Urbanism but Make It Branding

Promoting dog treats to urban planning? 

Why urban planning?

I got this question a lot when I decided to pursue a Master’s in City Planning after five years of working as a brand strategist. I marketed MBA programs, butter, investment services, skincare products, dog treats—you get the idea. People tilted their heads at the seemingly irrelevant transition from promoting products (mostly online) to designing urban spaces. I answered the question with a vague desire to work with physical spaces, studying the way people use them. I wanted to go beyond telling stories to transform the spaces we experience.  

When I was applying to graduate schools, I tried hard to draw parallels between my present and future careers to show that my skills can transfer. Here’s what I wrote in my statement of objectives:

“Just as an urban planner analyzes the built environment and engages communities, as a brand strategist I survey the brand landscape and investigate mindsets. Whether I am recreating website experiences or designing campaign strategies for product launches, I pinpoint the user insight in finding resonating ways to engage with brands.”

It turns out that that statement wasn’t a stretch. The process of creating a digital content strategy and a plan to rethink a parking lot are not too different from each other. I am evaluating existing assets and challenges, surveying what people need and want, and referencing greater trends and best practices. My role was going from being an advocate for consumers of a product or service to an advocate for consumers of urban space. 

A simplified diagram of a brand strategy research process

Example processes to arrive at strategy

• Audience research // Community survey

  • How are current audiences using the [product//space]?

• Competitive audit // Best practices 

  • What is the white space in this [category//neighborhood]?

• Industry landscape // Trend analysis 

  • Where is the [market//development landscape] headed?

• Brand audit // Existing conditions

  • What is the existing [brand messaging//space design]?

Creating a site plan framework is very much like creating a brand campaign. For both strategies, all elements need to ladder up to a larger story: what the space and brand wish to stand for. When creating a digital marketing campaign, you would start with the overall brand strategy, which can be divided into messaging pillars. With this foundation, you would tailor content based on which channel you are on. This might result in visual inspiration content on Instagram, how-to videos on YouTube, and witty banter on Twitter.

When planning spaces, the type of programming, type of sidewalk material, and number of trees act as the content that altogether point to the story the space represents. Eliminating parking lots signals prioritization of pedestrians and having 40% affordable housing attracts more diverse populations than high-rise developments. The site plan vision and framework principles act as the foundation for land use, mobility, environmental, and open space recommendations.

Site planning framework principles [1]

Stories and labels

Branding and marketing are necessary elements in urban planning. After all, urban spaces are used by people and changes happen based on what people need and want. So naturally, communication is critical in making urban planning work. 

I felt the importance of storytelling as the Carbon-Neutral Buildings Fellow at the City of Boston where I supported various community outreach initiatives. To reach the city’s net zero carbon goal by 2050, large buildings need to reduce their carbon emissions starting now, which is why the city is creating a policy to enforce a cap on emissions. In the process of designing the policy, the story told to building owners emphasized long-run cost savings while residents heard how increasing building energy efficiency can help alleviate air pollution, which has direct links to their children’s lung health. Both stories play the role of getting stakeholders on board and interested in the city’s initiatives, but tug at different heartstrings.

Labels are integral to urban spaces, used by different parties in their own ways. In the 1950’s and 60’s, urban village-like neighborhoods in the U.S. were often labeled as “blighted” by city planners who were in favor of urban renewal, which meant razing entire neighborhoods for new development. Boston’s West End was a casualty in this trend. It was deemed “obsolete,” and was demolished in 1960, dispersing the community that had livened the streets. Manhattan’s West Village was in a similar situation and was supposed to be cleared for a new highway, but the famous Jane Jacobs fought to change the label and the fate of the neighborhood by dubbing density and street life as urban blessings, not evidence of blight. In a way, she rebranded West Village as an attractive neighborhood worth saving—and she was able to save it.

“An Obsolete Neighborhood…and a New Plan” referring to the West End, Boston in General Plan for Boston: Preliminary Report, December, 1950. [2]

The said-obsolete neighborhood before it was demolished [3]

Nowadays, labels are more transient, democratized, and prevalent. Curated guides about cities have expanded the breadth of urban experts and crowdsourced accounts have expanded the vocabulary we use to describe cities. Think Monocle guides, Anthony Bourdain’s culinary travel documentaries, AirBnB and Trip Advisor reviews. Cities and neighborhoods have become their own brands, leveraging their labels to attract certain audiences. And these labels are constantly changing, following (or leading, depending on your POV) trends. All to say, having a brand-y perspective on urbanism can reveal interesting tidbits.

Unbranded urbanism

Getting a bit existential here. I think that “urbanism” is a brand in and of itself, creating a divide between actions that are labeled under the planning practice and those that are not. Urbanism, more specifically urban planning, is a very broad field—a lot of initiatives can fall under this category. I’ve learned that formal city planning, policy-making, private real estate development, temporary parks in parking spaces, and “informal” mobility systems can all be urban planning. This makes defining the field and moreover, deciding on a career, difficult (this is a whole other conversation). For now, I like to describe urban planning as a practice that tries to better the spaces we live in. (“Live” here encompasses all the activities we do in cities e.g., work, commute, play, eat.) So, if we evaluate urban projects by how well they improved a space, then actions that beautified a neighborhood but were not explicitly labeled as “urbanism” or “urban planning” can still be part of the “urbanism” brand. Right?

References

[1] Massachusetts Institute of Technology Site Planning Practicum, Spring 2020, “Industrial Remix: Integrating Manufacturing in Regio Parco, Torino” (Cambridge, MA, 2020), pp. 77-77.

[2] Boston City Planning Board, General Plan for Boston: Preliminary Report, December, 1950, accessed November 24 2020, https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/are-friends-electric/348398/weak-ties-the-urban-history-of-an-algorithm/

[3] Herbert Gans, c. 1957. Herbert Gans papers, 1944–2004, Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library, accessed November 24 2020, https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/are-friends-electric/348398/weak-ties-the-urban-history-of-an-algorithm/