Local Identity, Pride and Branding in Place Transformation

3. Using a place narrative for broadly shared transformative change

Abstract

This chapter examines how place narratives can be used to support broadly shared transformative change. It explores how narratives can be weaved into talent and investment attraction strategies, leveraged to create value for local producers and businesses, and harnessed to inform balanced approaches to tourism development. It also considers how places bring narratives to life through flagship regeneration initiatives and cultural projects. In addition, the chapter highlights the emerging role of place brands in informing social policies and fostering community well-being. The case studies examined throughout the chapter show how governments can pursue these objectives while aiming to generate broadly shared economic benefits, and to preserve local values, identities and community attachments.

Introduction

Unearthing unifying and authentic place narratives is not an end in itself – it is what places do with these narratives that ultimately matters. It is only in using a place narrative to guide decisions, mobilise stakeholders, and shape tangible actions and visible change that it comes to life to drive positive transformation. This chapter considers these practical applications, examining how governments and communities can move from unearthing a narrative to implementation. A central, animating objective is that the development and use of a narrative should meaningfully contribute to altering a place’s development trajectory in a way that is transformative, sustainable and increases quality of life for all (Cleave et al., 2016[1]; Kavaratzis, 2005[2]).

The first few sections examine different approaches to weaving a place’s narrative into economic development strategies. This includes attracting investment and talent, adding value to local businesses and industries and shaping tourism strategies. Taken together, these approaches can contribute to increasing local economic prosperity and creating quality local jobs. Particular attention is paid to how place narratives can be harnessed to increase equality of opportunity in a place – notably, to attract investments that can create more meaningful and secure employment for a range of local residents, including in those sectors that serve as the foundations of a place’s economy. This can entail, for instance, amplifying the impact of small, local producers by bringing them together under umbrella brands, or developing tourism strategies that create quality job opportunities for local populations. In other cases, it may mean ensuring a balanced approach to tourism, and remaining alert to potential risks, such as undue pressure on the local housing market, environmental degradation or the erosion of a place’s character (OECD, 2024[3]).

The chapter also examines how flagship redevelopment and cultural projects can give concrete expression to place narratives. This may be in the form of new exhibition centres or cultural facilities, which can contribute to regenerating the local economy, improving a place’s liveability and strengthening local pride (Willer, 2021[4]; Miles, 2005[5]). To achieve these outcomes, governments can proactively consider who benefits from regeneration and can co-design projects with local communities. This can help mitigate risks of displacement and contribute to preserving local place attachments, community fabric and pride.

A final section considers how place narratives can inform social policies that can increase equality of opportunity, social cohesion and community well-being. This can support individuals and families to play a role in shaping their place’s future. Chapter 4 zooms in further to consider the role that policy can play to support and stimulate local initiative, entrepreneurship and innovation, for both local economies and local communities.

Use the narrative to attract investment and talent

Strong place brand narratives can enhance a place's attractiveness to investors and prospective residents and support its economic positioning. The narrative is an enabler, but to realise its potential, it needs to be operationalised through concrete strategic actions and conditions that tangibly support investment and talent attraction. Without these foundations, a strong narrative risks remaining an aspiration as opposed to a practical tool. As explored further below, a strong narrative can also help bolster a place's repositioning in global value chains. This reflects the understanding that how a place is positioned along higher- or lower value-adding segments of value chains shapes its development outcomes (OECD, 2025[6]).

In terms of investment, the narrative should articulate the unique value proposition of a place: what it offers to firms and people that they cannot find elsewhere. At the regional scale, understanding a region's attractiveness, assets, absorptive capacity and position in global value chains is essential groundwork. In the context of FDI, regions that excel at attracting investment, notably in green and strategic sectors, are those that can align and promote local assets with global trends (Kimura and Flood, 2025[7]). The value proposition should be intentional and fit-for-purpose. Rather than seeking any investment, the goal is to attract investment that makes sense for the place given its existing assets and potential for generating long-term value, deepening local linkages, upskilling firms, and embedding them into longer-term value chains (OECD, 2025[6]). The narrative can also shape how investments sought out serve to strengthen – rather than weaken – a positive place identity.

National and regional investment promotion agencies can play an important role in translating a targeted investment proposition to attract FDI in tandem with place branding efforts (OECD, 2025[6]). For example, South Australia's (Australia) investment promotion agency, Invest SA, has been instrumental in positioning the region as a global leader in renewable energy and green hydrogen by promoting its land availability, wind and solar resources, and skilled clean energy workforce (Invest SA, 2025[8]; OECD, 2025[6]). Invest SA operates within a broader government support network for economic development, working alongside Brand SA – which enhances the profile of South Australian goods, services and experiences locally, nationally and internationally – and other government-led trade and education promotion agencies. While Brand SA builds global awareness and communicates a consistent story about the state to amplify commercial opportunities, Invest SA plays a more hands-on facilitative role, for instance connecting investment with industry and government partners and co-ordinating project delivery (Government of South Australia, 2025[9]). Together, they show the complementarity of place branding and investment promotion as mutually reinforcing functions within government to attract purposeful investment.

In terms of talent, the narrative can be one important tool in a broader talent attraction strategy toolkit. At the regional level, despite talent attraction being a top policy priority, this is still an emerging area of interest for place branding organisations (OECD, 2025[6]). A place narrative, and how it is targeted and communicated, can contribute to filling this gap. Given that talent attraction and retention have tended to receive comparatively less policy attention than investment attraction, the examples that follow place a particular emphasis on this dimension.

