Keeping a foot in both camps: Sustainability, city branding and boundary spanners

This study critically examines sustainable development (SD) within the contemporary practices of city branding, a prominent business philosophy that underpins market-led strategies urban areas. In pursuing uniqueness, different cities often seem to hint at very same themes differentiation, and this reflects tendency embrace pre-given sets place-development discourses. work casts critical perspective on SD as one global passe-partout has become particularly in city-brand management practices. particular, theory-practice gap branding for is emphasized interpreted through lens glocalization theories. viewpoint identifies responsibilized boundary spanners agents located between local levels act mediators multi-stakeholder networks, ultimately fostering capacities implement collective actions city-branding