For a long time considered as the largest city in the world, now has a more than deserved 3rd place according to the UN, with 20.4 million inhabitants, the agglomeration of the Metropolitan Zone of the Valley of Mexico similar to the city of New York and behind Tokyo (37.2 million) and Delhi (22.7 million), although the World Urbanization Prospects report foresees a slower growth and considers that in this decade it will be overtaken by other megacities in developing countries.

Great Central Megalopolis of Mexico

All in all, the changes in this city were remarkable, from its economic and political history, to its cultural dimension. Mexico City is a great destination that stands out, in short, for its historical center, better known as Zócalo, which is also a World Heritage Site declared by UNESCO and that shows a great living culture, inherited from the founding of Tenochtitlan up to our contemporary times in which the Mexican people and the visitors can enjoy a great art nouveau and art deco in its architecture and an infinity of museums that make it one of the cities in the world with more exhibition offerings.

Mexico City stands out for its cultural offer

All this makes Mexico City to have clear recognitions as the Destination # 1 to travel in 2016 that gave the New York Times and also the World Capital of Design in 2018, granted by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID).

World  Design Capital promotion

This badge is offered for large projects that seek to protect and promote the importance of design in society, in addition to strengthening the design industry worldwide.

From the ICSID this biennial title is assigned in an honorary way to cities, such as the Mexican capital, that stand out for their proposals and innovation in the topics of architectural, industrial, graphic and fashion design, always applying this work in urban revitalization with a positive impact on the economy, culture, the environment and, by extension, on all citizens.

In previous editions, the winners were Turin (2008), Seoul (2008), Helsinki (2012), Cape Town (2014) and Taipei (2016). All with the same common denominator: since half the population of the planet is living in urban areas, cities increasingly depend on those who know how to plan and design spaces in an efficient and functional way. This design is an indispensable tool to make cities more attractive and improve the lives of all its inhabitants.

For 2018 an open local program is expected in Mexico City: activities and a dizzying agenda that integrates a wide variety of responsible and sustainable design initiatives. International design exhibitions, conferences, exhibition platforms specialized in local design that will place this city in the international core of the most cutting-edge creative industry.

And in these times, you also have to say goodbye to the references “defeñas” of Mexico DF as it was always known, because it does not officially exist anymore. It is Mexico City, the capital of the United States of Mexico that, after changing its legal status, becomes the country’s 32nd entity.

Mexico City, not DF, comes from being a federal district and becomes, unambiguously, a complete state, with all the benefits that include. The main change for the city and its residents is that it is now a free state and shares the sovereignty of the Republic at the same level as the other federal entities. So far the DF had been divided into 16 delegations, but now these become mayorships, with their respective mayors, Council and their election is done with three-year law.

The same of the other states, Mexico City drafts its own constitution and with all this, it will enjoy greater financial stability by being able to benefit from federal funds like the other states.

External activities of the CDMX

It still retains the nation’s capital and the headquarters of the Union Powers, which is a great advantage. This is a profound change for the whole country of Mexico that adapts to the social and urban challenges of the 21st century.

The acronyms are others. We went from DF to CDMX, in a communication and branding campaign that few cities have. There were several actions as for example to launch balloons with the abbreviations in the European festivals of Spain, France and the United Kingdom, to logotype airplanes, appear at film festivals and reinforce the presence of this urban brand in all types of government communication.

Campaign to launch CDMX in the original hot air balloon

Change of naming without changing the urban essence of the territory, but helping its citizens to be a reference of vanguard, design and cooperation with the rest of the inhabitants of the country.

A great success for the city that will make 2018 undoubtedly a magnificent year.

It is the capital of South Australia and a key point of sophisticated Australian culture. Known in its origins as the “City of Churches“, it always stood out for its open character and free colonization of convicts, a status that helped to forge an idea of peaceful, constructive community and proud to found a new social group in the antipodes of Europe when this territory was the end of the planet.

More than 75% of the inhabitants of the Federal State live in Adelaide, which is extreme- even for Australia – , and its social cohesion and services have made it one of the most livable cities on the planet, specifically the 6th in the last classification of 2016.

Adelaide is recognized in Australia for its vibrant cultural and leisure agenda

 Adelaide is internationally recognized for its art, wine and sport festivals. A self-made city that knew how to get out of the industrial crisis and create new attractive proposals for residents, visitors and companies that want to invest in the city.

A city that welcomes people of all kinds of race, origin and religion, as we said, it comes from the origins of the founders of South Australia whose vision of religious tolerance forged a new attractive colony for a great diversity of religious practitioners, starting with English dissidents who had suffered religious persecution in England.

The first escapees were the Cornish Methodists, the Unitarians, particularly some intellectuals like Catherine Henen Spence or Robert Kay, and also Prussian Lutherans.

Seventh-day Adventists and Christadelphians, who were minorities even in America, also came to Adelaide later, although the greatest diversity, such as Australia’s own multiculturalism, came hand-in-hand with waves of immigrants: from the Mediterranean and Eastern European countries gave rise to new Orthodox creeds, Catholics and also Eastern religions by the Chinese community.

