What makes a city?

Burnaby, BC through a context of neoliberal identity

Last month I had the opportunity to sit on a panel with Burnaby Beacon with the lovely Antonia Beck and Andy Yan to discuss Burnaby’s identity, and it got me thinking about city identity. What makes up how we think about cities and why does it matter?

Although place-based identity is not a new concept, it seems that having a good city identity has become ever more important because of capitalism and neoliberalism. Under globalization and the increasing mobility of money, goods, and people, city marketing has become a necessary economic strategy in order to compete against other cities, like the classic I ❤ NY campaign or the Hello city radio jingles in the 80s. City marketing aims to create both a sense of pride and identity for residents as well as frame cities as attractive to tourists and investment.

This is important because it affects city livability directly, in terms of job opportunities, services, and investment. If a city isn’t attractive enough, for a variety of reasons ranging from conflict to policy, there won’t be the homes, schools, workplaces, shops, and services that are necessary to keep people in a certain city. Why do people move for school, work, or for family? It’s because somewhere else has the right conditions for what they need, and they have the privilege and mobility to get there. Through neoliberalism, cities, planners, and policymakers are forced to compete with one another. That’s one reason why cities are so willing to bid for Olympics, World Cups, and Amazon Headquarters, despite the many documented adverse social effects that disproportionately impact the most marginalized such as unfettered gentrification, displacement, and dispossession.

So what do we as people have to do with shaping city identity? Everything. I think that city identity is shaped by what we know about certain cities, which is always positioned within context. Maybe we hear from a friend that studied abroad that Rouen is a beautiful small city in France with lovely trains. Maybe we see an article about how Toronto’s police force is more likely to use force on people of colour. Both the positive and negative experiences we have and share about cities directly shapes the collective imaginaries of cities. Our ideas of different places in the world are not simply acquired: what we know, what we hear, and what we don’t hear is inherently politicized and subjective.

So is Emily in Paris just a fun and flirty portrayal of the American experience in France? Can it also be a highly nuanced criticism of the americanized romanticization of Paris and the complex ontological ways that city identity is reinforced in the tourist imaginary through social, sexual, and financial capital?

According to Hall in their 2005 paper “Reconsidering the Geography of Tourism and Contemporary Mobility,” cities are immobile, so instead they seek to “attract the mobile, whether it be capital or people” (134). I think panels like the one by Burnaby Beacon reflect the justified latent anxiety of residents on Burnaby’s ability to continue to attract capital and people. Burnaby’s identity is complicated because it’s so fractured. We aren’t known for a central thing, like a brewery area or a riverfront district. Perhaps what is driving the pressure to develop a more unified identity is that what used to be Burnaby’s main strength, affordability relative to Vancouver, has evaporated over the past years. Moving forwards, what sort of identity do we want to build for Burnaby? Do we want to be known as the 3rd most expensive city to rent in Canada, or be known for demovictions? Or do we want to be known for our rich Indigenous history, decolonial practices, and diverse communities? Whichever we choose will depend on who we vote for and what actually gets done in communities, because although we can try to manufacture identity all we want, the sincerity lies in action.

Cities aren’t just sidewalks, concrete, and buildings. The immaterial: how we feel about our neighbourhood, our relationships to cities, the sense of identity we gain from where we live — all of these things matter just as much. How do you relate to where you live? Are you proud of your hometown? Why?