Image circulation, development hoardings and new strategies of urban change

Abstract

With an increasingly financialized real estate industry now becoming manifest on a global scale, there has also emerged an ever-increasing tendency for the circulation of images used in its promotion, including lifestyle magazines, on-line adverts and on-street hoardings. In drawing upon Dublin as a case study, and with a particular focus upon stylized hoardings surrounding new urban developments, this paper analyses the relationship between the production of urban space and image-making strategies. The paper emphasizes the relationship between the hoardings and associated promotional material and the distinctive spatial attributes in demarcating meanings. It is here argued that the hoardings represent a further internalization of entrepreneurial logics in reshaping urban space. This is illustrated through a number of identified trends that draw upon notions of the ‘local’ and ‘global’, while also projecting an imagined future and simultaneously celebrating the past of the city. Although always open to negotiation and disruption, ultimately, the effect of stylized hoardings in the production of urban space is to reinforce the dominance of the real estate industry in the city.