Something extraordinary about this city is that in the last decades the faith has not only diversified, but some practices have been merged and new ones have been created, represented for example by the Multi-Faith Association, Queer spirituality conference or modern societies that go beyond religion such as the Pagan Society, the Humanist Society and the Atheist Society of South Australia.

Moseley Square, Adelaide

The city of churches, on the other hand, did not turn Adelaide into a pilgrimage center for worship services. Its city branding revolves around melting pot and progress within diversity. The communities of citizens of Adelaide do not concentrate on ghettos of religion, but quite the opposite, and that also helped to the technological and social advances that enriched the Australian development.

From the technological point of view, another attraction is the city’s digital agenda. An agreement between the State Government of South Australia and the City of Adelaide deployed a comprehensive public WiFi network throughout the city.

It was then when Cisco came in with the help of the authorities, they began to consider how it was possible that digitization could improve the provision of services to citizens: monitored smart parking or smart lighting to replace halogen bulbs and with sensors that adjust the light to factors such as the time of day and the movement nearby.

There are many other projects that Adelaide wants to focus on but the City Council and Cisco are clear that to be successful, all smart city projects need to be driven to meet the needs of residents and visitors. Apart from improving everyday actions these projects may also reduce our ecological footprint in the city.

Adelaide Oval

However, it should be noted that Adelaide can become an ideal smart city for two reasons. On the one hand, the association between the state government and the municipal council that commits the authorities to collaborate effectively to promote the common good of the entire community; and on the other hand, the size of the city in relation to the level of innovation of the parties involved, ideal to be able to realize today the transition from analog city to digital city.

Today we can speak of a good example of a collaborative city with the aim of having “zero residues”, great goal, but with solutions in place so that it does not remain in a simple statement of good intentions.

An example of this, and to create a more concise and efficient city, Share N Save was born, a platform to visualize neighborhood to neighborhood, all activities available in the city to share, save, exchange, repair and connect with local communities. It is a way of mapping a city and uniting its citizens, initiative of Green Industries SA.

This public company under the state government of South Australia helps to develop a green economy in response to the demand of clean and ecological products by the citizens and thus, be able to reduce emissions to the air, water and soil of heavy industry. In short, Green Industries promotes the most efficient use of resources and also the conservation and recovery of scarce resources.

Cleland Wildlife Park, Adelaide Hills

All this explanation of Adelaide is finally summed up in a simple logo with an open door which is a traditional symbol of hope or opportunity, a simple way of welcome. This is the logo of the state of South Australia, which also represents Adelaide as it concentrates practically all its population and services.

Adelaide logo under the South Australian brand

Its values and attributes focus on creativity, innovation and industriousness, three attributes that define the essence of South Australia and Adelaide and which seek to be a claim for investment from outside Australia, from the island itself and that link all its residents.

Crossed by the Han River, the conurbanization of Seoul, Goyang and also Incheon has been the central axis of the Korean economic miracle since 1953 until today: its strong industrialization process and the great development of the new leading technologies have raised the quality of life of all South Koreans and also create this megacity, becoming a developed economy.

South Korea’s urban growth

It is therefore important to speak of the Metropolitan Government of Seoul which covers the entire region, and it is in charge of managing its already recognized urban brand. We have to go back to the 2002 World Cup in which this institution first introduced the concept of urban marketing.

Over the years and after rigorous studies, the city of Seoul brought out in 2007 its first promotional campaign with the goal of attracting 12 million foreign tourists and thus reach the ranking of the 10 main city brandings.

Since then Seoul’s growth and popularity has continued to grow and is expected to reach 20 million foreign tourists and become the third global destination of fair cities (MICE).

Attractions of a visit in Seoul

Anyway, Seoul is a large city with its urban environment that has had different campaigns and slogans over the last few years, but maintaining the values and meaning of the brand of the metropolitan area, previously developed in 1996.

Emblem of the great metropolitan area of Seoul

This logo is based on the Korean letters of the word Seoul using a mountain, the sun and the Han River, seeking to create a humanoid figure that shows joy and represents the spirit of its own citizens.

These elements also represent the respect for the environment with the mountain, the blue of the Han river represents history and vitality, and finally the sun in the central part symbolizes the vision of the city that looks to the future.

This symbol is used consistently as the flag of Seoul, in public buildings, signs, corporate material and official documents, and we should not confuse it with the promotional campaigns that complement it.

Seoul always wanted to see other examples of large metropolis representing its own nation states and without which these countries would not have the global recognition they now enjoy.

In 2015, the Seoul Metropolitan Government went further. They had to renew the previous image of Hi Seoul, which had been so successful, and this time they wanted to turn the decision of the winning logo into a participatory process in which the citizenship itself proposed the image and the public would vote it.

In fact, online voting ultimately accounted for 50% of the election, the other face-to-face vote 25% and the valuation of a professional committee, the other 25%.