Understanding what drives both attraction and retention is important, as a narrative that successfully draws talent in can still fail if the conditions for people to stay are not in place. For instance, following the elaboration and communication of the Durham Region’s new narrative as the Clean Energy Capital of Canada, a major energy employer established its headquarters in the region, bringing in 3 000 jobs (The Place Brand Observer, 2025[10]) (Box 3.1). As part of its strategy to retain international graduates of engineering and energy programmes for its workforce, the region’s brand included content and communications intended to reflect the region’s growing diversity. Multicultural community events have helped to foster a welcoming environment. Taken together, this was seen to contribute to graduates developing a sense of belonging and choosing to stay.

Box 3.1. Using a brand narrative to align investment, talent and tourism strategies to welcome international residents in Durham Region, Canada

Durham Region in Ontario (Canada) moved away from its longstanding identity as a "car town" – a narrative that no longer reflected its economic reality – towards a new positioning as Canada's "Clean Energy Capital", grounded in an existing but under-recognised clean energy asset base. Through co-ordinated action nested in Invest Durham, the region's economic development agency, the case illustrates how a place brand narrative, when backed by concrete strategic action and aligned across investment, talent and tourism strategies, can deliver tangible results. This shift was grounded not in aspiration alone, but in an existing and substantive base of technical capability, supplier networks and institutional know-how in the clean energy sector. The brand narrative gave coherence and visibility to what was already there, and in doing so helped attract major employers and global corporations, generating local employment opportunities while also drawing in talent.

By 2024-25, the "Clean Energy Capital" narrative was backed by a set of concrete outcomes. While it is difficult to establish causal attribution, the cumulative effects of consistent messaging across partners, and clear investor signalling are visible and worth noting. For instance, a landmark investment saw a major energy employer consolidate its Greater Toronto Area offices into new headquarters in Oshawa, Durham Region’s largest city, bringing approximately 3 000 professional and executive energy-sector roles to the region and symbolically repurposing a former automotive landmark. Pointing to both investor demand and entrepreneurial momentum, the region grew by nearly 12% between 2021 and 2024 to approximately 780 300 residents, with over 900 new businesses registered in 2024 alone. The region is forecast to reach 1.3 million by 2051.

Durham's place branding activities are embedded within broader economic development plans rather than operating as a standalone communications exercise. Its five-year Invest Durham Marketing Plan sits within Ready Set Future: A PLACE Blueprint, a longer-horizon economic development and tourism strategy that integrates People, Location, Acceleration, Creativity and Enablers, making the brand an organising idea for cluster development, inclusion and talent attraction.

A distinctive feature of Durham's approach is the deliberate integration of immigration and international education into its talent strategy. International student enrolments in engineering, energy, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing programmes at campuses in and around the region build a pipeline of graduates ready to enter the workforce. Many go on to find employment with regional employers in areas such as nuclear energy, electrified transit and digitalisation. Meanwhile, the everyday character of the region – including businesses started by newcomers, multicultural community events and a diverse food scene – helps people to feel at home, encouraging them to stay. In addition, the Invest Durham plan explicitly requires that the region's diverse community voices be visible across brand content and imagery. In this way, immigration is central to Durham’s strategy for innovation capacity and long-run growth prospects.

Tourism is the third pillar of Durham’s integrated place strategy as a talent funnel. The priority audience is not a mass market, but Greater Toronto Area professionals in high-tech and knowledge services. The goal is to give them a chance to visit and experience Durham's lifestyle and commute options firsthand. Tourism and lifestyle communications are therefore deliberately aligned with labour market objectives and firm recruitment needs, with the welcoming, multicultural character of everyday life serving as the mechanism that helps convert visits into relocation decisions.

Several features of how Durham has used its place narrative are worth highlighting for other regions navigating similar transitions. The region's narrative was not invented from scratch but built on an existing, if under-recognised, base of technical capability, supplier networks and institutional know-how that could be remobilised. Giving coherence and visibility to these assets required deliberate co-ordination: the region invested in keeping the narrative consistent throughout. Finally, Durham explicitly embraced demographic change as part of its strategy, weaving immigration and international education into its talent and innovation pipeline at a moment when its legacy automotive base was receding.

Source: (Invest Durham, 2023[11]; Invest Durham, 2024[12]) (Invest Durham, 2022[13]). (Invest Durham, 2022[13]; Severs, 2025[14]).

Places can support better retention by seeking to gain insight into the factors that encourage people to stay or leave a place. Copenhagen Capacity, the capital region of Denmark's investment and talent attraction agency, has taken a systematic approach to this challenge by surveying over 2 000 internationals living in Denmark to identify not only what brings them there but what causes them to leave earlier than planned (Copenhagen Capacity, 2025[15]). While Copenhagen is one of the destinations in Europe that is comparatively successful at attracting talent, even well-positioned cities can face retention gaps that go unaddressed without dedicated attention. As such, their findings offer lessons that are relevant even for places who have tended to struggle to bring in new people. They show that talent retention is as much a question of enabling conditions – jobs, integration pathways, and social connection – as it is of a compelling narrative (Box 3.2).

Box 3.2.  Understanding what makes international talent stay: Copenhagen Capacity, Denmark

Copenhagen Capacity is the investment and talent attraction agency for the Greater Copenhagen Region, a cross-border region between Denmark and Sweden, and manages its official place brand. Since 2019, it has run talent attraction under the national place brand "A State of Denmark," built around Denmark's quality of life, work-life balance and innovation culture. It targets professionals across technology, life sciences and green transition sectors. Crucially, Copenhagen Capacity recognises that attracting talent is only half the challenge and has developed a systematic approach to understanding what causes international professionals to leave earlier than planned, so that the place brand's promise can be backed by the conditions needed to make it real.

