Abstract

Today, cities need to position themselves competitively within an international field. With this comes an ever-growing importance of branding in urban development. At the same time, the definition of the image and the phenomenon of urbanity form a clearly defined polarity in the way their significations are constituted. For this reason, the concept of “the image” is derived from established positions and presented in the context of social reputation and product marketing. From the outset, the process of perception is considered in particular, purely in the urban context, in order to obtain a relevant demarcation with further examination of branding. Based on this, each city as a whole—including its major city projects—is thoroughly researched while adapting an image model of market and consumption research. In this establishment of an image in the phenomenon of urbanity, every detail of the branding of urban places is classified. To help illuminate this theory of city regeneration within urban branding, significant examples of waterfront developments in Bilbao, Hamburg, and Oslo are comparatively examined based on derived dimensions of urbanity. Finally, a comparison of the projects is carried out in order to formulate the hypothesis of precondition of urbanity for branding of potential urban areas near city centers, particularly on the waterfront.