Local Identity, Pride and Branding in Place Transformation

Reader’s Guide

About this report

This report is structured as a practical guide for how policymakers can draw on place identity alongside more traditional levers for economic development to promote broadly shared local prosperity. It translates evidence from academic literature and experience from place branding practice into tangible policy implications. It draws on predominantly qualitative case studies from across OECD countries, and quantitative evidence of impact where it exists.

The case studies span urban and rural places, at various geographical scales to consider the role that place identity plays in their transformation story. While it examines many different cases, it features deep dives into two such places: Tasmania (Australia) and Durham Region (Canada), with examples from these places threaded throughout the report.

What will I learn from this report?

Drawing on these diverse case studies, the report outlines concrete actions for how policymakers can integrate place identity, narratives, branding and local pride into local development strategies. Each chapter outlines a different set of actions, explores why they matter, and uses illustrative examples to provide inspiration for policymakers for their own communities. These actions can be seen as a set of interrelated steps, that may or may not unfold in a linear process. In this way, they can complement and add value to more traditional approaches to local development policies and strategies.

Chapter 1: Mapping a place’s identity

• Methods and tools to map the stories local communities and external stakeholders tell about a place, and to gauge levels of local pride.

• Insights into how these stories can contribute to or hinder place transformation, and how policy can respond.

Chapter 2: Unearthing and communicating a unifying place narrative

• Who to bring to the table to unearth a unifying narrative that valorises a place’s assets and future development opportunities.

• Examples of diverse data sources that can strengthen the authenticity and credibility of a place narrative.

• Examples of how an overarching place story can be tailored to different audiences and sectors.

• Innovative tools and resources that enable diverse stakeholders – from political leaders to residents – to communicate the story in their own voice.

Chapter 3: Using a place narrative for broadly shared transformative change

• How places have added value to their economic strategies, promoting broadly shared economic and social prosperity:

  • Drawing on the place narrative to attract investment and talent.

  • Creating value for local producers and businesses, for example through umbrella brands.

  • Encouraging more balanced approaches to tourism.

• Examples of bringing the narrative to life through symbolic regeneration and iconic cultural heritage projects.

Chapter 4: Tapping into pride in place and belonging

• Examples of how local entrepreneurs and community actors with strong local attachments can contribute to a place’s economic and social development, and policy measures to support them.

• Conditions that can support young people to choose to stay or return and invest in the future of a place.

Chapter 5: Embedding place branding in public policies and governance

• Examples of how places have invested in staff and capacity within government to operationalise place branding, to perform functions including community engagement, storytelling and communications, and creating different kinds of content.

• Emerging experience in using less traditional metrics to evaluate place branding outcomes and impacts. This can include efforts to measure outcomes such as greater confidence to conduct business or shifted perceptions of a place, as well as impacts such as enhanced trust in institutions, sustained economic and social change, higher levels of civic pride, or improved quality of life.

How can I read this report?

This report can be read from cover to cover, but it was designed to allow readers to jump to chapters that are most relevant to their questions and to learn from examples from other places that can be instructive or inspiring. The outline above can be used as a guide for what each chapter covers.

The report includes a number of key concepts that are new to traditional policy debates. While these terms are explicated throughout the report with the aid of concrete examples, Box 1 provides an overview of core concepts.

Box 1. Defining key concepts relating to place identity

Place identity

A place’s identity can be understood as the shared images and meanings that a place holds for people, both within and outside it. Distinct from a place brand, it can be likened to a place’s “DNA” – “a unique, inherited collection of assets, history, traits and culture that distinguishes it internally and externally, and has the potential to unite people and place.” More specifically, elements of a place’s identity can include various features of its heritage, such as:

• History, such as Oxford’s centuries-old university and intellectual heritage in the United Kingdom, or Kyoto’s past as Japan’s historical imperial capital and centre of traditional culture.

