Place Branding starts with inquiry Reading the conference paper of António Azevedo (Azevedo 2009) I realise from his methods that I need to ask people who live in Nantes, why they love or hate their city. This is technically, the first step in a Place Branding exercise. Place Branding starts with an inquiry into what the city already represents for its inhabitants. I need to discover, 'What is Nantes?' Only, then can I begin to unpick the components of what has value. But how do I determine what has value for a respondent to my research question? André Breton declares in his surrealist novel, Nadja (1928), that Nantes is (quoted in Garrett 2010, 193) 'perhaps, with Paris, the only town in France where I had the impression that something worthwhile could happen to me.' Martin Garrett explains that André Breton was sent to Nantes in July 1915, to work as a medical auxiliary at 2 rue du Bocage (Garrett 2010, 193); that is almost exactly 100 years ago. Close-readin
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