Eventually I Seoul U won, which is very reminiscent of other successful city brandings using a mix of the city’s own name like I love New York, I Amsterdam or Be Berlin.

Winning application

 “Between people, there is Seoul”, that was the original idea that summarized the message of this new commercial logo of the South Korean capital

Between “you” and “I,” among citizens, and among people all around the world Seoul is at the center of all relationships.  Seoul is a city where diverse nationalities and generations, mountains and rivers, ancient palaces and skyscrapers, and all disparate elements coexist in harmony.

In the Seoul logo it fills the space of two points that represent the passion and the relaxion, and even being the game of words in English, there is an integration between the Korean “ㅇ” and the western “O”. Unambiguously it gives this coexistence with the rest of the world while the Koreans take pride in their cultural particularities.

And in this decade, moreover, if something is characterized by Seoul is to be able to bring technology to the world, being one of the smartest cities on the planet.

Seoul is a constantly changing city

The interconnectedness of the city, the openness of its institutions and the improvement of all its limited resources have made the metropolis a benchmark of everything that can be done in this 21st century: streets that recharge electric vehicles when they are circulating through them, free internet access throughout the city, sensors that measure and improve the environment and commercial services in the canopies of urban buses.

If something can be done with a mobile, it is sure to have been tested in Seoul. If something can be communicated under a city idea, you will surely see it in Seoul.

It has an advantage, not because of its location, but by a history that pushed it to have a set of World Heritage buildings: The Hill of Fourvière with its Roman theater and the Basilica of Notre-Dame, Old Lyon (Vieux Lyon) of medieval times, and La Croix-Rousse and Presqu’île marked by its industrial evolution to the present.

Monumental Lyon on the banks of the Rhone

Up to these modern times we come with a long history of great technological and innovative challenges (banking, printing, engineering, chemistry, medicine) from medieval times to the contemporary age. Reflection of the strength of knowledge that is observed in the most avant-garde and attractive buildings, marking a clear identity of the Lyon city, unique in all France.

An example of this urbanism is the majestic Cité Internationale (International City) of Renzo Piano. This contemporary district is a crossroads of the services sector of the city of Lyon, a major tourist attraction and a pole of cultural movement for all residents: offices, conference rooms, cinemas and auditoriums, hotels, Museum of Contemporary Art of Lyon and much more.

Sculpture by Xavier Veilhan at the Congress Center of the Cité Internationale

It hosts international meetings at its Congress Center and it is even the headquarters of Interpol, bringing together in a single city an innovative character of research and an international vision of its urban relations.

From here we also highlight the presence in Lyon city of Euronews, with their offices that draw attention to their outstanding forms and this is a meaningful image of the city. This communication channel was created in 1993 by SOCIEME to give informative coverage to all the countries of Europe and the Mediterranean basin in 13 languages, being the news channel most seen on the European continent today. A mass-media giant in Lyon is a true example of the attraction of foreign sources in the field of innovation and technology in this French city.

Euronews Headquarters in La Confluence Neighborhood

The success of the city and its urban brand are currently well coordinated through Only Lyon, a consortium that manage Lyon’s city branding in a very participatory and transversal way, being a case of success of the place marketing in Europe.

This platform emerged in 2007 as an institutional tool of several public partners (Lyon City Council, University of Lyon, CCI Lyon, Eurexpo, ADERLY, etc.) and private partners (Renault, KPMG, JCDecaux, Veolia or Emirates among others) in a collaborative and transparent governance system.

The main purpose was to enhance the national and international image of Lyon to stand out in the global urban rankings, very oriented to those who visit it mainly from great metropolis of Europe and from emerging countries.

The good use of social networks and communication campaigns comes from the hand of Lionel Flasseur who gave a pioneering vision with digital marketing strategies to an urban project in the use of social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin) being also the first city to create its own network of urban promoters with Only Lyon ambassadors, a very original way of enhancing membership in Lyon’s urban space, both for those who reside there permanently, as those who visit it to study, to travel, to research and to work, to feel it and to end up being the true current influencers, whose mission is to promote the city as a “unique and exceptional” place, to detect opportunities for new projects and contribute to publicize its city branding. All this in exchange for receiving regular information on the urban agenda, participating in Lyon events and meetings of Only Lyon outside the city and also to be able to contact to more than 23,500 ambassadors that have joined today.

Addicted to Lyon campaign focused on Lyon ambassadors

The current image of the Only Lyon promotional platform is reminiscent of the existing Grand Lyon, which took corporate colors and the lion. Moreover this logo was also seen in different places of the city in an action of dynamization that helped to push the urban mark and to interact with it.

3D Logo of Only Lyon

More than once, the simple municipal term is not enough, and the concept of city that we have goes beyond its limits, as it is the case of all the urban zone that passes the Greater Lyon. In addition, the concepts of space precisely are obsolete according to the consideration that the old city had until now.

From the Roman ruins to become the best French city in technology and the first Smart city, Lyon was able to attract talent and adapt to each of the historical circumstances that it faced.

