Does City Size Matter? City Brand Index VS Population Size

Abstract

Purpose -within the semi-science of the most influential place rankings, a trend is observed that these rankings discriminate places at both extremes of the spectrum which leaves cities such as Riga but also Tokyo and New York unmentioned, time and again. We view the established rankings as having strong biases favouring a narrow group of cities that change places from year to year to fill the top ten of cities. The purpose of this paper is to confront consumer-based city brand index versus population size and discuss the need for city size classes while creating and presenting place brand rankings. Design/methodology/approach -the conclusions of this study were made from confronting the primary data to the secondary. The primary data come from sample frame of 426 respondents from all the Latvian cities depending on weight of their population and were used to create the consumer-based city brand rankings. The secondary data consisted of city size rankings which were used to evaluate the correlation with previously acquired city brand rankings. Findings -this study shows that in general population size does not matter exclusively -in theory every small city can compete with a bigger one in mental maps of human being. In reality this ability is fixed to an average within the certain fluctuation corridor. We found out that in average a city can be 2 times smaller, but at the same time have 3.5 times higher brand index with the total handicap of 5.5 times. It means that in human perception cities are equal opponents only if their size difference is not higher than 4 to 6 times. If this average is exceeded the probability to be an equal opponents is just theoretical. Practical implications -we suggest introducing city classes within 4 -6 size times while measuring and representing consumer-based city brand rankings. It will provide a more objective representation of cognitive data especially if dealing to get representative rankings for cities of different size. Originality/value -the main contribution of this paper are the size VS brand index averages clearly showing correlation between perceives brand value and city size.

City brand in the perception of inhabitants of European capitals: Linear ordering using the TOPSIS method

“…Establishing city rankings serves various purposes, with assessment and competitiveness being among the most prominent reasons (Melo, 2020). Rankings can provide valuable information about a specific city and its performance relative to other places (Brencis & Ikkala, 2013).…”

“…It involves numerous dimensions, many of which are outside the direct control of city managers. This complexity often leads to a lack of consensus on the precise approach to city branding, as well as the methods for measuring and ranking such branding activities (Brencis & Ikkala, 2013).…”