The importance of places and place branding

In the analytical part of this study, we highlight that, despite globalisation and growing uniformity, there is still an important role for place itself in the location decisions of economic players. Part III of this volume deals with this. Even though city-regions across the world have become better and more tightly connected with each other, and flows between them and the network society have become highly important, the characteristics of places are still crucial for the development of new economic activities. The function of these places and the meaning attached to them is different, however. This chapter introduces Part III.