These circumstances in the information age also turn into great opportunities. It is fundamental the use of images, the collaboration of citizens and the interaction with the messages to make the city feel as the Lyonians have done. It is a unique example of city branding in a town, not small, but eclipsed by the central and universal Paris.

With a clear intention to communicate, a city that is not a state capital can be in the top positions of the international rankings with a basic strategy of explaining the urban product updated to the current digital media.

Pike Place Market is an open place for the public in which artisans, merchants and local producers meet.

The city is very lively and it has high standards of quality that are shown in their lifestyle and also in their respect for the environment.

The Green Seattle Partnership is a partnership between the City of Seattle, Forterra, nonprofit community groups, businesses, schools and a large number of volunteers working together to restore and maintain the tree parks of city.

Seattle Parks

In fact, Forterra stands out for its environmental commitment that beyond the conservation of forests and urban green spaces, it also recognizes the need to safeguard the land, not as a museum piece, but as a useful element in each of the functions that the soil can have: wild lands, lands of work or simply open spaces for the health and welfare of the whole community.

Apart from Seattle, which is the city where it is based, Forterra is present throughout the State of Washington being there the leader in the awareness and the preservation of nature, also emphasizing its divulgation in Ellensburg and Tacoma.

The Green Seattle Partnership seeks, however, to leave a natural legacy for future generations and, in the short term, to conserve the urban forests as they improve the quality of life and give a cleaner environment and the possibility of everybody to enjoy nature close at hand.

The parks help clean the urban air in a very simple way. All trees can capture carbon dioxide and thus help remove soot and other pollutants, highlighting the role of Seattle conifers that grow year-round and that on average capture more than 13 tons of carbon dioxide per acre of trees.

On a mental level, the citizen who has near trees can see reduced stress, increased creativity and memory and it has been shown that spending time close by nature leads to an increase in empathy capacity making us more generous and decreasing the aggresiveness. This is a green weapon within reach of any city that Seattle has been able to use very well.

Washington State has many open spaces between cities and its metropolitan areas have large parks that for many residents without means (including time) are their main contact with nature, but this requires the collaboration of social, public and private actors for their proper protection.

This colorful green does not go unnoticed with respect to the rest of the country that sees Seattle as a North American lung.

Nature and origins that define the present urban shield.

Formerly Seattle was known as the Queen City although currently it is known as the Emerald City as a reference to all its number of green forests in its metropolitan area. Also its slogan for many decades was the City of Goodwill that would give place in 1990 to the second edition in this city of the Games of the Friendship, more internationally known like the Goodwill Games, just after its inauguration in Moscow, which was a multi-sport event created to seek good relations with the disappeared Soviet Union in the Cold War with the participation of 54 countries and the message of “Uniting the world’s best”. Thanks to the Goodwill Games Seattle not only gave an image of a bridge city between two worlds right at the beginning of the global era we now live, but at the local level there were a number of singular urban adaptations such as the King County Aquatic Center or the Husky Stadium.

Medal of Historical Goodwill Games.

Apart from the sports competitions, cultural activities also took place under the umbrella of the Goodwill Games Arts Festival where there was an exchange of art, entertainment, dance and science between the two economic blocks of the moment.

This event can be understood thanks to the openness of Seattle as one of its main values.

As for the visual, if Seattle has always standed out is for its unique skyline.

The city branding has always used – when it was possible –  internationally recognized monuments or buildings that in the case of Seattle has been and is the Needle Space adapted in all its urban iconography. It has been crowning Seattle for 50 years and it is 184 meters tall, and due to its location outside the center skyscrapers makes it stand out prominently in most promotional snapshots.

Seattle Space Needle in the city panorama.

In the middle of the digital era, the city of Seattle shows a renewed corporate brand. That has been the clear intention of Visit Seattle that presents a clean aesthetic, without any pretensions, with the emerald green color as the main emblem of the city and with a slight game of letters reminiscent of the mountains and architecture of the city but escaping from commercial clichés that have used other brands that are limited to using the beauty of its panorama as logos to explode.

Renovated corporate image of Visit Seattle.

Seattle is flora, it is a commitment to dialogue between cultures and it is respect for life and the citizen. One of the best cities to live in the United States and a key location for North American development and today for good neighborliness with Canada and the Pacific, and by extension, with the whole world.

Currently, apart from being the capital of Peru, it is also the political, cultural and financial center highlighting the other parts of the country, since its metropolitan area comprises 30% of the total population.

Lima residents in the city center

In the 20th century the historic center of Lima underwent a modernization and its population growth finally came to deteriorate in the late 70’s and 80’s when the traffic did damage the image of the city and the tranquility of pedestrians.

Original Pizarro’s Chess Board

To avoid some of this deterioration and promote recovery by the Peruvian authorities, UNESCO declared World Heritage the Convent of San Francisco in 1988 and three years later included the entire area of the historic center of Lima thanks to the originality of its plane and more than 600 monuments that one can find in what is known as Pizarro’s Chess Board. From this change of mind at the time of Alberto Andrade Carmona, Lima city experienced the recovery of all its architectural heritage, reducing crime and it was the key element for the start of the recuperation of a more walkable capital and with less pollution for the citizens.

