiative as a case study. We site place branding in a larger family of policies that develop spatial imaginaries and specify affordances and constraints on place brands and brand-led strategies. Using mixed methods over a long timeframe, we analyse Tech City?s emergence and the overlapping, competing narratives that preceded and succeeded it, highlighting day-to-day challenges and more basic tensions. While a strong brand has developed, we cast doubt on claims that policy has had a catalytic effect, at least in the ways originally intended.
1 March 2019
Journal of Economic Geography 19(2) , pp.409-432, 2019
This Journal article is published under the centre's Urban programme.