Andrea Jaendrasingh
Practice Questions June 2013:
a. Comment on how the three strategies shown could contribute to urban reimaging. (10 Marks) Strategy 1 would contribute to reimaging an urban area as it aims to attract many different visitor groups.
The components of a place influence the perception people have of that place. An example of this is
Stratford. Before the 2012 Olympics was hosted there, it was mainly an industrial state and therefore was not a popular place to visit. It was run down and the ponds and rivers were polluted. Once it began to be developed for the Olympics to be hosted there, more interesting architecture, public parks and natural landscapes were created. This gave Stratford a new image. Through the creation of new attractions, wider groups of people would be attracted to a place to visit. This could include bird watchers, naturists, photographers and new business investors. Although this strategy would contribute to reimaging a place such as Stratford, it could result in potential conflict for land use.
Strategy 2 (Events and services)could contribute to urban reimaging due to the fact that if a place is a social hub for festivals and other events as well as shopping and tours, it is reimaged to be vibrant and entertaining with lots of activities. This could reimage a place to then be considered affordable, beautiful and familyoriented
Strategy 3 would help to reimage an area due to the fact that the image that people see and the reputation that they hear is better. This strategy aims to improve the looks rather than the actual experience. It can be seen to be the most expensive strategy out of all three and it would require the aesthetics of an urban area to be changed which is quite costly.
b. Using examples, explain the roles of different players involved in helping to rebrand rural areas. (10 Marks) An example of a previously rural area that has now been rebranded is Cornwall. This has mainly been done through the Eden project as it helped reimage Cornwall. Key players involved in helping to rebrands rural areas such as Cornwall do so mainly to increase the total revenue made so it can be used for improving different facilities.
One key player involved in this rebranding may have been Environmental groups. Whilst wanting to rebrand, they would intend to do sustainably. While this is obviously beneficial for the environment, it is also beneficial in aiding places such as Cornwall or Stratford to reimage as an environmentally friendly place. Another player involved in aiding to rebrand would be the Local and Regional Government. For example, in Cornwall for the Edenproject, the local government had control over transport and also had influence on planning decisions. Finally, another player involved in rural rebranding would be business interests. They would be involved in the rebranding of areas such as Stratford for the Olympics due to the fact that they are aware of the benefits that rebranding these places will bring in the future even after these events have occurred. This could include in most cases small business investors or in other cases larger scale investors. Normally, when rebranding a rural areas, there are larger scale business investors wanting to invest in the surrounding environment of the place that is being rebranded. This is due to the fact that they will help the economy of these rural areas more than small businesses would.
These players were involved in helping to rebrand rural areas such as Cornwall due to them weighing out the advantages and disadvantages and deciding if it is beneficial for a specific rural place.
January 2013: a. Comment on the usefulness of the three fieldwork approaches to investigate rural rebranding. (10 Marks) Questionnaires are a useful fieldwork approach when investigating rural rebranding as they allow certain individuals to collect both quantitative and
