ABSTRACT

Cities, like the people that live in them, are subject to the attention economy. Familiar social media platforms aggregate users’ tastes and reconstitute them as advertising and curated content. In this paper, I show that American cities are induced by state governments to adopt the attention-grabbing tactics of social media influencers. This is particularly evident in cultural planning as it relates to economic development. While this is a global phenomenon, I have chosen to focus on the Capital Region of New York State, a region approximately 240 kilometres north of New York City. I have chosen the Capital Region because New York's nine-year-old system of Regional Economic Development Councils highlights the competitive and often capricious environment that urbanists increasingly find themselves in. Through an analysis of planning documents, reported events and secondary sources I demonstrate how small to medium cities in Upstate New York are competing to be the purveyors of authentic urban living. I then discuss how authenticity and social media interact to create desires for consumption of identity performance. Finally, I compare the city authentic branding regime with the ‘Bilbao effect’ and show how the former can summon the effects of the latter without a ‘star’ architect.

摘要

城市，就像生活在其中的人一样，受到注意力经济的影响。熟悉的社交媒体平台聚合用户的品味，并将其重组为广告和策划内容。在本文中，我展示了美国城市在州政府的引导下采用社交媒体影响者的吸引注意力的策略。这在与经济发展相关的文化规划中尤为明显。虽然这是一个全球现象，但我选择关注纽约州首都地区，该地区位于纽约市以北约 240 公里处。我选择首都地区是因为纽约已有 9 年历史的区域经济发展委员会体系凸显了城市规划者日益发现自己所处的竞争激烈且经常反复无常的环境。 通过对规划文件的分析，报道的事件和二手资料 我展示了纽约州北部的中小城市如何竞争成为真正的城市生活的提供者。然后我讨论了真实性和社交媒体如何相互作用以创造对身份表现消费的渴望。最后，我将城市真实品牌制度与“毕尔巴鄂效应”进行了比较，并展示了前者如何在没有“明星”建筑师的情况下召唤后者的效果。