This week I’m in New York on business for a few days. I’ve visited the city many times, and even lived in its environs for a while in the late 90s, yet stepping into a yellow cab for a ride across the city never loses its thrill. It’s more than just transportation; you're travelling in an icon of New York – a part of its brand identity.
It was with interest then, that I read a recent article telling the story of New York’s famous Checker Cab – the model produced until 1982 by the Checker Cab Manufacturing Company – recognisable to most Brits thanks to the 70s/80s TV show, Taxi. Back home in London, a ride in a Black Cab stirs up a similar emotions (for me, perhaps a little dulled through familiarity). Like the yellow cab, London’s own world-famous taxi is part of the city’s identity. The black and yellow cabs rank alongside landmarks, monuments and buildings as symbols of their parent cities’ appearance and character.
Thanks to a sensitive redesign, today’s TX1 model London Black Cab preserves visual cues of its predecessor. Unfortunately for New Yorkers, the last Checker Cab rolled down the Big Apple’s streets in 1999 and, while the Ford Crown Vics that ply New York today are the same canary yellow, it is the distinctive original that remains the icon. So much so that its trademark checker stripe is inescapable at an exhibition on the New York cab of the future (being held until 15th January at Parsons School of Design).
Though the Black Cab remains, Londoners are currently mourning the demise of the equally beloved and iconic Routemaster double-decker bus, always in red with its distinctive open boarding platform at the rear. Taken out of service only last month (with just a handful remaining on tourist "heritage routes"), the contemporary replacements don't hace the same depth of character.
Accident and Design
How important is it to keep such symbols of a city? Does their passing really take something away from the urban brand?
What becomes emblematic of a city can do so both by accident and by design, though in each case it is a factor of that thing being unique, inimitable and growing to become deeply cherished over time. Change is met with scepticsm (the Routemaster bus was actually widely disliked upon its introduction) and a prosaic background is no limiter to future status (the prized structure of Sydney’s famous Harbour Bridge is merely a copy of the lesser known Tyne Bridge of Newcastle in England).
Some icons are planned, such as Bilbao’s stunning Guggenheim Museum - the centrepiece of its urban regeneration. Hull, a city in northern England, has built a highly distinctive new aquarium with similar intentions.
A Brand Strategy
A city’s symbols are usually multiple in number and in this context, maintaining one that is outmoded or decrepit may be pointless. Founding new ones can be a positive step forward. Yet it is vital that city administrators exercise caution. When something distinctive and much loved is removed and replaced with the bland and mediocre, that result can be ruinous. The city of Birmingham in England suffered with a poor reputation for decades due to the 1960s Bull Ring shopping and office centre. Both ugly and unpleasant to inhabit, it became a highly negative symbol and the city’s brand was severely damaged as a result.
The Bull Ring’s replacement was completed in 2000 as part of a 25-year plan of urban renewal to change Birmingham’s image. The project has been a success, and recorded 36.5 million visitors in its first year of operation, making it the most visited shopping area in the UK outside the West End of London. The new centre is a modern, but far more sensitive design. What’s notable however, and something that shows that the planners understood the Birmingham brand, is that one part of the old centre remains, the Rotunda office tower. When built it was much derided, but suggestions in the 1980s that it should be demolished met with equal, if not greater, hostility from the local populace, who had clearly taken it into their hearts.
For good or bad then, an urban brand is the amalgamation of a city’s most dintinctive features. It is these things that people remember as they recommend or denouce the place to others. Understanding and managing this brand must be central to the planning strategies of city administrators worldwide. Sometimes the loss of a loved symbol is unavoidable, but forward planning and a clear sense of actual or aspired to brand values will help cities in their self-promotion and social and economic success.
