The possibility of a social imaginary: Public housing as a tool for city branding

Abstract

This paper examines social housing as a tool for city branding. We ask whether or not social housing (that is public and subsidized housing) has capabilities for branding the city. The underlying hypothesis is that housing contributes essentially to what is considered the brand of a city, even if it is not part of the established forms of brand-production. We will be investigating the relationship of housing and of branding the city by focusing on the case of Vienna, its history and its recent developments. In doing so, we do not engage in a debate on how to design a city as a competitive consumer brand.