• Culture, such as Bilbao, Spain, which combines the contemporary architecture of the famous Guggenheim Museum with the Basque region’s traditional language and culture, or New Orleans in the United States, as the origin of jazz music.

• Industry or economy, such as Lille, France and its historical textile industry, Sheffield, United Kingdom and its renowned steel industry or, in a more contemporary example, Silicon Valley, United States, synonymous with technology and innovation.

• Physical characteristics, which can be natural landscapes, such as the Scottish Highlands in the United Kingdom or the vineyards of Tuscany, Italy, or a place’s-built environment, such as the medieval architecture of Prague, Czech Republic.

• Identifiable shared values, such as an emphasis on “common ground” in Luxembourg, marked by a rich diversity of cultures and languages and its role in the establishment of the European project; solidarity and community life, in rural Ireland; or an emphasis on a socially connected and meaningful life, as in Tasmania, Australia.

• What it produces, such as the specialty coffee of the Colombian Coffee Region, or luxury footwear in Riviera del Brenta, Italy.

In reality, a place’s identity is made up of a dynamic combination of such characteristics and cannot be reduced to any single one.

Place narratives

Conceptions of a place’s identity are shaped by both local and external narratives. Local narratives are collective stories that a community in a place tells itself: what defines it, where it has come from, what it values, and where it is going. While these narratives say something about a place’s identity – its culture, history, values, economy, physical landscape – they are not merely descriptive, portraying a place as it is. Rather, they select what parts of past experience are meaningful, they lay out a future vision, and they frame which key issues matter. Furthermore, local narratives do not engage neutrally with these characteristics of a place, but are often charged with emotion, making them particularly powerful. They can evoke feelings of hope and inspire motivation, or be weighed down by history – both memories of better times as well as past trauma. During times of economic and social transition, narrative is one of the ways people make sense of complexity and change.

In addition to originating from inside a place among local actors, narratives can emerge from external actors outside a place, and each can influence the other. External narratives also have tangible implications. They can shape decisions about moving to, visiting or investing in a place, and as such influence the degree to which a place can attract talent, investment and tourism. Furthermore, over time, negative external narratives can erode local pride in place, confidence and attachments – though this is not always the case.

Place branding

A place brand is a consciously unearthed narrative that seeks to capture a place’s identity – that which makes it distinct, as well as unifying conceptions of its heritage, values and what it makes and does. When diverse stakeholders come together to unearth a place brand narrative, they are also actively defining a vision for where they want to go. Increasingly, place branding is framed as a participatory process that supports long-term development rather than short-term image enhancement. A place’s brand can be seen as a public asset.

Conversely, place branding is not:

• a logo or tagline;

• a communications exercise isolated from policy; or

• a destination-marketing campaign.

Place brands can operate at various scales, from the nation right down to a neighbourhood. The place branding efforts of smaller countries can hold valuable lessons for regions and cities. Well-known examples at the national level come from Costa Rica and Estonia; at the regional level, Tasmania (Australia) or Lyon (France); and at the city level, places like Helsinki (Finland) and Amsterdam (the Netherlands) have well-developed place brands.

Pride in place

Pride in place has increasingly been included as an objective of policy-led, place-based initiatives and programmes. While such policies do not always precisely define what is meant by this term, it tends to be used to signal a community’s positive feelings about a place, its identity, and people’s connection and sense of belonging to it. Sometimes, local pride can be asserted in response to negative external stigma. Increasingly, there is an emphasis on going beyond superficial notions of pride in place as a condition that can be repaired solely through cosmetic, short-term investments in the physical environment. This calls for a deeper and more holistic engagement with people’s lived and felt experiences, and for communities to play a leading role in wider transformative processes. Recent policies, for instance, have associated pride in place with a sense of identity, patriotism and feelings of belonging.

Place attachment and belonging

Place belonging and attachment can be understood as an affective bond that people form with the social and physical characteristics of a place and its community, that contribute to well-being. This can be expressed individually or collectively. While a sense of belonging can be shaped by a place’s identity and local narratives, it can also be cultivated through practical commitments and investments in a place.

