Sustainable City Branding
As marketing strategies are utilized for city management, entrepreneurial modes of urban governance started to be applied. In this chapter, an emerging city branding trend, Slow City branding will be analyzed in the light of sustainability. As the cities start to resemble each other, the identity of the cities which is defined by the local authenticity diminishes. The philosophy of slowness inspired other social and economic movements like slow food, slow tourism and slow city. Slow movement first in the form of Slow Food then Slow City/Cittaslow enables sustainable urban development. “Cittaslow” empowers cities to differentiate from other cities and form their identity by supporting local crafts, tastes, producers and promoting healthy and sustainable life. In this study, a comprehensive literature review about slow city movement is covered. Moreover, Seferihisar, the first slow city in Turkey is analyzed in terms of Cittaslow principles. At the last part of the study, a model is proposed summarizing the principles of slow city branding.