Place Branding and Its Discontents: The Politics and Management of Neighborhood Governance Systems

Introduction

Toward the end of the twentieth century, urban planners and administrators in the United States began developing and implementing systems of neighborhood governance as a way to better involve citizens in decision making, thereby improving service delivery and confidence in local government (Scavo 1993). Since then, many major cities have experimented with different forms of neighborhood governance, from establishing elected Neighborhood Councils to managing lists of neighborhood and homeowners’ associations. Today, the structure, roles and responsibilities, and goals of such systems vary widely (Chaskin and Greenberg 2015).

Contemporaneously, place branding and place marketing have emerged as key strategies of economic development for regions, cities, and neighborhoods. While conceptually vague (Vuignier 2017), place branding is generally considered to be a variety of practices aimed at shaping the public’s perception of a particular geography by forging emotional and psychological connections with place. Today, place marketing is a highly influential and interdisciplinary field, with well-funded public agencies around the world exhausting millions of dollars on branding campaigns to attract private investment and tourism (Booth and Boyle 1993). However, little attention has been paid to the role that municipal governments play in incentivizing residents to brand their own communities through systems of neighborhood governance.

In this vein, this exploratory research aims to bridge the gap between scholarly research on place branding and neighborhood governance by responding to the following questions: How do different municipal governments manage neighborhood governance systems? To what extent do different systems encourage or discourage place branding? To address these questions, this research involved a qualitative analysis of neighborhood governance systems in thirty-five major U.S. cities, including in-depth, structured interviews with those planners and administrators responsible for managing them. This paper demonstrates that U.S. cities manage neighborhood governance along a spectrum with varying levels of policy formality, rigidity, and flexibility. In each approach, there is an ongoing tension between managing branding activities and empowering residents. A discussion of these findings, their implications, and pathways for future research concludes the paper.

Place Branding

In recent years, place branding has emerged as both an interdisciplinary academic field as well as an economic development strategy employed by local, regional, national, and even international organizations. While place branding first emerged within the field of marketing (Kotler and Levy 1969), many trace the popularization of the concept to the “I Love NY” slogan and logo developed and promoted by the State of New York during the 1970s in an effort to generate an improved image of the city that would attract investment after a period of economic crisis (Greenberg 2009). In addition to literal branding campaigns such as this, scholars have examined how other practices—from promotion of large-scale events to civic boosterism campaigns—are employed by cities to develop a new identity (Boyle 1997; Cox and Mair 1988; Kearns and Philo 1993; Kenny 1995; Rofe 2004; Short 1999). However, while many point to the economic impacts of such activities, some articulations of place also have aesthetic, historical, or familial sentiments that serve to build a sense of community or civic ethos. Nevertheless, scholars often connect the growing phenomenon of place branding to Molotch’s theory of the urban growth machine (Logan and Molotch 1976), which posits that “growth coalitions” made up of developers, realtors, banks, and business associations (among others) are the culprits of branding practices, in that they both construct the physical environment and shape public discourse on urban space.

From this initial concept of place branding has emerged an entire field of study of place branding and place marketing. European cities have perhaps become the more prominent purveyors of branding strategies, and in fact for some countries, place marketing comprises part of the State’s official cultural policy agenda. The annual event “European City of Culture” has helped foster competition in the European Union, causing cities to market and sell themselves as international postindustrial metropolises that appeal to global cultural tourism (Booth and Boyle 1993). This varies from city to city. Prestigious cultural projects can act as symbols of rebirth and renewal in cities struggling economically, as was the case with the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain. Place branding can transform cities into symbols of elegance, cosmopolitanism, and modernity in places like Barcelona (Degen and García 2012; García 2004) and Amsterdam (Kavaratzis and Ashworth 2007), as well as symbols of reconciliation, in places like Berlin and Derry (Booth and Boyle 1993).

