Naming rights, place branding, and the tumultuous cultural landscapes of neoliberal urbanism

Abstract

In recent decades, urban policymakers have increasingly embraced the selling of naming rights as a means of generating revenue to construct and maintain urban infrastructure. This practice of "toponymic commodification" first emerged with the commercialization of professional sports during the second half of the 20th century and has become an integral part of the policy toolkit of neoliberal urbanism more generally. As a result, the naming of everything from sports arenas to public transit stations has come to be viewed as a sponsorship opportunity, yet such naming rights initiatives have not gone uncontested. This special issue examines the political economy of urban place naming through a series of case studies that consider how the commodification of naming rights is transforming the cultural landscapes of contemporary cities. In this introductory article, we provide an overview of the geographies of toponymic commodification as an emerging research focus within the field of critical urban toponymies and propose several theoretical approaches that can enhance our understanding of the commodification of naming rights as an urban spatial practice. We then discuss the main contributions in this special issue and conclude by exploring potential directions for future research on the geographies of urban toponymic commodification.

Street Names through Sociological Lenses. Part II: Constructionism and Utilitarianism

“…While the former "enhances and confirms the dominant discourses associated with a memorial," the latter is "counter-intentional and seeks to contradict or otherwise adjust the conventional message of the monument" Critical scholars of these developments have drawn attention to the "major motif of the neoliberal city: dispossession, in the form of city dwellers stripped of common identifiers, spaces, property, and institutions" (Madden 2019: 889). To be sure, the symbolic appropriation of public space and urban namescape by corporate interests constitutes a "political technology of neoliberal governance" (Rose-Redwood, Vuolteenaho, Young, and Light 2019: 2) that is amenable to a sociological analysis from a Foucauldian perspective. Drawing on another classical theme in historical sociology, these developments can also be accounted for in terms of Jürgen Habermas's (1989) theory of the colonization of the public sphere, whereby the spatial infrastructure of social life together with its nominal identifiers are being subjected to an aggressive process of neoliberal "capturing" by allencompassing commercial interests (Kearns and Lewis 2019).…”

Toponymic commodification and the neoliberal city

“…A research topic within the field of Critical Toponymy is toponymic commodification, a term that has been used by Vuolteenaho and Ainiala (2009) and later by Rose-Redwood, Alderman and Azaryahu (2010), Light and Young (2015), Rose-Redwood, Vuolteenaho, Young and Light (2019), and several others. As defined…”

“…The problem is aggravated as it extends to names used in public transport systems, due to their even greater role as a system of guidance for people around city. Rose-Redwood, Vuolteenaho, Young and Light (2019) express the problem in these terms:…”

Toponymic Politics and the Symbolic Landscapes of Minsk, Belarus

“…There are different "quarters" in this complex such as "North America," "Southern Europe," "Asia," and, respectively, the names of the high-rise condominiums include such examples as "San Francisco," "Athens," and "Hong Kong." This sort of promotional toponymy is related to the processes of city branding and the toponymic commodification of urban space examined in recent years within the "second wave" of critical toponymic studies (Rose-Redwood et al 2019). Though these examples are not related to the names of the streets, squares, and parks in Minsk, this international trend is expected in the broader toponymic landscape of the city shortly.…”