The findings identified a significant retention gap among job seekers, who represent 14 % of respondents and for whom securing employment is the primary driver of both early departure and extended stay. Three areas of action were identified, addressed at politicians, public sector stakeholders, employers and broader society,

1. Enhancing job market accessibility

Having a job is the top priority across all respondent groups. Recommended actions include:

• Targeted programmes to assist internationals and their partners in finding employment, including career counselling, job fairs and networking events.

• Dedicated job portals featuring listings, application resources and employer profiles tailored to an international audience.

2. Support for international students

• Strengthening career services and employment pathways after graduation.

• Ensuring students have access to resources that support their integration into Danish society and the labour market more broadly.

3. Improving inclusion and sense of belonging

Lack of inclusion at work emerged as the primary reason for early departure among spouses and job seekers, and a leading reason among other respondent groups. Recommended actions include:

• Structured onboarding programmes, mentorship and buddy systems, and intercultural training for all employees.

• Organised social events and cultural, leisure and sports activities promoted in English to foster community integration.

• Extended services from the "BELONG" project, which supports small and medium-sized enterprises in addressing challenges such as stress, discrimination and exclusion faced by international employees, offering practical tools to enhance onboarding, inclusion and well-being.

Source: (Copenhagen Capacity, 2025[15])

To harness a brand to attract and retain talent, places also look beyond purely economic value. This is especially true of the many places that cannot offer the highest salary in a region or country, and where communicating an authentic place story can tap into a deeper sense of meaning. This is the case, for instance, in Tasmania (Australia). Its brand encourages people to stay in or move to Tasmania through the promise of a meaningful life, based on shared community values and aspirations. In one example, a health force recruitment strategy portrays Tasmania’s healthcare sector as enabling closer connections with colleagues and patients; smaller teams that create more opportunities to contribute to programme development; and shorter commutes that can free up time outside of work to practice crafts, enjoy leisure or participate in community (Brand Tasmania, n.d.[16]; City Nation Place, 2025[17]; Brand Tasmania, 2025[18]). These messages are reinforced through international job fairs; webinars hosted by Tasmania’s Department of Health; and direct engagement with people who expressed interest (Brand Tasmania, 2025[18]). At the beginning of 2025, 90% of people entering the health system as oral health therapists were new graduates that Brand Tasmania had engaged with across Australia and New Zealand, through outreach conducted in partnership with Oral Health Services Tasmania (Ibid).

Use the narrative to add value to local producers and industries

Places can harness narratives to enable local production to move up the value chain. One way this has been pursued is through the creation of place-based umbrella brands – or “place of origin markers” – to certify the authenticity of products (Anholt, 2010[19]; Brand Tasmania, 2025[18]). A related approach is cluster branding, where a group of firms and organisations working in related activities collectively promote their shared geographical concentration as a mark of specialisation and expertise, strengthening the positioning of individual businesses through association with a recognisable territorial identity (OECD, 2009[20]). Importantly, the association of products and services with a specific place becomes synonymous with quality. For example, in the European Union, the Protected Designation of Origin (AOP) is a quality label that designates products which are not only produced within a defined geographical area, but also according to production, processing and preparation methods that are consistent with recognised local know-how (Institut National de l’Origine et de la Qualite, n.d.[21]). In France, for instance, 470 products are recognised under the AOP label, including well-known examples like Camembert from Normandy, or Roquefort cheese from Roquefort-sur-Soulzon (Ibid).

Local producers can use these umbrella brands, or marks, to differentiate their products and earn customer trust. For example, in the Colombian Coffee Region, small coffee firms had for a long time principally been suppliers of low-value raw coffee beans to multinational corporations (Lescaudron and Perrier, 2021[22]; Muñiz Martínez, 2016[23]) (Box 3.3). As detailed below, the place branding process, which included the creation of an internationally acclaimed national umbrella brand, alongside investment in the industry, enabled these firms to add value to their businesses (Ibid). Similarly, in Tasmania (Australia), the “Tasmanian Mark” certifies hundreds of products and services as genuinely Tasmanian, creating a visible standard that exporters, local councils, cultural organisations and recruiters can deploy in their own communications and procurement, and enabling businesses to differentiate and add value to their products in local, national and international markets (Brand Tasmania, 2025[24]). Brand Tasmania sets the standards for the Mark’s use, helping to preserve the state’s reputation for high-quality, artisanal products (Ibid).

Place brands can be particularly effective when networks of stakeholders work together to creatively tell a place’s story not just in words, but through an ecosystem of products, experiences, culture and media (Muñiz Martínez, 2016[23]). The success of a place narrative relies upon these different actors pulling in the same direction, harbouring long-term commitment, a shared vision and responsibility, and mutual trust to bring it to life through various reinforcing investments (Ibid). As highlighted in the below example of the Colombian Coffee Region, a network of actors from both the public and private sector have co-operated to consolidate the regional brand locally and abroad, allowing its economic benefits to be generated and shared more widely (Box 3.3).

Box 3.3. A network of collaborators adding economic value from the ground up: The Colombian Coffee Region

The Colombian Coffee Region is a place brand that reflects the region’s cultural identity and integrates the values of sustainability and authenticity. The region covers Caldas, Quindio, Risaralda and the north of Cauca Valley. Collaboration between a diverse network of stakeholders, the creation of value for coffee producers, and the diversification of the local economy to include tourism development has all worked together through a unifying place brand to generate economic prosperity that is widely shared.

Networks of stakeholders collaborate to creatively tell the region’s story not just in words, but through an ecosystem of products, experiences, culture, and the region’s natural environment. This includes local, regional and national governments; local universities; local associations of coffee growers; the local chamber of commerce; national hotel associations; tour guides; cafes and restaurants; traditional artisans; and a television production. The common objective of generating a regional brand identity spurs coffee-producing businesses to co-operate even when in day-to-day business they may act as competitors. In this way, the place brand functions as a shared and unifying asset.

