Urban branding as an effective sustainability tool in urban development

Sustainability in the urban image is one of the most important strategies for sustainable urban design. Most of cities are trying to strengthen its visual image to achieve a sustainable urban image by integrating non physical elements such as culture, economic, social aspects and activities through some of new strategies. One of these strategies is urban branding strategy.Urban branding is a new approach toward urban development of sustainable cities. City branding, a novel aspect of urban communication, improves marketing of the city image in various ways by converting the visual image of the city into a brand image. Unique characteristics of the city are featured and a sustainable urban image is created. This paper will focus on city branding as a powerful image-building strategy. In this realm, the branding of Stuttgart, Germany, serves as a successful model of a branding strategy. Next, branding of the city of Port Said, Egypt, will be explored. The principal aim of this paper is to describe how cities become branded; how branding succeeds; and how a viable city image is created. This paper reviews the methods used to brand cities, and concludes by emphasizing the importance of urban branding in terms of sustainability.