However, despite the fact that some public agencies spend millions of dollars on such strategies, there is severe conceptual unclarity with regard to what activities constitute branding, what actors are engaging in branding, for whom the brand is created, and to what ends (Vuignier 2017). Whether the branding strategy relies on flagship projects, unique infrastructure and green spaces, or tourism promotion, critics abound that such activities benefit tourists and wealthy landowners rather than the well-being of local residents (Harvey 1992, 2007; Eisinger 2000; Zukin 1995, 2011). In this sense, place branding is merely a way in which the postindustrial economy transforms urban space into symbolic, immaterial commodities. Place branding can also be placed within the larger discussion on the privatization of public space, in which design, messaging, and management strategies seek to limit the appropriate uses of the urban environment (Németh and Schmidt 2011). And yet who are the actors that are engaged in these activities? The literature shows that it can come from a variety of sources, from municipal agencies (Babey and Giauque 2009), regions (Kavaratzis and Kalandides 2015), or entire countries (Papadopoulos and Heslop 2002). At the local level, branding and rebranding neighborhoods has become a key strategy for revitalizing arts and entertainment districts (Rich and Tsitsos 2016) as well as working-class immigrant communities (Wherry 2011).

For the purposes of this paper, place branding is seen as a process of shaping the public perception of a place through activities that positively communicate a place’s uniqueness and quality of life. However, missing from the literature is an investigation of the role that resident groups, and specifically neighborhood associations, play in branding strategies. Local residents are instead discussed as either passive recipients of place branding, and more specifically as either consumers of the brand (i.e., beneficiaries), or as the losers in an elite-controlled game of urban revitalization (i.e., victims). Because neighborhood associations are themselves very diverse and can take a variety of forms, recent scholarship on participatory governance helps elucidate what kinds of neighborhood-level organizations might play a role in place branding.

Neighborhood Governance

Scholars from fields as diverse as sociology, public administration, political science, and urban planning have been interested in exploring new modes of participatory urban governance for several decades. With the neighborhood acting as the site for the provision of goods and services, it is often seen as the ideal unit for participatory modes of governance. In fact, as early as 1990, more than half of those U.S. cities with populations greater than 100,000 had some form of neighborhood-level governance (Scavo 1993). The early rationale for such systems was that involving citizens in the local policy-making process would lead to better calibrated policies and improve the public’s confidence in local government (Valelly, Ingram, and Smith 1993). In fact, many have shown that neighborhood-level feedback can help communicate street-level conditions to administrators and thus improve urban service delivery (Berry, Portney, and Thomson 1993; Box 1998; Thomas 1987). Scholars further argued that these innovations were a necessary response to the proliferation of information technology, declining trust in government, and privatization of public services, which has led to an increasingly fragmented and disarticulated state (Frederickson 1999; Kettl 2015; Smith 1993).

However, neighborhood-level governance can and has taken a variety of forms. In some cases, cities adopt ad hoc programs that target specific neighborhoods to build capacity and local partnerships (Chaskin and Abunimah 1999; Fagotto and Fung 2006). Others rely on partnerships with existing nonprofit organizations, including community development corporations, to inform local policy and service delivery (Chaskin and Greenberg 2015). Neighborhood-level governance can involve the creation of formalized “Neighborhood Council” systems with predefined boundaries, structured bylaws, public elections, and municipal resource allocations (Cooper and Musso 1999), or involve entire ecosystems of numerous, overlapping neighborhood associations, including homeowners’ associations (Chaskin 2003; Craw 2017; Hur and Bollinger 2014). Nevertheless, while some may receive allocations of public monies, most local participatory governance institutions have primarily advisory power (Berry, Portney, and Thomson 1993; Thomson 2001).

The role of neighborhood-level governance structures is equally varied. As mentioned, many have argued that by connecting directly with local residents on issues affecting them, neighborhood-level governance can improve service delivery (Berry, Portney, and Thomson 1993; Box 1998; Thomas 1987). Others have argued that neighborhood governance organizations allow residents to better communicate their policy and political preferences, thereby improving democratic representation (Berger and Neuhaus 1977; Coaffee and Healey 2003; Jones 1980). By creating a space for residents to connect to one another face-to-face, neighborhood organizations can help develop “social capital” that will make for a more connected, informed, and civically engaged citizenry (Granovetter 1973; Pateman 1970; Putnam 2000; Torney-Purta, Richardson, and Barber 2004).