Currently the corporate image of Lima is being developed, as the authorities are seeing the opportunities that are created to attract international investment in projects that are in progress, and what is on the table is, on the one hand, turn away from the own brand Peru, already exploited and reporting directly to the central government, and also, as was indicated by Armando Andrade, President of Interbrand and Pragma group and Head of the future brand-Lima  it is wanted  that “Citizens of Lima to stand and do Lima the city Peruvians and the world deserves”, also clarifying that it has to ward off the gastronomic clichés that has labeled the urban image and to focus on new more cross contemporary values.

PromPeru logo that includes all Peruvian cities

Meanwhile, the city of Lima grows in every way and also its outside promotion. Like the Olympic Games, the Pan American Games are a quadrennial sporting event but as its name suggests is held only with the participation of countries of the American continent. Has been held since Buenos Aires 1951 and in many cases it was a boost to global Olympic bids as it was Rio  in its celebration of the 2007 Pan American Games, a prelude to the Olympics 2016 in regard to facilities, events and receiving countries and athletes.

Recently it was held in Toronto (2015), but in the edition of 2019 in Lima is where we will see a massive change in the Peruvian capital.

It is important at this point to explain what this Master Plan 2019 is. The Lima city is adapting its entire vial, sport and hotel infrastructure to meet the challenge of the Pan American Games. Its main project in the sporting arena is the creation of a stadium for athletics, one for baseball, a velodrome and a new sports pavilion, and furthermore as it is logical in these projects, a large area of accommodation for sports teams and a medical area. These facilities will remain in the hands of the Peruvian population, as well as improving mass transit, that is comfortable and that gives confidence to national and international  visitors of this event.

Master Plan facilities

The spatial reorganization that involves a sporting event like this always has an impact which will benefit the long-term future of the city as well as its new urban image and identity, leading opportunities for integration, sustainability and urban improvement.

Thus, the main objective is incentive afterwards new program opportunities to strengthen this condition of urban space:

• A first-level sports infrastructure with an image and unique identity, linked to history and local culture.
• Green areas that are integrated into the city reassessing vacant and abandoned areas that Lima has now.
• Public spaces for social integration to help improve the quality of life of the surrounding neighborhoods.

To promote Lima brand and its Pan American Games it was presented a modern image that would help contextualize Peru with all its cultural background in the Latin American context.

Official Logo

The new logo is represented by Amancae flower that combines history, culture and tradition of the Pan American community with joy that surrounds the sport. The identity of the city is reflected in the colors and pistils that unite the Peruvian capital with the rest of the participating nations in the Americas. Its creation comes from the hand of the artists Juan Diego Sanz and Jorge Luis Zarate.

Specifically, it asserts that Amancae flower represents three athletes with open arms and the three Americas with the deepest and most remote identity of the ancient city of Lima.

Lima and the challenges of sustainable growth

The Pan American Games will be ultimately much more than a whitewash of the city. It is not only the creation of a differentiated own urban identity of the rest of the country, but it is improving a city that will be very influential, as an emerging capital that it is, in the next decade and that will target Lima residents in the new approach to its urban development.

This small town on the banks of the Alps did not suffered completely the ethnic conflict of the Yugoslav disintegration and could benefit from the launch of the European Union.

Art Nouveau Façade

The wounds of history and its passage by different empires are part of its urban personality. The medieval plot continues to dominate the planning of a typical Central European city, which also breathes a magnificent art nouveau influenced by the Austro-Hungarian Empire that made it to be called the Vienna of the Balkans.

Today, it is also an edgy, modern and green city, responding to urban challenges of the XXI century.

Ljubljana replaces Bristol as European Green Capital in 2016. The Slovenian capital is proud to have come to get this award reaching the final and beating Essen, Nijmegen, Oslo and Umeå.

Panorama of the city of Ljubljana

This year, then, it is the capital city and serves as a model of green action, sharing their best practices with other cities. Is the European Commission which recognizes and rewards cities that best dealing with the environment and the common life of its inhabitants, being an expert jury which evaluates each city depending on twelve different environmental criteria, ranging from sustainable uses until waste management.

It is not the first award in the environmental category and in 2015 it received the Tourism for Tomorrow Award on the meeting of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) as the destination more sustainable approach. The city has specialized, in addition to cultural tourism, in a range of environmental tourism closely linked with nature.

With regard to transportation, since 2013 Ljubljana radically changed its system from being a city dominated by cars, to be a town where you can walk with a more limited traffic, promoting public transport. It has its own public bike system that is compatible with the urban bus system, known as BicikeLJ. Although really the Kavalir is the most curious system and it makes Ljubljana a town unique and exclusive with an electric vehicle traveling in the pedestrian streets and main streets with traffic restrictions that can be used not only by tourists but citizens from Ljubljana with reduced mobility who can not walk.