The sum of their various efforts has contributed to consolidating the Coffee Region brand. This includes the development of specialty coffee brands; the designation of the Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia as a UNESCO World Heritage Site; tourist accommodation on rustic coffee estates; experiential tourism of harvesting coffee; coffee roasting courses; birdwatching and nature tourism; a Colombian coffee culture theme park; and even an internationally successful soap opera “Café.”

Importantly, the narrative has allowed many of its over 5 000 coffee growers to upgrade along the value chain. Where local growers were once suppliers of low-value raw coffee beans to multinational corporations, the place brand, accompanied by investment in upskilling and equipment, has enabled local firms to add value to their businesses. While some local firms have been able to develop their own internationally acclaimed speciality coffee brands, the Juan Valdez Café umbrella coffee label guarantees the authenticity of the smaller coffee brands it certifies, enabling them to market their beans as premium quality. The character of Juan Valdez was designed by the National Federation of Coffee growers as the coffee culture’s ambassador in the late 1950s, as part of a marketing strategy. In 2002, the Juan Valdez Café brand and franchise was launched to commercialise Colombian coffee under the name of the iconic character. Today, it has over 600 stores across 18 markets globally. This process is not only seen to add value to locally produced coffee and extend its reach across international markets, but also to contribute to improving the image of Colombia as a whole.

The region’s economy began to diversify into rural and experiential tourism, based on the theme of coffee, in the 1990s, in response to a coffee price crisis resulting from overproduction. Rural tourism was introduced – initiated by the district’s tourism councillor and a handful of coffee-growing farms – to allow visitors to experience the “authenticity” of coffee estates. The region has now grown into an established tourist destination, with over 30 farms combining coffee promotion with tourist lodgings, in addition to new hotels and a coffee theme park. This has been further complemented by experiential tourism that includes harvesting coffee, roasting courses, and café-gastronomy.

This process has contributed to generating economic development and employment in the region. Since its listing as a World Heritage Site, both domestic and international travel to the region has increased. Colombians have also been moving to the region, which has not suffered from the problems of violence that have pervaded other parts of the country, and is considered a more peaceful way of life than that which is found in large cities.

Source: (Muñiz Martínez, 2016[23]; Muñiz Martínez, 2019[25]; Galeano, 2014[26]; World Coffee Portal, 2025[27])

Weave the place narrative with tourism strategies

A place's narrative can provide a unifying framework for tourism development, helping places articulate their identity on their own terms and differentiate their offer in ways that reflect their local assets and values. A strong narrative can anchor more distinctive tourism propositions – such as cultural heritage routes, slow tourism, or thematic brands – that contribute to more stable, year-round employment and reinforce broader objectives including talent attraction and resident well-being (OECD, 2025[6]). Tourist routes in particular offer places an opportunity to develop itineraries rooted in their territorial identity and development plans, including in rural and lesser-known areas (OECD, 2020[28]). In Lubelskie (Poland) for instance, both thematic and place-based brands have been used to drive rural development, including a medical health tourism brand and a nature-based identity recognised as one of twelve national tourist brands by the Polish government (OECD, 2025[6]). The local benefits of tourism can be enhanced through strong public-private collaboration to strengthen local supply chains and raise productivity in tourism-related services (OECD, 2024[3]) – efforts that a shared narrative can help align and give direction to.

Governments can develop a strong understanding of a place’s organic tourism drivers and draw on branding to build on this foundation. For example, in Cali (Colombia), institutions observed how a bottom-up cultural phenomenon – salsa dance and music – was attracting visitors to the city to learn how to dance (Muñiz-Martínez, 2023[29]). Aware of this trend, the city went on to develop an annual salsa festival and, in collaboration with multiple stakeholders, positioned Cali as the world capital of salsa. As the narrative was rooted in local practices, it could more easily generate economic benefits to local people. This investment in the local salsa scene, as well as its positioning as a creative city, is attracting more people to visit Cali to experience authentic salsa dance and music. It has led to increased opportunities for local inhabitants as professional dancers and musicians within Colombia but also internationally, as Cali’s reputation for salsa continues to grow. Over time, this is helping to significantly improve the city’s image and reputation, as not just the home of salsa but as a creative hub (Muñiz-Martínez, 2023[29]).

Momentum generated by tourism activity needs to be pursued within the wider context of relevant city, regional and economic development strategies, in close co-operation with industry and local communities (OECD, 2021[30]). Poorly managed tourism can generate significant pressures on housing, the environment and waste management, ultimately eroding the social cohesion and quality of place that the narrative seeks to project and adversely impacting local communities (OECD, 2020[28]; OECD, 2021[30]). Highly seasonal models create barriers to stable employment, with high staff turnover rates negatively affecting both workers and employers (OECD, 2025[6]). More broadly, growth-oriented tourism models that prioritise short-term economic impact can come at the expense of the environmental quality and community fabric on which a place's longer-term quality of life depends (OECD, 2024[3]). Reflecting this, many places are moving towards better-balanced tourism models (OECD, 2025[6]). Through this lens, tourism “success” is not measured in visitor numbers and expenditure alone but rather focuses on the positive impacts that tourism can provide at the destination level and the benefits delivered to local economies and communities (OECD, 2021[30]). When thoughtfully constructed, this is a shift that a place narrative can actively support by giving coherence to strategies that serve residents, workers and visitors alike. The experience of the Îles-de-la-Madeleine (Canada) speaks to the possibilities and challenges of navigating these potential tensions in practice (Box 3.4).