Small-scale, participatory governance does have its critics, however. Many argue that the privileging of localism can lead to parochialism (Purcell 2006), exacerbate power dynamics rather than ameliorate them (Raco and Flint 2001), and ultimately benefit wealthy, homeowner-dominant neighborhoods at the expense of low-income neighborhoods (Dear 1992). In cities with very large neighborhood governance systems, active residents tend to be older and whiter than the residents in the community they are representing (Musso et al. 2002). Others examine how government-sponsored neighborhood improvement programs constrain neighborhood activists, and in particular women of color, by discouraging overtly political acts such as community organizing (Harwood 2007). Neighborhood governance can therefore limit resident activities to small-scale beautification projects rather than engaging in broader social justice issues. Nevertheless, Rosen and Avni (2019) argue the opposite, claiming that because neighborhood organizations are “caught” between the municipality and the community, they are best equipped to advance just neighborhood planning. And, recent work on Los Angeles’s neighborhood councils system has found that, like their wealthier counterparts, low-income communities can use neighborhood governance structures as venues to achieve their goals, such as preventing undesirable land uses (Jun and Musso 2012). As such, it is worth noting that how communities determine goals and define equity varies from place to place (Zapata and Bates 2015).

Such debates as to whether neighborhood-level governance is succeeding in achieving their goals are obfuscated by two irregularities. As alluded to earlier, scholars draw different conceptual boundaries around what constitutes a neighborhood governance structure, from informal neighborhood and homeowners associations to formal neighborhood council systems. Second, while some have examined the perspective of local government officials on neighborhood-level governance (Chaskin and Abunimah 1999), little attention has been paid to how the structure and goals of neighborhood governance systems differ across municipalities. Because previous scholars tend to focus on one particular municipality in their analysis, their findings lack generalizability. This research aims to fill these gaps.

In doing so, it offers an exploratory look at how different neighborhood governance systems and the ways in which they are managed compare with one another. Moreover, by scrutinizing neighborhood governance through the lens of place branding, it becomes clear that the development imperative of the urban growth machine lurks within contemporary discussions of participatory governance and local control. By revealing the linkages between these planning concepts, planners will have a better grasp of how neighborhood governance structures may privilege certain groups over others.

Data and Method

Data for this exploratory work draw from two primary sources: (1) in-depth, semi-structured interviews with public administrators and urban planners and (2) policy documents, such as city charters, municipal codes, and other online administrative content. For the interviews, respondents were selected from major U.S. cities, defined here as cities with a population greater than 500,000 residents (thirty-five cities total). Interviews were conducted from May 2018 to March 2019 using a questionnaire. Because the goal of this research is to not only identify different neighborhood governance structures but also understand the challenges and opportunities in administering them, it was important to identify the appropriate government worker in each municipality that either acts as the director of the neighborhood governance system or directly oversees its administration and management. Doing so involved examining the organizational structure of the city, contacting (via email or phone) the appropriate office, and seeking a referral to the appropriate person for a phone interview. Given that some neighborhood governance structures are more nebulous than others, this often required interviewing more than one individual per municipality. Moreover, if a respondent had limited information or experience with neighborhood governance and/or neighborhood associations, a subsequent interview with their superior was conducted. The author conducted a total of forty-six phone interviews, each of which lasted approximately thirty to forty-five minutes. Interviews were then recorded and transcribed for coding and analysis.

The purpose of the interviews was to examine, from the perspective of local government administrators, the formation, management, goals, challenges, and opportunities of different types of neighborhood governance systems. The interview questionnaire was therefore designed to explore a variety of aspects related to managing such systems: community outreach, conflict management, data collection and analysis, and a variety of issues related to program maintenance. The interview questionnaire also examined their perceptions of resident engagement and the extent to which these systems were achieving their intended goals. Interview transcriptions were analyzed using grounded theory and informed by qualitative content analysis (Charmaz 2006; Krippendorff 2013). In analyzing interview texts, the author conducted open coding and drew from the literature on neighborhood governance to identify important commonalities and differences between individuals’ responses (the resulting theoretical framework is explored further below).

