Place Identities of Transforming Port-City Areas. The Case of the Stockholm Royal Seaport

Increasingly, local governments develop their industrial port areas to urban districts. This influences the multiple identities of these areas. As a consequence, cities think about ways to ‘brand’ these new urban districts. In doing this, it is both important and challenging to develop a place brand that is inclusive and representative. Hereby the place identities, the perceptions and ideas, of the new residents need to be taken into account.
This article focuses on how to collect and assess these place identities, using a newly developed area of Stockholm as a case study. We will show that residents mainly define their place identities on spatial qualities, which indicates a discrepancy with Stockholm municipality who mainly focuses on the sustainability aspect of the area in their branding strategies.