Box 3.4. Magdalen Islands, Canada: Using a place narrative to sustain a remote island community on its own terms

Once seen simply as part of Quebec, Canada’s remote periphery, the Magdalen Islands, have become one of the province's most sought-after destinations, built on a place narrative that puts local identity, community well-being and sustainable development at its centre. As an archipelago of around 12 000 inhabitants in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, it long faced challenges common to geographically isolated regions including demographic decline and economic fragility. Though fishing remains the backbone of the local economy, tourism is now the second largest sector. Over the past two decades, the Islands have developed a distinctive identity rooted in the region’s insularity, quality local products, and particular way of life. Rather than pursuing a volume-based model, the region's tourism development agency, Tourisme Îles de la Madeleine, orients its strategy around sustainable development, with tourism encouraged to unfold in harmony with the environment and its residents. The Magdalen Islands were the first territory in the province to adopt a sustainable tourism policy framework in 2006, and the first tourist region to embed sustainability across all dimensions of a tourism strategy in 2021.

Local products are central to this narrative and to the local economic base it supports. Lobster – described as a "jewel at the very heart of the archipelago's identity and local economy" – alongside other artisanal and traditional products, give concrete expression to a place brand grounded in what the territory produces.The "Le Bon Goût Frais des Îles de la Madeleine" label brings together local food producers, artisans, restaurants and retailers under a shared quality brand, while tourism cluster activities have convened producers and restaurateurs to strengthen linkages between local supply chains and the visitor experience, reinforcing the connection between the destination's narrative and its local economic fabric.

Extending the season beyond the intense summer peak is a central objective of the 2023 rebranding of Tourisme Îles de la Madeleine, which illustrates how the sustainable tourism strategy has been reinforced over time. Developed through a consultation process with tourism stakeholders and unveiled at a community event, the new brand was dedicated to residents. Its core promise, to "fully inhabit and share the uniqueness of the Magdalen Islands," is built around four values: human heritage, quality of life, the beauty of the landscape, and a distinctive year-round tourism experience. This is pursued through winter seal-watching, year-round culinary experiences, and arts and crafts programming during quieter periods when local artists and artisans have time to engage more deeply with visitors.

Managing the pressures generated by tourism is an ongoing and active dimension of the strategy. The islands currently receive between 60 000 and 70 000 visitors during three months of high season, generating significant friction and impacts on a small permanent community. For instance, the unusual influx of visitors in summer 2020 created conflicts between tourist and resident uses of coastal spaces: the islands’ beaches had historically evolved toward lower-impact uses – low intensity socialization, walking and nature observation – rather than high density festive activity or camping, and the absence of seaside amenities common to other popular destinations in the Canadian Maritimes and eastern American coast became acute as visitor numbers surged.

Visitor flows are deliberately managed, including through ferry capacity limits, reflecting a conscious prioritisation of community well-being and quality of experience over volume. The current strategy invites visitors to understand the fragility of the destination and to “step into the island lifestyle of a community living in harmony with the seasons and the sea," thus framing responsible visitor behaviour as integral to the brand promise rather than an external constraint.

Source: (Tourisme Îles de la Madeleine, 2021[31]) (Renaud and Lapointe, 2021[32]) (Larose, 2021[33]) (Le Bon goût frais des Îles de la Madeleine, 2025[34]) (Lapointe, 2024[35]). (Tourisme Îles de la Madeleine, 2024[36])

Embody the narrative in flagship cultural and physical development projects

The physical transformation of a place, such as a major redevelopment project or an iconic architectural flagship, can consolidate a reimagined place identity and bring a narrative to life (Görmar and Kinossian, 2022[37]; Miles, 2005[5]). This can, for instance, be in the form of new exhibition centres, state-of-the-art facilities, or waterfront developments (Willer, 2021[4]). Such projects can contribute to regenerating the local economy and restoring local pride and confidence (Miles, 2005[5]).

In some cases, physical regeneration signals a break with the past and a place’s reinvention (Görmar and Kinossian, 2022[37]). For example, in Heerlen (the Netherlands), the redevelopment of its railway station and the surrounding “Moon Quarter” was intended to give the city a new icon with a futuristic aesthetic, after the demolition of its industrial buildings decades earlier was seen to weaken the city’s identity (Hoekstra, 2020[38]). The Moon Quarter aimed to symbolise the city’s return to its former splendor during its industrial peak in mining, and to improve external perceptions of Heerlen while restoring local pride, following a previous era of mass unemployment and social challenges (Ibid).

In many instances, physical regeneration is used to repurpose a post-industrial identity, embodying narratives that seek to commemorate positive elements of a place’s heritage (Görmar and Kinossian, 2022[37]). Practically, this is often pursued through the adaptive reuse of industrial buildings and architecture, which can respond to the practical need for space while preserving local identity and place attachments (Hoekstra, 2020[38]). This approach is also a more sustainable alternative to building new facilities (OECD, 2025[39]). For example, the regeneration strategy of Nantes (France) created space for a diverse range of uses and activities within the city’s existing industrial fabric. Its former shipyard halls were repurposed into the now-iconic mechanical animals of Les Machines de l'Île, reimagining the site while paying tribute to its maritime heritage (Eurocities, 2025[40]) (Box 3.5).