Bicyclists and users of Kavalir in the center of Ljubljana

We are talking about the Slovenian capital is also the European city with the highest percentage of separate waste. Another milestone is the fact that Ljubljana want, thanks to its Zero Waste program, to be the first European city to achieve not have urban waste and specifically reach 2025 with at least ¾ of the waste were separated. The project is likewise based on the reuse of objects for citizens to give them a second chance to those materials that used to throw.

With them we arrive to the challenge of Ljubljana 2025, which is based all cultural and environmental activities of local administration: “Vision 2025“.

This new view of the city, besides being a great urban brand, it shows what is the city to its own residents and expectations they have on their future.

Urban brand of Ljubljana promotion

A city, as the organizers say, who will be manageable and comfortable in its historical legacy shared with the green spaces that characterize it: The well-groomed image of public spaces and beautiful architecture will remain its major urban values.

This implies, therefore, protect and redesign as necessary the historic center while the modern city will be encouraged to change in order to improve innovation. Both facets of the city is not demarcated to compete but rather to complement.

As for the social cohesion of the city it will also be taken into account in the proposed creation of a vanguard city where civil society uses forms of self-organization to deal with public affairs and to open new channels of participation that also include NGOs in solving urban issues that a current council does not always come. It is a way to improve the conviviality while the decentralization of activities is encouraged, bearing in mind that this project also aims not only to make Ljubljana a more livable city in the next decade, but also be a new magnet that attracts young people and foreign population to slow aging population.

Ljubljana parks are for people and culture

The principles governing this project are summarized as follows:

• The city will be manageable and comfortable, belonging always last residents.
• The historic city will be protected and restored as needed requiring the historical district.
• The old city renewed will receive young residents and workforce to stem the loss of population in some neighborhoods.
• The parks and public gardens also remade according to the new streetscape design.
• In line with the anticipated aging population, a network of apartments and day centers will be created to offer different services to this sector of the population.

Ljubljana has already advanced in many ways, for example, in its green areas covering three quarters of its municipal territory and has been preserved by planting more than 2,000 trees and the construction of five new parks and restoring the banks of the rivers Sava and Ljublijanica.

And of course, we should mention the District Heating, an air conditioning system itself that gives even greater value to their energy efficiency and that is in a cogeneration system that distributes heating and gas into neighborhoods improving eco-efficiency: they have reduced sulfur dioxide emissions 40 times in the last two decades.

Visit Ljubljana and “Wow” campaign

Ljubljana is what it was and what its inhabitants have wanted it to be: a city in peace, full of live and exemplary for the rest of Europe and the world.

Puducherry offers an incredible confluence of the ancestral heritage and modern progress. The old French flavor is clearly visible in the well-laid gardens, magnificent churches, historical monuments, splendid mansions, and clean and wide roads, which still has French names.

French colonial architecture

This dual personality is its DNA and the city branding that make it special and unique within the Indian territory.

Puducherry has always absorbed different cultural and religious festivities. For example, the festival Kinni Radhothsavam in the Kamatchiamman Temple or  the International Yoga Festival. Since Puducherry is the former colony of France, the influence of French culture is evident in architecture, cuisine and lifestyle of the inhabitants of Puducherry. The influence of the neighboring states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala is mixed in this heterogeneous culture.

Yogafest official image

The union territory of Puducherry has a rich cosmopolitan culture. In this city, its inhabitants speak French and English, besides Tamil and Telugu. Its colonial past makes some of the schools in Puducherry use French as the lingua franca and an another interesting fact about the town of Puducherry is that half of the territory’s population has dual nationality both French and Indian.

Posters in French

Within the metropolitan area of Puducherry we highlight a unique and spiritual space called Auroville, several kilometers north of the city. This is a community that started in 1968 as an experimental population of “Mother” (a French woman named Mirra Alfassa, the first that came to the area in 1914) in order to realize human unity, or as Alfassa indicated, creating a “place in an international community life, where men and women learn to live in peace, harmony, beyond all beliefs, political opinions and nationalities.”

Auroville planned by Roger Anger

An inalienable place that does not belong to any nation and a place where all human beings can live freely as citizens of the world.

The original idea was presented at the UN and also at the Indian Government in 1965 and the guiding principles in this community were marked until today:

1. Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one must be the willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.
2. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
3. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
4. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.

This spirituality, which includes Auroville, and cultural events that we have exposed have made Puducherry a film reference.

Recently, the city was known to the world by the successful film “Life of Pi” (Ang Lee, 2012) which tells the story of young Pi Molitor Patel in an adventure that takes place initially in his town, Puducherry, which is the backdrop for many of the sequences of Life of Pi that were filmed in this city such as Pi’s childhood in the French quarter of Aayi Mandapam or scenes in the zoo run by the protagonist’s father, that really is the Garden Botanical city.

This film helps to show the colonial part of the city, the quiet life that was lived in the early 70’s and other delights in the middle of its urban nature, a showcase for breaking the Indian clichés, and we are sure that it has helped to promote Puducherry in Western cinema halls.