While difficult to measure, there is growing interest in understanding how people’s attachment and sense of belonging to place impacts their response to social and economic change, notably in so-called “left behind places.” Some researchers describe these attachments as assets and resources, that can inspire responsibility and action because people are motivated to stay in, preserve and improve places that they care about – even in the face of population decline, dwindling quality jobs, and mounting social challenges.

Source: (Sotarauta, 2018[1]; Görmar, 2024[2]; Görmar, 2023[3]; Goluža and Bole, 2025[4]; Anholt, 2007[5]; Kavaratzis and Hatch, 2013[6]; Boisen et al., 2018[7]; Shaw, 2022[8]; McNulty, 2023[9]) (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, 2025[10]) (Tomaney, 2014[11]; MacKinnon et al., 2021[12]; Tomaney et al., 2023[13]; Manzo and Perkins, 2006[14]; McKeever, Jack and Anderson, 2015[15]; Clark, 2020[16]).

References

[5] Anholt, S. (2007), “Competitive Identity and Development”, in Competitive Identity, Palgrave Macmillan, London, https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230627727_6.

[7] Boisen, M. et al. (2018), “Reframing place promotion, place marketing, and place branding - moving beyond conceptual confusion”, Cities, Vol. 80, pp. 4-11, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2017.08.021.

[16] Clark, G. (2020), The Global Identity of Cities: Seven steps to build reputation and visibility for competitiveness and resilience, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/20200729_BrookingsMetro_GlobalIdentities_Final_Title.pdf.

[4] Goluža, M. and D. Bole (2025), “From nostalgia to disdain: the contested role of industrial heritage narratives in legitimising post-industrial urban transformation”, Urban Research & Practice, pp. 1-23, https://doi.org/10.1080/17535069.2025.2600477.

[2] Görmar, F. (2024), “Weaving a foundational narrative – place-making and change in an old-industrial town in East Germany”, European Planning Studies, Vol. 32/11, pp. 2338-2359, https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2024.2349760.

[3] Görmar, F. (2023), “Loss and change: Culture narratives in old industrial regions in East Germany”, Regional Science Policy & Practice, Vol. 15/7, pp. 1577-1596, https://doi.org/10.1111/rsp3.12689.

[6] Kavaratzis, M. and M. Hatch (2013), “The dynamics of place brands”, Marketing Theory, Vol. 13/1, pp. 69-86, https://doi.org/10.1177/1470593112467268.

[12] MacKinnon, D. et al. (2021), “Reframing urban and regional ‘development’ for ‘left behind’ places”, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Vol. 15/1, pp. 39-56, https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsab034.

[14] Manzo, L. and D. Perkins (2006), “Finding Common Ground: The Importance of Place Attachment to Community Participation and Planning”, Journal of Planning Literature, Vol. 20/4, pp. 335-350, https://doi.org/10.1177/0885412205286160.

[15] McKeever, E., S. Jack and A. Anderson (2015), “Embedded entrepreneurship in the creative re- construction of place”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 30/1, pp. 50-65, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2014.07.002.

[9] McNulty, D. (2023), Universities and Region Forum: Universities, Pride in Place and Levelling Up: Policy briefing.

[10] Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (2025), Pride in Place Strategy: Policy Paper.

[8] Shaw, J. (2022), Townscapes: Pride in place.

[1] Sotarauta, M. (2018), “Smart specialization and place leadership: dreaming about shared visions, falling into policy traps?”, Regional Studies, Regional Science, Vol. 5/1, pp. 190-203, https://doi.org/10.1080/21681376.2018.1480902.

[11] Tomaney, J. (2014), “Region and place II”, Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 39/4, pp. 507-516, https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132514539210.

[13] Tomaney, J. et al. (2023), Social infrastructure and left behind places, Routledge, London, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781032710051.