- Modifying the urban Essence, Boosting the City Economy?    257 kb by    Stupar, Aleksandra & Hamamcioglu, Cenk | STUPAR@AFRODITA.RCUB.BG.AC.YU    Short Outline Belgrade and Istanbul, although different in size and cultural context, follow the same pattern of global activation. Therefore, their transformations reveal the similar logic of development, representing the output of city-branding process. Abstract The global changes of cities and their multidimensional background modify the essence of their historical role. As a result, the urban landscape transforms and adjusts to the speed of modern life, revealing the ambiguous nature of strong economic forces as well as a new fusion of urban cultures. The advanced technology, economy and politics shape the urban environment and its characteristics (physical, social and symbolical), creating the globalised landscape with new key-elements. However, its true potential should be re-evaluated - the changed physiognomy of the city could improve its position in the global hierarchy and facilitate its integration into the global community, but, sometimes, local limitations are too complex and too strong to be ignored. Caught in the web of global imperatives and local aspirations, Belgrade and Istanbul - two urban nodes at the crossroads of different and multileveled flows, are trying to synchronize the inherited codes of urban life and new patterns of global behavior. Interlinked by specific historical circumstances, these cities, although different in their size, structure, global position, organization and cultural context, follow the same pattern of global activation, inevitable competition and networking. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to analyse and compare main changes of their urbanscape in order to identify a new logic of future development and evaluate the results of up-to-date city branding. Representing an important resource for the global competition and recognition, urban spaces of Istanbul and Belgrade develop, recreate and regenerate their numerous fragments as an attractive testimony of their global initiation, but the real efficiency of this process is yet to be confirmed. Keywords attractiveness, transformation, competitiveness, city-branding, globalisation Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2005: Making Spaces for the Creative Economy   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper