Urban culture-led regeneration in monolithic contexts: issues and challenges for place identity and branding

The progressive shift from tangible to intangible competitive advantage in post-industrial societies has made culture a major engine in the development, renewal and regeneration of cities. The culture-led transformation of urban identity may be marked by continuity with urban heritage or innovations driven by external agendas which has also led to complaints about the loss of authenticity in urban landscapes, criticized as “Dubaisation”, “festivalization” or “McGuggenization”.This paper tries to contribute to this domain from the unusual perspective of cross-cultural management opening a new avenue of research based on the place branding conceptualization as a societal phenomenon. The framework is applied to an example of culture-led urban regeneration in the Alpine Italian city of Trento. The discussion and conclusion allows us to argue that culture-led urban regeneration of Trento results from a long term integration process of tradition and innovation which preserves a sense of place and build new competences facilitating a coherent place brand building. Theoretical and managerial implications of the study and points towards future research are presented.