In addition to interviews, the author analyzed over hundred policy documents and online content published by municipal governments (see Supplemental Appendix I) to better understand how neighborhood governance structures were established, publicized, and administered. Documents included municipal ordinances, municipal codes and city charters, as well as public-facing content such as websites, interactive maps, online submission forms, and other brochures and informational documents. Analysis of these documents was driven by previous research (Chaskin and Abunimah 1999; Chaskin and Garg 1997; Chaskin and Greenberg 2015) that has identified key characteristics of neighborhood governance structures, such as representation; resource allocation; organizational structure; and mission, roles, and responsibilities, among others. The goal of this leg of the analysis was to understand how the institutional history and administrative make up of different neighborhood governance systems structure the actions of neighborhood associations operating within them.

Coding of interviews and archival research revealed clear patterns in terms of the structure and management of different neighborhood governance systems, the type and degree of restrictions and regulations, as well as the level of institutional support and financial incentives offered by the City. The author made note of these patterns to guide a second round of coding that examined the relationship between the structure of neighborhood governance systems and the extent to which it encouraged or discouraged place branding activities. While the literature on place branding and marketing defines such activities in a broad manner, for the purposes of this analysis, place branding was operationalized as when local stakeholders claim territory, draw boundaries around that territory, assign the territory a name—or brand—that signifies it as unique or different from other neighborhoods, and/or engages in activities to promote that brand. Albeit a more limited definition, this operationalization allows me to measure concretely if and how a city’s neighborhood governance systems support or facilitate this process.

Findings and Analysis

As with previous studies on the management of collectively owned space (Loboda and Rosen 2018), this article suggests that there are a range of municipal approaches to managing neighborhood governance systems. While neighborhood governance structures have been developed by municipal governments across the United States, the level of formality built into these institutions and their management varies considerably along a spectrum of high to low policy formality. On one hand, some cities adopt Neighborhood Council systems that are publicly recognized by the City, and for which there may be a municipal department directly overseeing their work. In these instances, neighborhood associations are formally recognized by the local government. Cities may have a central registry or online system where they keep track of neighborhood association titles and boundaries with a list and/or map that is updated periodically and available to the public. Alternatively, cities may maintain an internal registry that is kept out of the public eye. At the end of the spectrum, some cities may not have any mode for recognizing or maintaining lists of neighborhood associations whatsoever. However, even systems that are similar in terms of policy formality may be managed in very different ways. It is therefore difficult to group these neighborhood governance systems together in terms of their commonalities. Instead, this section will focus on the tensions that emerge across systems as planners and administrators seek to either incentivize or discourage neighborhood branding through the management of their neighborhood governance model, and how these administrative approaches may amplify the interests of the few at the expense of others.

The Race to the Top in Formal Neighborhood Governance Systems

Neighborhood governance systems that formally recognize neighborhood associations through a competitive application process and offer recognized groups economic and political benefits directly incentivize the practice of neighborhood branding. Cities may actively support the activities of neighborhood associations through direct financial support, grant opportunities, or in-kind contributions. ¹ Such activities include the installation of toppers, gateway signage, decorative trash bins, flags, or any other visual markers that somehow indicate the existence of a neighborhood association and may even demarcate their titles and/or boundaries. These quotidian types of place branding are crucial in that they complicate the boundary between public and private ownership of property and space (Blomley 2016).

In terms of political benefits, formal neighborhood governance systems are characterized by the active engagement between neighborhood associations and city departments or agencies responsible for managing them. In most instances, the city will have designated individuals or offices whose responsibility it is to liaise with neighborhood organizations and not only provide them with financial support but also help them with internal operations as well. To encourage residents to form neighborhood associations, city administrators also offer direct capacity-building support for groups that want to designate their area, such as resources that explain the process of applying for recognition and documents promoting grant opportunities for which recognized neighborhood associations are eligible. One administrator explained their process of reaching out to interested residents to help them apply:

Do they have an existing relationship with council? Or with other departments in the city? And then we look at things like how can we help you on the engagement side. Do you need training for your board? Do you need assistance with volunteer recruitment and outreach? What can we help you do? Do you need help trying to reach your quorum? And we just really kind of assess where they are at, so we will know how much if any that we can offer them. (Interview with author, city administrator 2018)

In these cases, the neighborhood association is considered an official neighborhood unit, with their board members acting as quasi-public officials (some formal systems even have elections for neighborhood association positions). Los Angeles’s Neighborhood Council system (see Image 1), exemplifies this model.

