CityEvents


Book Description

Large international events like the Olympic Games put cities on the world map. CityEvents, place selling in a Media Age addresses the question how cities have been raising their profile internationally by hosting large international events throughout the twentieth century. It explores this question by introducing the CityEvent model. This model allows for the study of large international events from a threefold perspective, analytically integrating the roles of the media, host cities and event owners with each other. By means of this model, developments and transformations in the hosting of events are reconstructed in relation to historical developments in the media. This thesis provides a history of event-based place selling and simultaneously offers insights into the hosting of current and future events. The cities of Amsterdam, Berlin and Helsinki, both as hosts of the Olympic Games and as European Capitals of Culture, feature as case studies.




My City Links: October 2023 Issue


Book Description

Odisha has as many hues of culture as it has living examples of heritage and tradition handed down to the generations. Our Cover Story for this edition celebrates one such practice which comes alive in Puri every year. While the Jagannath Dham Rath Jatra may be better known globally, the ‘Gosani Jatra’ dedicated to the worship of Goddess Durga is no less important when it comes to the Hindu calendar. Organized during Durga Puja and Dussehra, the Gosani Jatra is a tradition that has continued uninterrupted since the twelfth century. Read on to learn more about what the event entails and the significance of all the practices and rituals associated with it. Our ‘Life of a Boss’ section features Nilanjana Mukherjee. As Managing Director of Kalinga Hospital Limited, she has been setting new benchmarks in the healthcare sector. In a free-wheeling interview, she talks to us about her formative years and the switch from the hospitality industry to the healthcare sector. Over the years, the Showcase Odisha Awards have become a keenly-awaited event. The 9th edition of this initiative to celebrate the exceptional achievements of Odias in India and abroad was held in Hyderabad recently. We bring you a report on the event which honoured individuals from diverse backgrounds, ranging from sports to the corporate world. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental issue in children. It is in this sphere that the Zain Foundation Trust has been trying to make a difference, by creating awareness and working towards building a more inclusive community. We bring you more about this in the City Health section. City Lights brings you excerpts from a recent episode of ‘Our Change Leaders’ where My City Links hosted senior Indian Police Service officer Manoj Chhabra. He opens up about his entry into the service and his experience of serving in various parts of Odisha. City Culture zooms in on the Indian Documentary Film Festival, an initiative by the Film Society of Bhubaneswar, which has developed a healthy repertoire of events and screenings for cinema lovers. In Screen Shots, we shift our focus to ‘Pushkara’, the Odia film that has been receiving rave reviews from the critics and the audience alike. My City Links catches up with lead actor Sabyasachi Mishra and director Subhransu Das to find out what went into the making of the film and the reasons behind its phenomenal success.




City Branding and New Media


Book Description

This book explores city branding in the public sector as an aspect of e-governance from a privileged linguistic, discursive and semiotic perspective. It analyses how local administrations and public bodies engage their stakeholders by addressing key issues such as active citizenship, social inclusion and promotion of cultural heritage and events.




Brand-Driven City Building and the Virtualizing of Space


Book Description

This book is an investigation of the cultural phenomenon of branding and its transformational effects on the contemporary spatial – and urban – reality. It develops a novel understanding of the rationale behind the construction of large-scale architectural complexes that relate to corporate brands, and of its tremendous cultural effects. The author suggests that what we see today is the creation of "global mass ornaments", of a thorough ornamentalization of the entire globe. The origins of this are discussed with regard to examples of corporate brand-building from Europe and China (Autostadt Wolfsburg, BMW Welt Munich and Anting New Town). Additional cases are several simulated spaces in Berlin and the space-branding activities of companies like Apple or Prada. Theoretically, the author develops an innovative poststructuralist framework, combining ideas from Gilles Deleuze with the space philosophy of Peter Sloterdijk. He analyzes how the corporate redefinition of space makes the city enter into a mode of virtual urbanity. This idea leads to a notion of a "global urban" and, ultimately, the "global mass ornament". This concept of a global mass ornament is developed here with reference to Sloterdijk’s concept of a world of "spheres". The latter is used to understand the new mode of spatiality of mediatized spaces. The book makes the point that our world is involved in a process of mass ornamentalization that has only just begun. The concept of the global mass ornament is the first to come to grips with a culture in which branding is effectively changing the physiognomy of the earth. The global mass ornament is a banner for a cultural transformation that employs architecture, sign theory and mechanisms borrowed from traditional advertising and from social media, as well as social processes – and that we have yet to properly understand. This book is a significant step forward in this respect.




The Right to the Smart City


Book Description

Globally, Smart Cities initiatives are pursued which reproduce the interests of capital and neoliberal government, rather than wider public good. This book explores smart urbanism and 'the right to the city', examining citizenship, social justice, commoning, civic participation, and co-creation to imagine a different kind of Smart City.




City Branding


Book Description

The practice of city branding is being adopted by increasing numbers of city authorities around the world and it is having a direct impact on public and private sector practice. The author captures this emerging phenomenon in a way that blends a solid theoretical and conceptual underpinning together with relevant real life cases.




Ocean City Baby Parade


Book Description

The Ocean City Baby Parade is the longest continuously held baby parade in the nation, tracing back to August 10, 1901, when the citys first baby show was held. From its beginning with 46 babies in the prettiest, cutest, and fattest baby categories, it has grown into a boardwalk extravaganza with 300 entrants, bands and bugle corps, professionally decorated commercial floats, homemade baby floats, grand marshals, and cartoon characters. Many families plan their vacations around this well-known event, and they are among the thousands of spectators lining the boardwalk each year.




Explorer's Guide Salt Lake City, Park City, Provo & Utah's High Country Resorts: A Great Destination (Second Edition) (Explorer's Great Destinations)


Book Description

An updated edition of the most comprehensive guide to the area, full of spectacular scenery and ripe for outdoor adventure. In this definitive guide to Utah’s Wasatch Region, entertainment abounds, from the ski slopes of Park City to the theaters of Salt Lake. Set against the stunning backdrop of the Rockies’ impressive peaks, this region offers the perfect pairing of outdoor escapes and urban options—with convenience, accessibility, and affordability.




Semiotics and City Poetics


Book Description

Roman Jakobson stands alone in his semiotic theory of poetic analysis which combines semiotics, linguistics and structuralist poetics. This groundbreaking book proposes methods for developing Jakobson’s theories of communication and poetic function. It provides an extensive range of examples of the kinds of Formalist praxis that have been neglected in recent years, developing them for the analysis of all poetry but, especially, the poetry of our urban future. Throughout the book the parameters of a city poetic genre are proposed and established; the book also develops the theory of the function of shifters and deixis with special reference to women as narrators. It also instantiates an experimental poetic praxis based on the work of one of Jakobson’s great influences, Charles Sanders Peirce. Steadfastly adhering to the text in itself, this volume reveals the often surprising, hitherto unconsidered structural and semiotic patterns within poems as a whole.




The New Blackwell Companion to The City


Book Description

This book considers the state of the city and contemporary urbanisation from a range of intellectual and international perspectives. The most interdisciplinary collection of its kind Provides a contemporary update on urban thinking that builds on well established debates in the field Uses the city to explore economic, social, cultural, environmental and political issues more broadly Includes contributions from non Western perspectives and cities