Tuesday 1 November 2011

best in show or PR's PR award

The small oberbayerisch town of Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm beat out some 376 communities worldwide in its size category (populations of 20,000 to 75,000) to win the International Award for Livable Communities (LivCom) for 2011, presented in Seoul. Among the criteria rated were neighbourliness, city-planning, future-orientation, and environmental stewardship, and Pfaffenhofen's score impressed the jury. While I do not question the rigour and distinction of this honour, these sort of trade-show mavens seem to wander towards recursiveness and idiosyncrasy.
While waiting on queue to go up in the Berlin Fernseherturm earlier this year, the panorama along the interior walls not only illustrated and compared the tallest buildings and towers in the world, but also mentioned that the television tower was a member of the International Association of Tall Structures. I wonder if some of these contest also tend in that direction. I want to visit Pfaffenhofen and see for myself what a world-class livable city is like, and I am sure it does have excellent civil-planning that might be a good model for others, as I imagine that the city's residents can attest to as well, but without context and tradition (and Pfaffenhofen surely has history but those details do not seem to be competing against its latest bourgeoisie plaudit), I do wonder how much of winning was a strong marketing and public-relations campaign that isn't just in it for the recognition. After all, the life of communities is generally more than can be reflected in a single honour, though that is no small achievement.