The physical regeneration of places with strong symbolic value can punch above their weight to consolidate a place narrative. Chapter 1 highlights the regeneration of Detroit’s Michigan Central Station (United States) as a symbol of the city’s comeback, and the Redhills Miners’ Hall in Durham (United Kingdom) as a renewed hub of community life, which reconnects Durham’s “living heritage” with a more forward-looking vision for the County (Brachman, 2025[41]; Redhills, n.d.[42]). Another well-documented example is the Zollverein nature park in Ruhr Valley (Germany). A natural environment of vegetation and wildlife has been restored around the former mining region’s industrial landscape, and artworks have been created to commemorate the Ruhr Valley’s legacy (Eiringhaus, 2022[43]). This has helped consolidate a narrative of ecological transformation and reinvent the region as a “Green Metropolis” (Ibid). Today, the park functions as a cultural site as well as a tourist attraction, featuring museums, walking and bicycle trails, art studios, and sculptures and art installations (Zollverein, n.d.[44]). Maintaining elements within the landscape that pay tribute to the Ruhr Valley’s collective industrial legacy and using this as the basis for art and culture has contributed to strengthening regional identity (Eiringhaus, 2022[43]).

While investment in physical regeneration may enhance a city’s image and attract investment, it can also result in unintended consequences. This can include, for example, resident displacement owing to rising property prices (OECD, 2025[39]; Miles, 2005[5]). Governments can be sensitive to adopting adequate measures to protect access to local affordable housing as well as local commerce and grassroots cultural activities.

Furthermore, even if residents are not physically displaced, local identity and attachments can be weakened if large-scale regeneration leads to the loss of familiar and memory-laden places (Manzo and Perkins, 2006[45]; Shaw and Hagemans, 2015[46]; Tomaney et al., 2023[47]; Watt, 2021[48]). This can include, for instance, the loss of well-used squares, community centres, or local commerce, that serve as hubs for interaction, strengthen belonging and help foster an ethos of co-operation and mutual aid. If transformation is perceived as a threat to place identity and belonging, communities can resist and obstruct change regardless of its potential value (Manzo and Perkins, 2006[45]).

Governments can remain attentive to a range of other potential unintended consequences and take steps to address them. One risk is the emergence of tensions or polarisation between existing residents and newcomers, for example if the development visions of newly arrived populations are privileged over those of longstanding communities, or vice versa. Another is that regeneration can marginalise less profitable uses of social infrastructure and public space, that hold significant community and social value (Goluža and Bole, 2025[49]). The example of Nantes (France) shows how regeneration processes can take steps to limit speculative development, consciously preserving the cultural and social uses of redeveloped spaces alongside commercial activity (Eurocities, 2025[40]; Dunmall, 2016[50]) (Box 3.5). Such approaches can help facilitate the development of economic activity that contributes to community wealth building, rather than extracting value from it. Yet another potential pitfall is the “washing away” of a place’s legacy (Goluža and Bole, 2025[49]). This can occur when regeneration processes fail to engage authentically with local identity and rely on formulaic models, or when it demolishes and builds over forms of heritage that carry meaning and attachments for local communities (Miles, 2005[5]). Finally, there is a risk that local residents feel that their history or culture has been commodified (Goluža and Bole, 2025[49]).

The risks can be reduced by defining the scale and design of regeneration projects in partnership with local communities, through participatory processes that build trust, foster ownership and reflect diverse perspectives. This can be achieved through investments in meaningful community engagement, using innovative tools and approaches to hear beyond the loudest voices and to ensure that perspectives that tend to be marginalised can actively shape the vision for change that emerges. For example, employing local residents to consult with community members can harness existing relationships of trust and familiarity for people to speak more readily and openly (Manzo et al., 2023[51]; Foroughi et al., 2023[52]). Likewise, interactive mapping tools can provide an accessible means for identifying places with emotional resonance or everyday functional importance (Ibid). These spaces can then be preserved or restored as part of regeneration plans, helping to maintain a sense of continuity amid change, and to respect a place’s identity and its population’s dignity. The example of Nantes (France) illustrates some innovative citizen participation approaches (Box 3.5).

Local cultural and creative communities can be drawn on as partners in culture-led regeneration using participatory governance, in support of their activities (Görmar, 2024[53]; OECD, 2025[39]). By focusing on the unique cultural characteristics of a place and leveraging a community’s cultural assets – such as historical buildings, local artists and community networks – regeneration strategies can be both economically viable and socially meaningful (Halford, Huggins and Gale, 2025[54]). To be effective, culture-led regeneration must start by gaining a deep understanding of existing cultural assets and the actual needs of the local community (OECD, 2025[39]). While high-profile ‘flagship’ investments, such as in Bilbao (Spain), can help to put places on the map and attract international visitors, long-term change requires investment in local, grassroots culture. This can include both measures to support cultural production through supports for local artists and creatives, as well as measures to facilitate access to culture for local populations through investments in small scale cultural infrastructure, such as libraries, as well as local clubs and societies (Ibid).

Box 3.5. Regeneration valorising the past: Repurposing and adaptive reuse of industrial heritage landmarks in Nantes, France

When Nantes' shipyards closed in 1987, the city faced both physical decay and a profound crisis of identity. The Île de Nantes, a 330-hectare island at the city's geographical core, was left as a largely derelict brownfield land, and became known as une belle endormie, or sleeping beauty. A former hub of maritime industry and trade, its industrial and port heritage had become a source of loss rather than pride. The closure of the shipyards made the question of what Nantes was, and what it could become, a defining issue.

Nantes' regeneration strategy demonstrates that city-wide investment in public space and adaptive reuse of industrial heritage can be more effective than a single iconic building in anchoring a new place narrative. The city prioritised the development of public spaces and the organisation of diverse uses and activities within its existing industrial fabric, a choice that came to be known internationally as "Nantes-style urban planning." For example, former biscuit factory LU was transformed into Le Lieu Unique, a cultural centre. Most symbolically, the former shipyard halls on the Île de Nantes were repurposed rather than demolished: the iconic mechanical animals of Les Machines de l'Île now inhabit these spaces, bringing the city's maritime heritage to life as one of its most recognisable attractions.

