Interregional place-branding concepts: the role of amenity migration in promoting place- and people-centred development

Rural amenity migration is an increasingly important source of economic development. Analysis of population growth in the North American montane west indicates the extent to which high amenities serve to boost an influx of talented migrants. New regionalism theory offers a rural development model which is capable of accommodating efforts to apply place-branding to this form of interregional migration. Its precepts emphasise place and person rather than product, supporting efforts to market the attraction of interregional rural locations to footloose creative professionals seeking congenial surroundings to pursue their careers and raise their families. This chapter draws on new regionalism theory to assess the role of amenity migration in promoting place- and people-centred rural development strategies through the use of interregional place branding. It begins by offering some brief sketches of the impact of amenity migration in a few locations across different continents. The significance of this source of growth for rural communities is then assessed by triangulating it against interregional models of development focused on the place-branding of high-amenity attractions and congenial lifestyles, as opposed to traditional resource-based drivers of growth. This analysis provides the basis for an appraisal of the potential for using place-branding to stimulate the expansion of rural communities through interregional development strategies. The chapter concludes with a brief review of current interregional place-branding practice. It considers the capacity of this technique to facilitate the ’territorial attractiveness’ of Europe’s transnational areas and suggests that funding should be sought to this end from the European Commission’s avowedly place-driven cohesion policy.