CITY INDEXES: The Asian paradigm of innovative city branding
A case study of Seoul & Tokyo
We are Stefania Koutsoupia, Manwlis Nanouris and Romalea Ntregka, post-graduate students of MA in Cultural Management at Panteion University. As part of the Athens Co-Creation City Branding Project and under the lead of Betty Tsakarestou as our professor and project initiator, we were challenged to discover the best city-branding tactics for Athens, wondering what can make the city a strong player in the worldwide cultural field.
Within this framework, we were challenged to study city indexes in order to unlock development patterns used by prevailing cities worldwide. We decided to further examine Asia and three cities in particular; Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing. The reason behind our choice is that Asian cities are today a paradigm of technological development and, also, a paradox, given that they combine conservative political strategies with innovative and liberal economic policies.
Before moving to the examination of rankings according to important indexes of cities’ global growth, we studied the prominent elements of each city’s profile. Therefore, Seoul appears to follow an agenda of touristic, technological and cultural strategy. Incheon International Airport has been rated the best airport for multiple years by the Airports Council International and it has contributed to Seoul being one of the top touristic destinations worldwide. Seoul is, also, the center of technological evolution being host of Samsung, LG and other important companies as well as of emerging tech hubs. Furthermore, South Korea, has promoted a cultural wave policy known as “hallyu” (i.e.Korean Wave) to expand their influence internationally. Therefore, Seoul is considered the birth-place of K-pop (i.e. Korean Pop Music) and K-drama (i.e. Korean drama series), both widely exported all over the world. Tokyo is also a major technological hub, with great public transport. It is considered one of the safest cities to live and although characterized by high cost of living, it was named the Most Liveable City for three consecutive years (2015/16/17) by Monocle.
For our research, we employed the Arcadis City Index focusing on three categories of indexes: 1) People index (also known as social index) which highlights the quality of life for both citizens and visitors, consisting mainly of sub-indexes such as education, crime, health, work-life balance. 2) Planet, with sub-indexes being green space, air pollution, drinking water and sanitation: these so called “green factors” indicate a city’s sustainability. 3) Profit (economical index), with sub-indexes transport infrastructure, economic development, ease of doing business, tourism etc., indicating a city’s economic health.
Therefore, Seoul holds the fourth position and Tokyo the thirteenth position in the overall ranking of the Sustainable Cities Mobility Index (2017). Concerning People Index Tokyo and Seoul reach the third and fourth place respectively. The explanation for both cities being people-friendy, include a variety of factors, such as: great public transport services, very high education standards and facilities, and very low crime rate. Regarding Planet indexes, Seoul drops below the tenth place (11th) and Tokyo only manages to reach the nineteenth place. This is not surprising, considering that Asian cities in general are highly polluted, with Tokyo in particular reaching minimum levels of green spaces. In relation to Profit index, Seoul is ranked eighteenth while Tokyo is ranked thirty-fifth, with both of them having good transport infrastructure and average employment levels. Further, contrary to Tokyo, Seoul is more effective in tourism and ease of doing business.
Concluding, the Asian city prototype integrates mainly a policy of technological development, and a notion of offering commodities — such as a good transport network — to both permanent residents as well as visitors, be they travellers or tourists. This innovative agenda is evolving almost regardless of the political profile of each country the city belongs to, allowing the creation of an independent brand name for the cities and setting a bright example for city branding evolution.
