Meeting first at a reception with the Federal President of German in Berlin’s Bellevue Castle the participants of the 11th German-Russian Twin-Cities travelled on to the historic old city of Rothenburg o.d Tauber. …

Annually experts of developers and facility management meet in the beginning of the new year to have a glance back and to discuss the future. The cover label of those meetings is “CIMMIT”: its 21st annual meeting was organized by IIR Conference Group Germany. …

In the past ten years a new kind of cooperation started between shop owners, retailers, and other local stakeholder groups in certain streets, araes of the downtown of Budapest/Hungary. In the case of some streets the aim of the place management is to define the street as a „new Soho,” in other streets the design, art, or fashion became the „calling title” of the street. The objective of the program “Thematic streets” is to revitalize thematic public areas and streets of Budapest having unutilized retail commercial opportunities, and to unify and promote the existing street management organizations of the downtown.

This program based on social and economic considerations was started during the summer 2009 by Studio Metropolitana NLtd., city development company of Budapest, in partner cooperation with the Budapest Enterprise Development Center, the Budapest Office of Tourism (BTH), the Ecorys Hungary Ltd., the REevolutio and the Association of Young Urbanists (FUT). They involved in the joint creation of the program the concerned population, the users of the areas, the institutions and the professional organizations. The objective of the publication is to present the initiatives, which – arranged around the relevant topic – would create a unique identity and image for the streets and squares, deserving distinguished attention of the interested visitors.

The German-Russian Forum organizes all two years meetings for twin-cities between Germany and Russia. In 2009 the conference took place in Volgograd, in 2011 partners will meet in Rothenburg ob der Tauber .
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STADT:KERN:GESUND lautet das Motto des Wettbewerbs “Ab in die Mitte” für das Jahr 2010 gab das Ministerium für Bauen und Verkehr des Landes NRW bekannt. Alle Gemeinden wurden aufgefordert, Konzepte zur Belebung der Stadtzentren vorzustellen. …

Russia is discovering Regional Marketing, a concept first establisehd in Western Euope in the 80ies. There major cities first started to use city marketing to brand their down-town activities …

Expo Mall Russia used its exhibition in spring 2009 in Moscow as a chance for a platform to discuss the status quo of the present financial crisis and to work as a conference centre for the regional city administrations and real-estate manager as well as retailers.
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From its origins in 1993 as a conference at the University of Reading/England the European Real Estate Society (ERES) in 1994 at the Amsterdam meeting became a formal society. ERES was established to create a structured and permanent network between real estate academics and professionals across Europe. ERES is dedicated to promote and advance the field of real estate research throughout Europe. …

How big is the impact of students at their university-towns? Can they actively contribute to the branding of their city? In how far can a student-blog be used for academic research about student-habits ?

At the fourth ERA-workshop of Prof.B.Hallier with the South Bohemian University of Budweis his class not only questioned and analyzed the ranking of retailers as targets of students versus university administration, but they created an own BudweisStudentBlog. …

Application of marketing principles and practices to places has gained momentum over the past twenty years. Most city and town authorities are aware of the need to embrace marketing strategies, tactics and tools to position, promote themselves, and broader, to achieve development goals. In parallel, the emerging academic field of place marketing in large part advocates the use of traditional marketing tools and techniques by city managers, emphasizing the benefits of marketing places. As a consequence of this focus, controversies arise, and the undesirable and unintended consequences of marketing cities have been largely ignored. This is not surprising since many of the impacts and outcomes of city marketing are of a long-term nature and difficult to monitor and measure.

Therefore a Special Issue of the Journal of Town and City Management will be published. The purpose is to widen the perspective of city marketing theory and practice to encourage a more holistic approach that also considers the undesirable and unintended consequences. City marketing professionals (local authorities and consultants), at the coalface of marketing, and marketing academics at the cutting edge of theory development and testing, are invited to submit papers for the special issue. Authors are encouraged to identify the important, yet often overlooked contradictions and consequences of marketing cities and town centres which frequently create controversy amongst stakeholders. All submissions must feature original content (new thinking, lessons from practice, research results, case studies, best practice) and where relevant be supported by references to examples and existing literature. (more via email)