Resident-City Identification: The Challenge of Building and Managing a Complex Place Identity

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The question of how to increase identification with a place is crucial for urban governance, since cities compete more and more for investors, tourists, and most of all qualified and well-educated citizens. Research on identification within organizations has shown that identification yields beneficial effects on individual well-being as well as on citizenship behaviour. However, identification with a construct as diverse and complex as a city poses unique challenges, since modern cities are characterized by a high level of complexity arising from their political, social, demographic and geographical structures. The aim of this project is to determine why and under which condition(s) residents enter into a strong and committed relationship with their place of living, especially in the context of diversity in cities. A model will be tested which outlines how cities could strengthen the resident-city identification by increasing the perceived place complexity. The model translates the Social Identity Theory, the Theory of Organizational Identification and the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) approach to the field of cities. With two field studies, two laboratory experiments and a case study about the city of Rotterdam, this project seeks to uncover fruitful and practical answers for urban governance and to strengthen the research foundation for resident-city identification.