Placing the management of physical regeneration under dedicated governance structures can help ensure that cultural and social uses are preserved alongside commercial development. The transformation of the Île de Nantes has been managed through a dedicated development company, SAMOA, created in 2003, which retained control over land use and pre-determined conditions for development in the public interest, limiting speculative development. Former industrial halls were repurposed as affordable creative workspaces housing 180 companies, effectively a hub for start-ups, while other halls now house a digital technology centre, a School of Fine Arts, co-working spaces, bars, galleries and a theatre. The island has become one of Europe's largest urban regeneration sites, and a laboratory for how post-industrial space can be reinvented without erasing what came before it.

Physical regeneration can be powerful when it draws honestly on a place's full history while projecting a forward-looking identity. For example, the city chose to confront the more difficult dimensions of its past: the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery, inaugurated in 2012, makes remembrance a visible pillar of its physical and cultural landscape. These efforts to engage honestly with history have been paired with forward-looking cultural investment: Nantes has developed a rich ecosystem of arts festivals and events, of which Le Voyage à Nantes is among the most prominent, bringing public artworks to sites along a 22-kilometre route across the city and generating over EUR 48.8 million in economic returns.

The success of culture-led physical regeneration can bring its own risks, requiring active governance to ensure benefits are broadly shared. Nantes is among the fastest-growing cities in France, a reflection of its broader dynamism as the centre of a thriving economic region. Around 10 000 new inhabitants move to the city each year, and with this growth comes pressure on housing and public services. Some recent reflections note that the challenge for Nantes is no longer to attract tourists or to establish itself on the European map of creative cities, but to find less top-down, more co-produced approaches to shaping the city together with its citizens. In one recent example, its Ilotopia project is a citizen participation initiative based in a repurposed old garage on the island. It uses creative tools including buses transformed into mobile workshop rooms to involve residents in shaping public space collaboratively before changes are made permanent.

Source: (Chasseriau, 2004[55]; Dunmall, 2016[50]; Lescaudron and Perrier, 2021[22]; Nicolas, 2014[56]; Eurocities, 2025[40]; Citego, 2019[57]; Anguelovski et al., 2020[58])

Major events can also contribute to repositioning a narrative so that diverse people can see themselves belonging to it. In the case of Medellin (Colombia), its hosting of two successive, international events which attracted heads of state and international media coverage contributed to promoting its image as a city of innovation, alongside the significant investment made in culture, education, social infrastructure and transport (Muñiz Martínez, 2019[25]). Likewise, Birmingham (England, United Kingdom) used its 2022 Commonwealth Games and an accompanying six-month cultural festival to tell the “story of Birmingham” as an international city of culture and creativity, which celebrated its multicultural identity (Birmingham City Council, 2023[59]). It achieved this by bringing its arts and cultural programming to diverse communities in various, more distant parts of the city, who had tended to be under-served by the arts (OECD, 2024[60]). Furthermore, through the Birmingham 2022 Creative City Grants Programme, over 1 060 community groups worked with artists to create new work featured during the festival (Ibid). Overall, the Commonwealth Festival was attended by 2.6 million people. This all contributed to strengthening the image of the city while reinforcing local pride and place belonging – 74% of Birmingham residents surveyed reported that the Games had a positive impact on how proud they are to live in their area (Ibid).

Physical changes to a place’s landscape and cultural projects can thus serve as a powerful means to breathe life into a place narrative and contribute to transformative change. Small-scale, visible changes can function as quick wins to build and maintain momentum alongside the longer-term investments and timescales that profound place transformation requires. Meaningfully involving communities in the planning and design of such projects can empower them to play a lead role in writing its next chapter. This can also help avoid situations where efforts to improve a place’s external perception come at the expense of community needs, attachments and local pride. These objectives can be seen as complementary as bringing communities into the process can produce a more authentic reflection of local culture and identity, and a more equitable distribution of cultural and public amenities across a town or city – which ultimately making for a better place to live, visit and work in. Furthermore, incorporating a range of viewpoints can help a place’s identity to be welcoming to a wide range of people, including longstanding locals and newcomers alike.

Draw on the place narrative to foster well-being and inform social policy

While public efforts to use a place’s narrative often focus on bolstering economic development, there are examples of places using their brand as a lens to inform social policies and to foster well-being. By shaping decisions and being embedded in practical actions, a place brand narrative can help to solve problems and serve as a force for positive change. A notable example is from Brand Tasmania (Australia), which pursues numerous projects that subtly carry the brand into the lives of Tasmanians, leaning on local voices to tell Tasmanian stories (Brand Tasmania, 2025[61]; Brand Tasmania, 2025[24]) (Box 3.6).

One of the main challenges to which Brand Tasmania sought to respond was low literacy rates among children alongside low high school graduate rates among its young people (City Nation Place, 2023[62]; Brand Tasmania, 2025[24]) (Box 3.6). For example, in 2022, an independent review found that only 53% of young Tasmanians completed high school – far below Australia’s national average (Productivity Commission, 2024[63]). These statistics were overlayed with the results of Brand Tasmania’s qualitative research, which revealed sentiments of being mocked, misunderstood and underestimated by mainland Australians, and associated low levels of pride, confidence and aspiration. In response, the brand’s values shaped two notable projects: one focused on the early years, and another on youth aspirations (Brand Tasmania, 2025[61]).

Box 3.6. Embedding the new narrative into social policy to foster well-being and local pride in Tasmania, Australia

The Little Tasmanian Project

The Little Tasmanian project aims to foster local pride and confidence from the earliest years, while encouraging parents and carers to begin reading to their babies from birth. In the three years since it was launched, almost 17 000 babies born in Tasmania have received a Little Tasmanian library bag, which provides support and advice for the critical first 1 000 days of a child’s life.

