Abstract:

Territorial (regional, city, etc.) image currently becomes a real and extremely important economic resource, since it plays a major role when choosing a territory as an object of consumption. The image of industrial regions and cities is of particular importance in the age of the digital development of the society. In this paper, we consider the image as a broad range of invariant and variable components. Besides, for a more appropriate image building, we consider a region/city as a “quasi-corporation”, to which all the marketing tools can be applied in a bid for a unique place in the market and in the minds of consumers. In this paper, it was important to generalize the experience of forming the image of Russian regions and highlight the main factors which are both spontaneous and formed on the basis of the stated policy, able to influence the image of a territory more than others. An analysis showed that such factors for an industrial region/city are the environmental determinant and historical heritage of the territory. We studied the negative influence of these factors on the perception of the city image by the residents and non-residents of the territory by the example of Chelyabinsk region and the city of Chelyabinsk. We outlined a serious discrepancy between the regional image in the minds of consumers and the actual indicators of the region. We revealed that any “industrial” associations have a negative color for Chelyabinsk residents and are synonymous with an environmentally-unfriendly place for living. We argued the need for a controlled formation of the city image, since the negative image of Chelyabinsk nullifies any programs for the development of the region in general and its capital in particular, and discredits ​​all the efforts to improve the environment of the territory. A positive image of the region can influence the performance of all its spheres and improve the living standards of its population.