Branding Cascadia: Considering Cascadia’s Conflicting Conceptualizations - Who Gets To Decide?

Abstract

This article examines the notion of branding – or place marketing - through the experience of Cascadia – the transborder region of Pacific NorthWest North America. It assesses the Cascadia city-region ‘brand’ in the context of competing definitions about the cross-border region, asking whether a multiplicity of conceptualizations is a definitional disadvantage or strength. It concludes that the urban conception is the most sustainable ‘brand’, and one in keeping with the initial branding of Cascadia around ecological imagery. It examines some of the cooperative – and occasionally conflictual – activity in the Cascadia region and concludes with lessons for city regions – particularly those which are not ‘top- tiered’ in world city terms – from this Mainstreet Cascadia experience, noting that seven ‘globalist’ characteristics stand out as ‘best strategies’ for rebranding local-global relations in terms other than ‘globalized.