The attention economy of authentic cities: how cities behave like influencers

Abstract

Cities, like the people that live in them, are subject to the attention economy. Familiar social media platforms aggregate users’ tastes and reconstitute them as advertising and curated content. In this paper, I show that American cities are induced by state governments to adopt the attention-grabbing tactics of social media influencers. This is particularly evident in cultural planning as it relates to economic development. While this is a global phenomenon, I have chosen to focus on the Capital Region of New York State, a region approximately 240 kilometres north of New York City. I have chosen the Capital Region because New York's nine-year-old system of Regional Economic Development Councils highlights the competitive and often capricious environment that urbanists increasingly find themselves in. Through an analysis of planning documents, reported events and secondary sources I demonstrate how small to medium cities in Upstate New York are competing to be the purveyors of authentic urban living. I then discuss how authenticity and social media interact to create desires for consumption of identity performance. Finally, I compare the city authentic branding regime with the ‘Bilbao effect’ and show how the former can summon the effects of the latter without a ‘star’ architect.

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