The Importance of 'Smart City' Characteristics for a City Brand. Comparative Perspective

Cities in the modern world are competing for resources – material, financial, scientific and, of course, human. They need investors, specialists, labour force for low qualification jobs with low wages and also tourists to adore their beauties and to bring money into the budgets. The important role in the attraction process is played by the city marketing and branding which are also some kind of resources giving new development possibilities and chances in the hard competition. It is a very new trend for modern cities to become “smart” and it is a question if “smartness” makes the city brand more attractive for various user groups or these groups are indifferent to the image of a “smart city” making the decision about the investing into the city, coming to live in this city or choosing the city as a place of interest. The situation gets even more complicated in the regions of mega-cities because of their size and complicated structure. They are not ordinary cities in a “normal” sense of the word but huge agglomerations. To make the agglomeration “smart” and to reflect this characteristic in a brand is a difficult task. The problem is not less important for St. Petersburg than for other European cities and agglomerations.