In addition Puducherry throughout its metropolitan complex with its exclaves in the rest of the Indian mainland formed a territorial union with other urban municipalities such as Oulgaret, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam. They also have been nominated as Smart Cities for the Indian Government.

Exclaves of Puducherry including Yanam in the North, Mahe in the west coast of the subcontinent and Karaika, the nearest in the South.

At a federal level this urban territory carried out various improvements to enter into the optimum cities of the Indian Union such as the provision of sanitation of public water in homes, improvement that began in 2011, and also improving public accounts that are audited to improve urban transparency. For this civic accountability, the municipal corporation also began to show the public accounts of recent years so that any taxpayer can check how their taxes go, something new in the cities of India.

Gandhi monument

Specifically, in Puducherry we have to pay special attention to the municipal district of Oulgaret (Ozhukarai). In this town a pilot program has been planned to see voting the opinion of people regarding areas to promote within the smart city of Puducherry: urban waste management, TIC and e-government, monitoring the entrances and exits of the city, intelligent tourism, urban mobility, traffic management , monitoring of public transport by GPS and smart electricity meters and water supply.

Of all these, the points most voted by the majority will be included in the Smart City project carried out by the consulting firm Mahindra with the Country Planning Department of Puducherry in order to carry out a master plan pioneer in the history of this urban environment.

The city is renewed maintaining its charm to draw attention of the traveler. This year the Pondicherry Tourism Departament wanted to make a special and modern promotion of this urban brand that invites visitors of Pondy to forget everything, relax and discover the sensory pleasures of this part of India, under the message “Give time a break“.

A striking and unique place that awakens all the senses and brings spirituality, peace and history, as an example of intercultural coexistence.

Since then this town of 30,000 people passed within a few decades to become an industrial and financial megacity with a population of over 12 million.

Comparison of Shenzhen in two decadess

Shenzhen currently has the highest skyscrapers and shopping malls in an excruciating growth that often even implies having no space for the remaining terms of the construction of buildings and undergrown. Most appliances sold around the world are assembled in Shenzhen and its province of Guangdong, and the area also has been having a strong international reputation as a magnet for technology entrepreneurs and has been designated as one of the hubs of start-ups that will stand out in the future.

However, we see the pros and cons of this growth. Everything has been due to the designation at the time of Shenzhen as the first Special Economic Zone involving preferential treatment to foreign investment and it gave as a result, and as symbolism of the explosive development of China in the middle of globalization, a series of collateral injuries such as overcrowding, corruption, a polluted environment and the real lack of transparency in municipal law and labor rights of many of its workers, who produce our goods for western countries.

Going a few thousand inhabitants to more than 10 million has led to certain demographic changes that could explain the philosophy of this city and its own urban brand. Naturally, in this short period of time, the migrant population is 99%, very forwarder and complicated to measure accurately to official statistics, which hampers decision making and how to provide public services.

Skyscrapers de Shenzhen

Years ago, in 1989, before the arrival of the last decade of the twentieth century, Shenzhen aspired to grow a lot and from their 30 thousand go to a million over those ten years, but growth expectations multiplied exponentially and all urban planning made in the medium term remained insufficient. The housing grew chaotically and villages were formed in the inner city, built by the newcomers farmers .

Evolution of the population in Shenzhen

A new multifunctional concept appears in this Asian megacity: apartments blocks become makeshift housing for work seekers who can spend short periods of time or stay in Shenzhen lifetime. Car parks become markets, abandoned factories become schools for children not registered and the arrival of new families does not stop, involving a superhuman effort  for the citizens who can not enjoy  the benefits of development or do it asymmetrically, in  one of the largest cities in the world.

The discussion Chinese authorities have now  in order to try to make Shenzhen a more livable city is or destroy these independent urban villages or restore them, as these “vibrant communities” were the soul to the whole city, they should be participants of the new process of transformation.

After decades of rapid urbanization, China is being aware of the impact for the future the urban boom of the past decades and finally, after almost 4 decades of frenetic growth, the office of urban policy was created to launch the guide of future development for cities.

China’s urban population rose from 20 to 57% and this boom made cities like Shenzhen to go over a core with small buildings to the merger of several sub-cities and towns, making also difficult internal communication between these urbanized areas without a car.

The new urban discipline includes some basic points to revitalize existing spaces and turn them into more sustainable areas:

1. Dense and narrow streets network: To improve the transport network, the ability to walk, and the social fabric of urban neighborhoods. This process will be done in part by breaking superblocks with narrower streets one-way.
2. Historic Preservation: To save what remains of the architectural heritage of the country and to preserve the historic architecture that differentiates a city from another.

Shenzhen contrasts

3. Expand public transport networks: Shenzhen must also continue to improve its public transport network to make it more efficient.
4. Increase public and green space: It seeks to create a more livable and healthy city.
5. Efficient and high quality construction: Buildings of Shenzhen and of many other cities have been built with low quality materials and are now obliged to use techniques more efficient for a environmentally beneficial result.
6. Urban growth boundaries and reducing expansion: Shenzhen has been the paradigmatic example of growth without measure and the new approach will involve putting a brake on urban sprawl to be more sustainable.