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Image 1.

Map of Los Angeles’s Neighborhood Council system.

Similarly, the city may grant neighborhood associations additional powers when commenting on land-use decision-making processes. In Los Angeles, for example, neighborhood associations may submit “community impact statements” on particular developments, city policies, or any issue of general concern, which are compiled by the City Clerk as formal memos to the municipal government. Neighborhood associations therefore derive benefits from their formal “seat at the table” benefits. As one city administrator described,

. . . Neighborhood Councils if anything provide an outlet for these communities to have these vigorous debates, because otherwise if the councils weren’t around, where would these debates happen? . . . So neighborhood councils are an officially recognized body, [they] can submit a community impact statement on any council legislation, and the neighborhood council has the right to show up on the city council agenda, and at the same time if they have a designated rep from that area that came and spoke, then he or she would get five minutes instead of the regular 1 or 2 minutes. (Interview with author, city administrator 2019)

Cities that directly fund neighborhood association may also actively encourage them to implement place branding strategies through their regular interactions with them. Interviews with respondents indicated that in these cities, a culture of neighborhood branding develops whereby neighborhood associations compete for resources that allow them to install new and more visual markers that showcase the uniqueness or strength of their community’s “identity” or to ensure “neighborhood stability.” As one planner responsible for managing their city’s system remarked,

[Neighborhood associations] create a sense of identity, because sometimes areas of the city have a negative connotation as being rundown and seedy . . . so if there is a place that lacks identity, and people aren’t necessarily clammering towards it, and don’t associate it with a positive thing, it can be helpful. (Interview with author, city administrator 2018)

From the city’s perspective, these neighborhood associations are crucial in putting neighborhoods “on the map” that may have been previously neglected or divested in. One respondent explicitly used the phrase “brand” interchangeable when describing the process of creating a new neighborhood association, as in,

What I’ve learned over the last five years is when you brand a neighborhood, it does increase the sense of pride in that area. I mean the organizations that have kind of well-known established brands are just typically some of the most stable groups of houses and blocks in the city. (Interview with author, city administrator 2018)

In this sense, establishing a system of neighborhood governance is also seen as a way to rebrand entire swaths of the city by giving them a new name, a new boundary, and a set of stakeholders committed to its improvement. In this sense, neighborhood associations and the formal structures that support them are justified as direct contributors to economic development insofar as they can help signal to developers and outsiders that an area previously considered to be blighted has both a brand and a group of individuals dedicated to its improvement.

These responses confirm what previous scholars have argued: the formality of some neighborhood governance models is justified in terms of political empowerment and public participation (Jun and Musso 2012; Rosen and Avni 2019). Yet they also indicate that those directly administering neighborhood governance systems also see them as ways to brand or rebrand divested parts of the city, therefore blurring the boundary between resident empowerment and economic development initiative.

Mediating Disputes and Avoiding Hierarchies

In cities with less established neighborhood governance systems where the geography of the city is not covered entirely by formally recognized neighborhood associations, the municipal government may rely on a variety of protocols to incentivize the creation of new neighborhood associations. For example, cities may offer direct assistance with the application process or grant opportunities for newly established neighborhood associations. These relatively informal or incomplete systems of neighborhood governance (see Image 2) inevitably lead to situations where various groups who may have different—even opposing—perspectives on the direction of the neighborhood seek to brand and claim ownership over the same area. City governments seek to prevent such situations in a myriad of ways, be it restricting the ability of groups to claim overlapping areas or engaging in third-party mediation to negotiate a settlement. As one respondent described,

. . . we will try to mediate, we will bring opposing sides in and try to offer—not offer—but help them communicate better if they are not able to communicate well . . . But again we are not going to tell them what to do or how to do it. They need to go back to their respective communities and figure out how they are going to work together. So we are not going to dictate and say, you community A can’t have these boundaries but community B can. (Interview with author, city administrator 2018)

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Image 2.

City of Columbus Area Commissions map.

