CLUJ EUROPEAN YOUTH CAPITAL 2015 – A TAKE OFF FOR EUROPEAN RECOGNITION AND THRIVING URBAN DEVELOPMENT
Júlia A. Nagy1, Dianna Szűcs 2, Egon Nagy
3
1 PhD.,, Babeș-Bolyai University, Faculty of Geography,
5-7 Clinicilor Street, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. E-mail address: julia.nagyy@gmail.com.
2 Msc, Babeș-Bolyai University, Faculty of Geography, 5-7 Clinicilor
Street, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Email address: diannagabor@yahoo.com.
3 Lecturer PhD, Babeș-Bolyai University, Faculty of Geography, 5-7
Clinicilor Street, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Email address:
enagy@geografie.ubbcluj.ro.
ABSTRACT – As cities became vital factors in the global economy, the
compulsive competition among territories became inevitable. The change from
managerial governance to urban entrepreneurialism triggered new strategic
approaches. Therefore, the continues need of cities to differentiate themselves
and create a unique and attractive image has become indispensable in their
strategic approaches. On of the ways to showcase their local distinctiveness and
urban creativity is for example to give ground to serious of events. However,
the effectiveness of these strategic approaches in many cases remains
unanswered. Therefore, the present paper aims at giving a preview about the
importance of a title as the European Youth Capital to the urban development of
a city like Cluj-Napoca, a title won by the city in 2015. The main question
however is to what extent has the EYC title helped Cluj-Napoca to get better
recognition on international level and what was the impact of the title? From a
methodological perspective the literature review of the study is based on
primary sources such as scientific articles, shorter studies and professional
journals. Our empiric research is based on information collected and analysed
from policy documents, programme guidelines, project descriptions. The results
show that even if Cluj-Napoca did achieve a success in making itself more
visible on international level and encouraged tourist visits, it strenghtned the
creation of networks between different stakeholders, there is more to be done in
terms of infrastructure development and the assessment and evaluation process of
such major events must be strenghtned and maintained.
Keywords: European Youth Capital, culture, city promotion, urban
development
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