Culture Stories:Understanding Cultural urban Branding

This article argues for a narrative approach to the study of urban branding and planning and presents an analytical framework for understanding narratives and place. The notion of the `representational logics of urban intervention' captures this idea that urban branding interventions are guided by certain representations and embedded in certain norms and values. The analytical framework is applied to a case study of cultural urban branding, the harbour front in Aalborg, Denmark, where a number of flagship architecture projects and cultural institutions are planned. It illustrates the competing stories told by proponents and opponents of the interventions, and also shows how the relation to place in the stories differs radically according to their allegiances. The article aims to throwing light on the complex relationship between story and place.