Branding Cities

Abstract

The author traces the emergence over the past 30 years of a new media genre in U.S. cities: the urban lifestyle magazine. With the shift in the primary role of U.S. cities from production sites to consumption spaces after World War II, these magazines facilitated the branding of consumeroriented urban imaginaries. Using New York Magazine, Atlanta Magazine, and Los Angeles Magazine as examples, the author shows how these “branded cities” changed over time, discursively reflecting and contributing to the socioeconomic restructuring of their namesake cities and the formation of a new urban middle-class niche market.