At the heart of the package is a children’s book, which uses storytelling to impart in young Tasmanians the message, “Someone just like you did it, and you can too.” Across the three Little Tasmanian books, the stories follow characters who embody the shared local values Brand Tasmania identified through its qualitative research – grit, determination, creativity and community connectedness, to overcome challenges together in pursuit of something meaningful. In this way, being Tasmanian also signifies belonging to a place and its community. This echoes Tasmania’s new narrative of overcoming the impossible to achieve exceptional quality, and the pursuit of the extraordinary.

As important as what is represented is who is represented. Across the stories, “Tasmanians” include a computer scientist who aims to inspire children to appreciate the science and beauty around them; a world champion woodchopper and community advocate; a Tasmanian Aboriginal woman who makes traditional shell necklaces; sports champions; migrants and refugees; and the owner of a manufacturing company. These heroes and heroines signify that the embrace of the Tasmanian identity – and who belongs to it – is wide and welcoming.

While modest in cost, the programme is significant in impact. Belonging and aspiration are positioned as early-year assets that families can internalise and socialise. Brand Tasmania is now partnering with the University of Tasmania and the Department of Health to evaluate the program.

The Tasmanian Ideas Lab

The Tasmanian Ideas Lab is a youth enterprise programme that has been embedded into the state’s high school curriculum. It aims to help youth see and believe that they can be successful in Tasmania regardless of their background. The programme is delivered in partnership with schools and community sector actors, for young people aged 14-15. It aims to develop creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving, and to encourage participating youth to see themselves as contributing to their state’s future.

The Tasmanian Youth Story similarly foregrounds young people’s lived experience and routes it back to policymakers, making youth perspectives legible in decision spaces.

Taken together, these examples illustrate how a brand narrative can lend consistency to a place’s vision, values and lofty aims, in support of policy coherence across electoral cycles. This can render transformation more durable and far-reaching, through holistic policy frameworks that aim to remove barriers to equal opportunity from the early years on.

Source: (Brand Tasmania, n.d.[64]; Brand Tasmania, 2025[61]; Brand Tasmania, 2022[65]; Radford, 2025[66]; Tasmanian Department of Education, n.d.[67]; Tasmanian Department of Treasury, 2022[68]; Brand Tasmania, n.d.[69]; Brand Tasmania, 2025[24])

Conclusion

This chapter examines how a place narrative can come to life through implementation. The practical application of a place narrative that resonates both locally and with external audiences can generate tangible economic, social and physical outcomes. These can materialise across investment and talent attraction strategies, local economies and production ecosystems, tourism, physical regeneration, and social policies. When these processes are carried out with intent, when local communities are engaged, and potential risks are proactively managed, they can become a driver of a transformation that reinforces a positive place identity and strengthens local pride.

Places can add economic value by embedding narratives in platforms that enable local industries to differentiate their products. When applied across an ecosystem of products, industries and experiences, a place narrative gains in legitimacy and can generate value across sectors. Umbrella brands and place-of-origin markers can enable local producers to move up the value chain, differentiating their products and earning customer trust in ways that individual firms struggle to achieve alone. Examples in the chapter show how a shared brand identity can foster co-operation among firms that typically compete, functioning as a collective asset that generates broadly shared economic benefits and contributes to community wealth building.

Well-evidenced place brand narratives can enhance a place's attractiveness to investors and prospective residents. In terms of talent, the narrative can be one important tool in a broader talent attraction toolkit, that includes fostering enabling conditions like jobs and integration pathways. In addition to signalling pertinent employment opportunities, a brand can convey a place’s unique assets, including liveability and the prospect of a meaningful life, helping people to see themselves in its story.

A place narrative can support a shift towards balanced tourism that serves residents, workers and visitors alike. Many places are moving towards more balanced tourism models, rather than simply seeking more visitors. A thoughtfully constructed place narrative can actively support this shift, including by anchoring more distinctive tourism propositions that contribute to more stable, year-round employment. For example, tourism cluster activities can convene producers to strengthen linkages between local supply chains and the visitor experience, reinforcing the connection between the destination's narrative and its local economic fabric. Narratives can also be drawn on to foster synergies between tourism, talent and other strategies. For instance, in line with labour market objectives and firm recruitment needs, tourism strategies can promote a place’s quality of life to professionals visiting from neighbouring areas and regions, as a means to motivate relocation decisions.

The narrative can also gain visibility and contribute to transformation when it is embodied in the physical fabric of a place. This commonly includes reuse of industrial heritage sites, investment in symbolically significant architecture, or city-wide cultural programming. While this can enable a story to take concrete form and a place’s image to improve, importantly, it can contribute to a place’s liveability and social and economic vitality. It can create, for example, valuable cultural sites and new social infrastructure that can bring people together and foster social capital. It can also prepare property for economic activity.

However, risks of regeneration projects widening spatial inequalities and social polarisation, and weakening local identity and attachments, need to be anticipated and addressed from the outset. Some common unintended consequences can include rising property prices that displace local residents or small businesses, the loss of meaningful places that carry strong community attachments, or the sentiment that local culture is being commodified. Governments can pro-actively develop plans and deploy targeted policy mechanisms to protect access to affordable housing and property for existing residents and businesses. Furthermore, regeneration initiatives that are conceived and planned with diverse community members from the outset can help ensure developments respect a place’s identity, preserve meaningful sites of belonging and pride, and serve community needs.

Finally, narratives can also serve as a force for positive change by being drawn on to inform social policies and foster well-being. A narrative that lends consistency to a place's values can resonate with intended beneficiaries while supporting policy continuity across electoral cycles.

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