The more municipal governments incentivize the creation of new neighborhood associations, the more frequently these situations arise, raising questions about how to deal with competing groups who wish to exclude particular residents from their neighborhood association:

. . . our process has a kind of boundary restriction where if an area is already claimed then you can’t have another one come in unless they all agree to it in writing. But what it doesn’t really speak to or give us any guidance on is where there’s an existing association, but they are kind of accused of abusing power and they are not agreeing to let another association form there. Like, there are existing residents that want to do something good, they want to start an association, but the one that is already there is kind of holding them back. So what do we do in that situation? How far involved should the city get? (Interview with author, city administrator 2019)

Thus, while cities may justify their existing, robust neighborhood governance systems in terms of resident empowerment, the process of getting there is often messy, exacerbating power dynamics within communities.

As evidence from this research, some cities prefer a less regulated approach to neighborhood governance because they believe it is more equitable. In these cases, city administrators recognize that various groups (including non-neighborhood associations) can and should play an active role in improving the local quality of life, and the city should attempt to support all of them equally. Several cities have even dismantled what was previously a highly formal system because they believed it was unfairly favoring recognized neighborhood associations, which were comprised primarily of older, whiter residents of rapidly diversifying areas. As two respondents put it,

In [the previous model], you are not going to see a diverse group, like youths, or other, you know, refugees, immigrants, people of color. Those people have not really engaged with the neighborhood associations. So one thing that the [new model] is going to do now is really operate more broadly, instead of just supporting neighborhood associations, they are going to have to open up their grants for other community groups that want to form in other ways. (Interview with author, city administrator 2018)

. . . there was an audit done that basically looked at the demographics of these groups, and found that they were predominantly—not entirely, but predominantly—older, senior aged, white homeowners. And our community has shifted to more diverse, more renters than homeowners. And so it really became a question of, with shrinking resources and knowing that not all people necessarily want to funnel into this system, what do we want to do? So if we have four staff, should they be meeting with these same folks every month, or should we be sending them out to new and emerging groups? So we just had to make some tough choices. (Interview with author, city administrator 2019)

For these seemingly equity-seeking cities, they have opted for an informal neighborhood governance system that offers broad-based capacity-building support for all different types of resident groups, whether they are placed-based or issue-based. The lack of emphasis on boundaries, titles, and formal recognition processes prevents the city from directly incentivizing place branding activities. Instead, the city’s focus is on ensuring that all stakeholder groups interested in learning how to get involved in city planning and decision-making processes are given the necessary resources to do so.

Rigidity or Flexibility?

For cities employing neighborhood governance models—whether formally established or in-development—those city administrators responsible for managing the system are left to decide how rigid or flexible to make their neighborhood association-governing policies. In some instances, cities put very little scrutiny on applicants for new neighborhood associations, and therefore may approve and publicly recognize new neighborhood associations whose leadership is composed of business owners or other real-estate interests, who may or may not actually reside within the defined area. Others develop enforcement measures to ensure that those establishing neighborhood associations prove that they are residents and/or property owners within the defined area. Those cities that aim to discourage branding activities altogether do so by restricting the ability of groups to claim and rename urban space. In these systems, neighborhood associations are responsible for governing areas that have been predefined by the City and are comprised of clusters of census tracts. The titles of these areas are bureaucratic in nature—for example, “Community District 4,” thereby preventing the ability of neighborhood association board members to formally rebrand an area with invented titles (see Image 3).

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Image 3.

Map of Washington DC Neighborhood Advisory Commissions.

In these systems, adjusting boundaries of neighborhood association areas is at the discretion of the city and is done in alignment with new census data. When asked why they would not allow neighborhood association groups to draw their own boundaries, one administrator explained,

[This City] is dynamic . . . we are dealing with real planning issues, we are trying to do quantitative analysis, and get housing built, and support job growth, and [neighborhood titles and boundaries] matters to people and they are passionate about it, but we are not going to encourage or justify anything about neighborhood boundaries because we know that it is very subjective. (Interview with author, city administrator 2018)

According to other respondents, residents cannot officially change neighborhood titles or boundaries because neighborhoods identity is both historic and fraught. As one planner put it, “. . . as far as we’re concerned, the neighborhoods that [our city] has within its boundaries are settled, and we will not be adding or subtracting neighborhoods to the city.”

