Attractiveness, branding and governance of cities and urban regions

Dans le cadre de l’alliance CIVIS, Martial Pasquier, professeur à l’IDHEAP, a développé le Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) : Attractiveness, branding and governance of cities and urban regions  : a multidisciplinary approach. Ce BIP est créé dans le HUB Villes, espaces et mobilités, en partenariat avec l’Université libre de Bruxelles et l’Université Aix-Marseille.

Les BIPs sont des programmes intensifs hybrides et constituent un nouveau format de mobilité disponible pour toutes les étudiantes et tous les étudiants inscrit·e·s à l'UNIL. Chaque BIP combine un enseignement en ligne avec une courte période de mobilité physique d’une durée de cinq jours dans une autre université CIVIS avec des étudiant·e·s de toute l’Alliance.

Ce nouveau programme sera proposé à l’ensemble des étudiant·e·s des 11 universités de CIVIS au semestre d’automne 2024. La semaine en présentiel aura lieu à Lausanne.

Descriptif du cours

The notions of place and attractiveness have become central to our societies. At an institutional level, places are economically, socially and culturally homogenous entities that transcend political boundaries. The example of Basel is illustrative of this situation: Basel is a Swiss city, but it is also a transnational region (Trinational Eurodistrict of Basel), a binational airport (EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg), a tourism- promotion organisation common to the whole region (Upper Rhine Valley), an innovation-based economic cluster (BioValley Basel), and so on. From the point of view of economic development, residential attractiveness and tourism promotion, Basel is a place that extends beyond political boundaries. This is not an isolated example, and we can mention Galicia-North Portugal as well as all the intranational regions and agglomerations. 

On a more economic level, places are increasingly competing with each other. Not only in terms of tourism and business, but also in terms of residential development. The COVID, for example, has played an important role in terms of residential attractiveness. With the introduction and spread of telecommuting, cities like Montreal have emptied out to the benefit of suburban regions or cities such as Halifax, whose quality of life is higher. 

The management of these places poses an increasing number of problems to be solved. Firstly, at the political and governance level. New bodies, often involving public and private players, are needed to steer these structures, and public policies must be highly coordinated. For example, issues of mobility and spatial planning (public policies with a spatial impact) must be coordinated to ensure the sustainable development of a region. The same applies to fiscal and energy policies.

Secondly, in terms of strategy, these places must prioritisze the expected developments, whether in terms of maintaining and attracting companies to provide jobs, increasing or controlling tourist activity (overtourism in certain regions) or enhancing residential attractiveness (promoting the place to new residents, strengthening services for the population, etc.). 

Finally, depending on the needs and priorities defined by these locations, branding and marketing measures need to be developed and implemented.

The aim of this course is therefore to approach places as a specific object of study with a multidisciplinary approach (political science, economics, management, etc.). As the topic is very broad, we will focus on cities and urban regions.

The course will be structured in three parts: 

- The first part will be virtual, with an introduction and presentation of the main concepts and tools linked to place attractiveness. This will involve sequential acquisition (8 sessions of 3 hours each) of tools such as strategic analysis of a place, forms of attractiveness and competitiveness, stakeholder analysis, governance, strategic prioritiszation, specific marketing tools, and so on. For each session, students will then be asked to apply the tools they have seen and discussed to a concrete case. The sum of these applications will constitute the first assessment.

- The second part of the week will be spent on-site in Lausanne (mobility part): the aim of this week will be to take an integrated approach to the tools and analytical frameworks presented in the first week (regarding residential attractiveness, economic promotion, etc.). Each day will be devoted to a theme, with lessons and discussions in the morning and field visits and activities in the afternoon.

- The third and final part will be virtual. Students will choose a cross-cutting theme (e.g. sustainability in tourism promotion, residential attractiveness strategies, etc.) and apply it comparatively in several places. Examples of comparative analysis will be presented and made available to students. Students will be accompanied by the teachers who took part in the first part of the program.