City planning, urban imaginary, and the branded space: Untangling the role of city plans in shaping Dallas's urban imaginaries

《City planning, urban imaginary, and the branded space: Untangling the role of city plans in shaping Dallas's urban imaginaries》

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关键字: Urban imaginary;Visioning;City plans;Place-making;Symbolic economy;Dallas

作者单位: The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada;College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs, University of Texas at Arlington, 601 W. Nedderman Dr. Suite 203, Arlington, TX 76019, United States;The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada;College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs, University of Texas at Arlington, 601 W. Nedderman Dr. Suite 203, Arlington, TX 76019, United States

摘要: Drawing on notions of the symbolic economy and urban imaginary as an inherent dimension of the neoliberal public sphere, this paper examines historicized city plans and their visions, and develops a framework for understanding the role of city plans in shaping urban imaginaries and branded spaces. The paper claims that future city visions, fundamental to plan-making, help legitimize the power elites' growth agendas and ambitions to invest in both symbolic and material flagship place-making projects heavily bolstered and publicized by the media. The study examines this claim in the American context, selecting Dallas, Texas as a unique entrepreneurial city overly concerned with its public image characterized by a long-standing legacy of place promotion and plan-making. Using archival research and semi-structured interviews with key informants, this paper finds that city plans' visions, subservient to the civic elites' cultural tastes, have been instrumental in rallying public support to materialize place-making projects in accord with the city's larger preoccupation with “world-class” status showcased and widely promoted by media outlets. This study concludes by reflecting on the subtle yet tangible link between plan-making and urban imaginaries, an overt tendency of ever more commodified urban spaces, and the paradox it poses to city planning.