However, the rigidity of these systems also create problems stemming from the fact that groups of residents not formally recognized by the city have significantly less power than the reigning neighborhood association in their area. In these cases, the City is tasked with trying to mediate disputes between informal resident groups and the formal neighborhood association, as well as administering attempts by some groups to split up or replace the board members of existing neighborhood associations. The stakes are high in these situations—winning disputes often involves access to funding, formal recognition on official city maps, or seat-at-the-table benefits, such as additional say during land-use decision-making processes. According to one administrator, when they are forced to mediate these situations, “nobody is truly happy in the process” (Interview with author, 2019). If the city automatically funds organizations that are formally part of their neighborhood governance apparatus, they are inevitably favoring the interests and perspectives of those residents who maintain control of the organizations. And, according to one respondent, the folks that are most engaged on these neighborhood organizations are “the one percenters,” which is to say they are often residents who are older, more affluent, and thus have the ability to set aside the time and effort needed to run a volunteer organization. As previous scholars have argued (Raco and Flint 2001), working-class residents are inherently disenfranchised in these models in that they do not have the time or resources needed to insert themselves into these organizations.

Alternatively, in cities that prefer flexible systems of neighborhood governance or no system whatsoever, neighborhoods power dynamics persevere nonetheless. Cities that have adopted this approach—with little to no support for neighborhood associations nor formal recognition once they are established (see Image 4)—claim to prefer a laissez-faire approach because of a stated preference for a more limited role of government in defining what constitutes a neighborhood or a community. Instead, it is up to residents to organize themselves, establish associations, and take initiative to improve their community. As one administrator described it,

We have sort of a mantra that we live by here, that living in a safe and beautiful neighborhood is a responsibility, not a right. We get calls a lot from people who say [they] saw this neighborhood that had sidewalks and trees and a little park thought, “how come the city is doing all of that over there and they completely ignore my neighborhood?” . . . and then we can tell them, we’ve worked with them, and they put all that stuff in themselves. Or they worked hard, or they got a grant to do those trees, or they got some groups to come out for several years to help them with the clean-up projects and painting projects to help paint some of those abandoned houses . . . they take advantage of some of the volunteer projects and volunteer programs that are available.

when you get an organized group of people together to help you solve some of your problems . . . Nobody is going to care about your neighborhood more than you and your neighbors. (Interview with author, city administrator 2018)

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Image 4.

Map of registered neighborhood associations in Denver.

In these systems, anyone can claim any area of the city. When disputes arise, cities adopt indirect strategies of resolving conflict, such as refusing to fund neighborhood projects in contested areas:

. . . it is not up to us to define neighborhoods. However, our program does include verbiage that says if any area we fund becomes contested for any reason, it will be removed until the neighborhood can figure it out. So that is kind of how we resolve issues, is we are just not going to play the game. If y’all can’t decide where you collectively believe your boundaries begin and end, then we are just not going to fund improvements that are specific to one neighborhood or another in that area. (Interview with author, city administrator 2018)

Another respondent explained their hands-off approach as conflict-averse and resources conscience. According to them, the city should not be in the business of telling people “where they live,” nor should the city “spend a lot of resources determining whether a neighborhood organization is actually bonafide or not”:

We do not attempt to recognize new neighborhoods groups. Nope, nope, nope, nope. And for very good reason. Absolutely not, we do not want to be in that business. That is a really slippery business to be in, from our experience. Because we often get people that say, “they are not a legitimate group!” You know, some group comes in and complains about X, Y, and Z. And someone else comes in and says, “they are not a legitimate group, they only have five members, they never meet,” and you know, whatever, and we are not arbitrating that stuff. (Interview with author, city administrator 2018)

Administrators of these systems can explain the relative divestment of certain neighborhoods by pointing to a lack of community cooperation and collective action. In this policy context, it is inevitable that those communities comprised of residents who have the ability to invest their time and energy in applying for neighborhood grants, organizing residents, and liaising with city officials are likely to be more successful in branding urban space. This is exacerbated by the fact that, as mentioned, many cities with informal systems do not monitor or enforce who or what group is creating neighborhood associations and engaging in branding activities. According to one respondent,

