User-Generated Cities: How Everyday People Are Reshaping the Urban Brand

In a world where cities compete for talent, capital, and attention, urban branding has become a high-stakes game. But who gets to decide what a city stands for? Increasingly, the answer is: everyone.

We live in an era of the user-generated city—where everyday residents, visitors, and community organizations use digital platforms to define and redefine the meaning of place in real time. As someone who’s spent years researching neighbourhood place-branding, I believe this grassroots shift has the potential to radically reshape how innovation districts and urban centers grow, engage, and tell their stories.

From Broadcast to Co-Creation

Urban branding was once a top-down endeavor. City leaders hired agencies to craft taglines, design logos, and roll out glossy campaigns aimed at investors and tourists. But the rise of social media and platform economies—from Instagram to Google Reviews to Airbnb—has flipped the script. Now, place branding is co-created, not broadcast.

This shift mirrors a broader trend in the marketing world. As brand theorist Susan Fournier (1998) argued, brands are not fixed objects but dynamic relationships shaped by consumers. In the urban context, residents become not just ambassadors but authors of place narratives—curating, remixing, and projecting their environments for a global audience.

Cities as Platform Brands

Cities are no longer just physical spaces; they are also digital interfaces. In my research, I coined the term “platform placemaking” to describe how neighbourhood identity is increasingly constructed through interactions on digital platforms like Reddit, Instagram, and Airbnb.

These platforms act as informal but powerful branding tools—ones that often carry more weight than official city communications. A single viral photo, trending hashtag, or influential Google Maps review can do more to shape a neighbourhood’s identity than a $100,000 campaign. As scholars like Sharon Zukin (2017) and Michael Luca (2016) have noted, user reviews and hyperlocal content now drive consumer perception, real estate patterns, and even urban development decisions.

The Yelp Effect Meets Urban Geography

Consider the “Yelp effect.” A highly rated café or farmers’ market can turn an overlooked street into a hot spot within weeks. But this phenomenon also raises questions about equity and voice: Whose experiences get seen? Whose photos shape perception? And who gets pushed out when those perceptions drive investment and gentrification?

In Kingston, Ontario—where I conducted case studies of three heritage neighbourhoods—I found that residents used everyday digital content to push back against official narratives and surface hyperlocal truths. These slow, unbranded, and sometimes messy portrayals gave a more authentic sense of place than anything found in a brochure.

Implications for Innovation Districts

For leaders building innovation districts, this user-generated shift is both an opportunity and a challenge. On one hand, it democratizes placemaking—inviting residents, founders, students, and artists to contribute to the district’s evolving identity. On the other, it demands humility. You can’t control the narrative; you can only create conditions where good stories flourish.

Rather than asking “How do we brand this place?” forward-looking districts should ask, “How are people already branding this place themselves?” That means listening to hashtags. Mapping photos. Tracking sentiment in real-time. But more importantly, it means building policies, programs, and spaces that reflect what people value—walkability, affordability, creativity, safety, diversity.

Policy Before Promotion

Place branding is no longer about promotion first. It’s about policy that earns the brand. If your innovation district supports affordable housing, anchors local talent, welcomes newcomers, and facilitates cultural expression, the brand will emerge—organic, resilient, and real.

In the user-generated city, place identity is shaped by actions, not adjectives. That’s the challenge—and promise—of the next era of urban innovation.

References

Bauman, Z. (2013). Liquid modernity. Polity Press.

Cleave, E., & Arku, G. (2015). Place branding, embeddedness and endogenous rural development: A case study of southern Ontario, Canada. Journal of Rural Studies, 39, 78–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2015.03.011

Fair, L. (2022). Platform placemaking machines: Neighbourhood place-branding in Kingston Ontario (Queen’s University). https://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/30434

Fournier, S. (1998). Consumers and their brands: Developing relationship theory in consumer research. Journal of Consumer Research, 24(4), 343–373. https://doi.org/10.1086/209515

Luca, M. (2016). Reviews, reputation, and revenue: The case of Yelp.com. Harvard Business School NOM Unit Working Paper No. 12-016. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1928601

Zukin, S., Lindeman, S., & Hurson, L. (2017). The omnivore’s neighborhood? Online restaurant reviews, race, and gentrification. Journal of Consumer Culture, 17(3), 459–479. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540515611203

Zukin, S. (2020). The innovation complex: Cities, tech, and the new economy. Oxford University Press.