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.

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.

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.

Krakow, the second largest city in Poland and one of the most fashionable cities in Europe, had already hosted the World Volleyball Championship in 2014 and continuing this line of work, it will host the European Handball 2016 in Kraków Arena.

There is a curious combination in this city that considers as its the sport courts, the books and the Catholic faith in a spiritual fusion made for young people (only for certain young people, we should add).

Krakow Arena

So, Krakow is prepared to be the Capital of Youth 2016 and it is no strange knowing how its history was. For some time it is known as the capital of Divine Mercy -as the organizers explained- and it is also an important city in contemporary Catholicism.

A great character of Krakow was John Paul II, Pope Karol Józef Wojtyła, native from Lesser Poland (Wadowice) and archbishop of Krakow just before he became the first Polish pope.

Both the figure of the pope, who during the Cold War became an openness symbol for Soviet bloc countries, as the singular figure of Krakow, a city with free tradition that ended up being a communist productive link, were relevant in the Soviet fall and the evolution that Poland had with the advent of democracy. Two observer symbols of Polish civil society that managed to change as its neighboring countries in the recent history of Europe.

But this liberal Krakow had already silenced before the release of the Soviet army. We must not forget how this region of Poland was to be annexed and cleaned by the army of Hitler. The Nazi regime wanted Krakow to be entirely German finishing first with the Jewish inhabitants and then the Poles. In fact, in the operation Sonderaktion Krakau many academics were taken to concentration camps.

Indeed, the scene that best explains these years was the clean-up of Krakow ghetto in Shindler’s List.

Years later, after the war had finished and the People’s Republic of Poland was raised, Krakow created the Lenin Steelworks, a major production center that is now popularly known as Tadeusz Sendzimir Steelworks. Both civil claims of its employees and the aesthetics of this area of Nowa Hutta are essential to really know what the spirit of this city is and its urban identity.

Tadeusz Sendzimir Steelworks, the Lenin’s factory

With all these ingredients, Krakow carved out a very specific urban marketing these recent decades, to balance both visions that have exposed. On the one hand its tragic past and the other hand, its intentionally European future opening itself to the world.

Is it possible to create an image of a city open to the world by getting rid of a dark decades without falling into clichés of a more traditional Poland?

It is not only possible but necessary. Krakow has in Warsaw the capital of the country, but its goal is to be the national leader in the academic and cultural fields, differing from it and creating an authentic brand.

Thanks  to be a World Heritage Site by Unesco since 1978 and a European Cultural Capital in 2000, with the arrival of the millennium, Krakow has been creating a highlighted city branding.

Logos that Krakow used in recent years to relaunch its corporate image of integrated city in Europe

Currently the motto is “Krakow open city“ and one of its core values is to create fraternity among other sister cities: Curitiba, Kiev, Seville and Nanjing recently tightened ties with this Polish city.

Krakow’s partner cities

Krakow’s cultural agenda is, as we say, vibrant and unique. It was also chosen as the most attractive tourist town in Europe in 2015 and it is one of the best destinations for outsourcing as ranked by Tholons.

Current Krakow logo

The location of the city as a gateway between East and West, the quality of its trained workers and good price of its services make this a good example of a city to invest. With a great heritage, it is not surprising moreover, that such a beautiful city is well worth visiting.

This city branding is another clear example of overcoming, giving a modern image and urban identity not only differentiate other Central European cities that might be similar, but also the other major cities of the Polish country.

How is it possible that Krakow does not achieve excellence?

Partial view of Krakow

This beautiful city has a challenge ahead to actually be a completely open city. The Foundation for Tolerance of Krakow has spent years fighting for civil and social rights of the LGBT community and gender equality, and it is a clear example of “bridge” between diversity in Western European capitals and the other religious and traditional Poland.

Year after year, despite the conflicts they generate, this group aims to show the artistic and educational activities that are part of a minority (not a really minority) sector of the city, which also attracts attention from many other parts of the country and the continent.

It is not a perfect city but it is an open city. If there is a turning point and change to create a more tolerant society in Poland, this undoubtedly is Krakow.