Tag: DARWIN SHREWSBURY Festival

Shrewsbury Big Town Plan

Guest article by Aleks Vladimirov*

SHREWSBURY – The Birthplace of Charles Darwin

What does Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and adaptability to the outer environment have to do with place management? With uncertainty being the new normal, an evolutionary perspective on place management can help move from static and isolated plans to a process mindset. What better place to test such a perspective than Darwin’s home town – Shrewsbury in the United Kingdom.


Opening Pages of the BIG TOWN PLAN document produced to share its intentions
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DARWIN SHREWSBURY – Personality Association and Place Branding

DARWIN Festival Shrewsburyby Prof. Gary Warnaby,

Recently I gave a public lecture as part of the DARWIN SHREWSBURY Festival, celebrating Charles Darwin, the author of On the Origin of Species, in which he introduced the theory of natural selection, whereby populations evolve over the course of generations. Published in 1859, this book, considered to be a foundation of evolutionary biology, has been voted the most influential academic book in history.

So what is the connection to the town of Shrewsbury, the county town of Shropshire, in western England? Shrewsbury was Darwin’s birthplace, and he spent his formative years there. The DARWIN SHREWSBURY Festival (see http://www.originalshrewsbury.co.uk/darwin-shrewsbury-festival ) is a two and a half week programme of events celebrating the town’s link to Darwin, aimed at ‘celebrating Shrewsbury as the origin of independent thinking’.  Shamelessly drawing on as many analogies from Darwin’s work as I could manage, my lecture was on ‘The Evolution of Place Branding’.  Humour aside, the fact that this festival was taking place raises some very interesting questions about how places can use associations with their famous sons and daughters for the purposes of marketing and branding. Continue reading “DARWIN SHREWSBURY – Personality Association and Place Branding” →