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Keystone Crossroads: Rust or Revival? explores the urgent challenges pressing upon Pennsylvania's cities. Four public media newsrooms are collaborating to report in depth on the root causes of our state's urban crisis -- and on possible solutions. Keystone Crossroads offers reports on radio, web, social media, television and newspapers, and through public events.Our partner stations are WHYY in Philadelphia, WPSU in State College and witf in Harrisburg. Read all of the partner stories here.Pittsburgh’s WQED joins the collaboration as an associate partner. Support for this project comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Place Branding: What’s It Mean When Identity Gets in the Way?

Lindsay Lazarski
/
WHYY

In 2011, a group of designers put together a development proposal to make Pittsburgh’s airport more than just a landing pad. The plan included ideas to transform the airport into a larger transport hub that would attract businesses to the vicinity, making for a dense commercial zone.

One of the theoretical models in the proposal included something called New Town, literally a new town that would absorb the people coming to take advantage of all the new businesses and jobs the future growth of the airport would spur.

“The New Town is a public-private undertaking that creates a distinct new place with a well-defined identity,” the plan read.

But isn’t a well-defined identity – whether positive or negative – something that grows and develops organically, something that takes time and a sense of place? Isn’t a well-defined identity the opposite of a New Town?

Maybe. But maybe it just takes some decent branding.

Read a full version of this reportat the website of Keystone Crossroads, a new statewide public media initiative reporting on the challenges facing Pennsylvania's cities.