Shenzhen pollution Day: City Hall

The current goal of Shenzhen is to reduce the average annual air quality index from 38 to 35 over the next three years. Shenzhen ranks first in air quality among major cities in China, however, the city experienced a severe pollution throughout the 2000s.

Shenzhen has shown that sustainability can be compatible with growth. Incomes per capita of Shenzhen now exceed three times the national average, while the intensity of carbon emissions per unit of GDP is almost the lowest in the big cities of China. The consumption of petrol and diesel has continued to decline over the past two years.

Shenzhen citizens in a shopping street

It all depends on the intent of their leaders and the first steps we are seeing they are really taking effect: There are about 6,300 new energy vehicles – taxis and buses – on the street. Shenzhen also attaches importance to energy saving measures, for example, new buildings must have approved a plan of energy saving before construction.

There are signs of serious intent to turn Shenzhen into a city for its inhabitants, whether residents, visitors or workers. We hope that their fruits are collected in this new decade with sustainable urban development.

Because creating an image of city must have several factors in Bristol we have a unique cocktail, despite its midsize as discussed below: history, finance, art, development and transportation that make it different from other urban cores.

First, Bristol has a large number of groups known in what at the time was called Bristol Sound, such as Tricky, Portishead or Massive Attack.

Massive Attack, reference in the Bristol Sound

Without this music scene the 90s and electronic music would not have been the same. The trip-hop was the main style and numerous international bands were based on it. The city began to be a unique urban conception in the mature and diversified British music market.

On the other hand, Bristol can be proud of a solidarity background. In the XVIII century we found the character of Hannah More, a writer, religious and philanthropist originalte in this city, that apart from its great literary work she was known by good social works. It was at a time when Bristol opened overseas trade with slave labor, when this loyal defender of the abolition conducted major campaigns against the slavery.

From the Hannah Moore’s abolition of slavery to current policies integrations in Bristol

Their good work is part of the urban identity of Bristol and it helps to understand the idiosyncrasies of this city. A solidarity that goes beyond the streets and engage in global projects.

Today we have got Triodos Bank, the independent European bank, which has its UK headquarters, not in London, but in the city of Bristol, the basis of all this urban brand. This organization promotes the renewal of the financial system itself through a banking model values, using the money from their customers to give loans to socially responsible companies and cultural, environmental and social associations.

But one thing that identifies Bristol is its ecological spirit, this is the real city branding. For bristolians surely it’s no surprise that Bristol has been ranked No. 1 city in the sustainability of other British cities, based on criteria such as environmental development, quality of life, recycling or biodiversity. It is said by the Forum for the Future 2008, also the Sunday Times, which states that Bristol is the best city to live throughout Britain or Europe award given as the European Green Capital 2015.

Bristol, European Green Capital

The Association of the Green Capital of Bristol is an independent organization with more than 800 institutions that share as goal to make Bristol a city with very low carbon content and high quality of life for all. It emerged in 2014 established itself as a company of common interest and today it continues encouraging collaboration among its members, creating collaborative spaces (both real and virtual), promote excellence, critical thinking and citizen participation as main channel “using many voices to carry out an exceptional defense.”

Green Bristol: parks and neighbors

With all this, it was awarded with the prize of the European Green Capital. The intent of this award was to support and encourage European cities to improve their environment, with their own initiatives and innovative efforts to achieve a healthy urban environment. This award recognizes their good work to local authorities with greater environmental awareness.

Bristol can get this great community award in 2015 thanks to the achievement of these points:

• Demonstrate an established track record of compliance with environmental standards.
• Commit to achieving ambitious targets to further improve the environment and sustainable development
• Being a rol model and part of a growing group of cities that have as objetive to inspire and promote best practices to other European urban cores.

The recognition of this urban environmental brand was made on the basis of a technical and independent assessment based on an offer made by the City of Bristol and the Bristol Green Capital Partnership whose members led a major campaign to raise awareness of its own citizens.

Another example of sustainability: More than a transversal activity, we can talk about Sustrans as an environmental institution born in Bristol.

It was in 1977 when a pioneering group created Cyclebag as an initiative to raise awareness of the depedency on the private car and its ecological impact. Besides the launch of cycle paths, also they encouraged the railways, first between Bristol and Bath, and then more routes (Green routes) in the rest of Britain.

Green Routes by train from Bristol

In the 90s, when the NGO made Sustrans official, the group detail a number of urban and rural projects to create safe routes, display campaigns that continue raising awareness today to British citizenship to travel walking, cycling or by public transportation.

Sustrans vision is that by 2020 4 out of 5 local journeys to be made by bike, foot or public transport, that is double the current figure. Bristol is certainly an example and perhaps the first English city to get it.

Sustrans: Bristol citizens cycling

The role Bristol citizens have had in recent decades has been key in order to become environmental reference in Europe and we are confident that it is a case study to progress towards a better society.