Correspondence: Jon Coaffee, School of Environment and Development, Faculty of Humanities, Arthur Lewis Building, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK. Tel: +44 161 2756903; Fax: +44 161 2756893; e-mail: Jon.Coaffee@manchester.ac.uk

¹is a senior lecturer in Spatial Planning and Urban Regeneration in the Centre for Urban Policy Studies, at the University of Manchester, UK. He has published widely on issues related to the social and economic future of cities and especially the impact of terrorism on the functioning of urban areas.

²is a lecturer in the Sociology of Law at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. He has sat on the British Sociological Association Council and publishes primarily in the themes of security, civil contingencies and terrorism; minority participation; and citizenship and democracy.

Received 30 May 2008; Revised 30 May 2008.

Abstract

In light of new international security challenges and the ongoing terrorist threat, the need for places to adopt security and resiliency measures to retain reputation has increased. This paper uses the concept of 'reputational risk' to argue that security is becoming one of many key selling points in the practice of city branding. We highlight how aspects of security and emergency preparedness are increasingly becoming affiliated with branding practices and utilised by governance regimes to promote and brand particular locales as safe, secure and resilient to attack. Utilising both historical and contemporary examples from UK cities, we argue that security and resilience is quickly becoming another tool in the armoury of place branders at local, regional and national levels, and emerges as a factor in the attraction of inward investment and conference-led or 'meetings' tourism and in the evolution of post-industrial cities.