Telling New Albany's story, not another city's story.

The Urbanophile's musings on the general theme of municipal self-knowledge echo DT's suggestion so long ago that New Albany's marketing campaign should adopt a mantra embracing our traditional shortcomings as well as our newfound strengths: "Wonderfully and delightfully us." As Aaron Renn explains:

Who’s Your City?

A couple months back when visiting the home front, my dad and I popped into the excellent New Albanian brewhouse for dinner and microbrews.

Sorry -- I couldn't resist beginning with this line, as it will enrage the one-dimensional journalists among us. To the point:

... I’ve long noted that while companies go to great lengths to differentiate themselves in the marketplace, most cities seem to do just the opposite. They want to convince you that in various ways they are exactly like this, that, or the other really cool city. It’s totally inauthentic and completely ineffective.

To really brand your city you need to go back to that ancient wise inscription – Know Thyself. It’s not easy. It requires a lot of introspection, and digging deep into things that aren’t always easy to uncover. But I’m convinced every city, like every person, has a powerful story to tell.

It's really too bad. The introspection and digging in New Albany just might flow naturally from a thoughtful, past-and-future approach to New Albany's forthcoming Bicentennial celebration, but because of the predictably white bread way we're seemingly intent on observing the birthday, there'll be plenty of the usual obfuscatory CeeSaw fluff with very little useful content.

If only ...