Well we have a database that pretty much anybody can be in if they fill out a form. And there is no proving that they are a neighborhood or proving that they are anybody. They can pick their boundaries, they can pick their name. They can designate their titles. They only have to provide mailing address and phone number, and a name, and a boundary . . . and then all of this stuff is just stored in there. And people have addresses and people can go into the portal and look stuff up. But we have no process of designating a neighborhood, anybody can be one. You can even be one. (Interview with author, city administrator 2018)

In sum, both rigid and flexible systems of neighborhood governance pose challenges. Rigid systems that aim to discourage place branding activities can easily advantage some community groups over others. Flexible systems that opt to “stay out of the game” of designating official neighborhood titles and boundaries leave the door open for monied homeowners groups and other real-estate actors to control what place identities are created and marketed.

Discussion

This article’s findings indicate that place branding, while often discussed as an elite-controlled game, is also initiated by residents at the neighborhood scale through neighborhood governance systems. While this research did not involve interaction with neighborhood associations on the ground, interviews with city officials revealed that there is a sizable demand among resident groups to draw boundaries around their community, assign it a name, erect signage, and promote its identity. As previous scholars have argued, property—or in this case, the neighborhood—is itself a product of interactions between a local government regime and cultural and historical settings (Blomley 2016; Loboda Lichtenbaum and Rosen 2018). The question becomes whether or not cities wish to respond to this demand by using their revenue to establish formalized policy and administrative structures through which residents can gain legitimacy in their actions. This research identifies how different neighborhood governance structures can be managed in a way to either encourage or discourage such activities, and the equity challenges created by both rigid and flexible approaches.

Second, and relatedly, to the extent scholars disagree as to whether the stated positives of neighborhood governance systems (improved social service delivery and resident empowerment) outweigh the negatives (further disenfranchisement of working-class residents, parochialism), this research indicates that neighborhood governance itself may not be the correct variable on which to focus our attention. In both cities with formal and informal systems of neighborhood governance, the same inequities persist—those with more access to time and resources dominate neighborhood-level politics. Ultimately, it is worth considering whether the establishment of neighborhood governance systems represent a political consideration more so than a question of urban management and governance. Nevertheless, because this study focused solely on the structure of neighborhood governance systems and perspectives of city administrators, future researchers should test this theory by comparing political participation, social service delivery, and civic engagement—and in particular among working-class residents—across cities with different neighborhood governance systems, or longitudinally before and after a formal system is developed, to determine their impacts.

Last, in juxtaposing the concepts of place branding and neighborhood governance, this paper offers a critique of each. As previous scholars have argued, the aftermath of decades of urban renewal and urban divestment has led planners to adopt a discourse of resident engagement and empowerment that reassures urbanites that they can and should have a say over local decision making (Einstein et al., 2020). The creation of neighborhood governance systems represents a response to decades of resident disengagement with and distrust in local government. However, this emphasis on local control has engendered a politics of entitlement where residents’ feeling of ownership extend radically beyond their own personal property to encompass entire neighborhoods. In this context, claiming ownership of urban space is seen as both a righteous and civic act. Whereas “Right to The City” movements propose an inclusive and collective claim over shared urban space, a politics of entitlement involves drawing boundaries and necessarily closing one’s circle of community rather than expanding it. Moreover, an important takeaway from the interviews conducted for this research is how frequently urban planners and community development practitioners use words like “brand” and “identity” in explaining why some communities improve and others decline. For decades now—arguably since the New Urbanism movement in urban planning—community development practitioners have oft spoken of the need to establish a place’s identity to improve the local quality life. Should city officials seek to establish a more just and equitable city, we need to disentangle notions of branding and identity from the practice of community development. Just as New Urbanism’s communitarian claims have been called in to question (J. Grant 2007; K. Grant 2006), we should further scrutinize urban planners’ emphasis on the unique differences—in culture, identity, or brand—of urban neighborhoods, and instead focus our policies on ensuring their relative sameness in terms of quality of life.

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