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Malmo€ – the skateboarding city: Malm€o – the

skateboarding
a multi-level approach for city

developing and marketing a city

through user-driven partnerships
Karin Book Received 31 May 2020
Department of Sport Sciences, Malm€o University, Malm€o, Sweden, and Revised 5 October 2020
15 October 2020
Gustav Svanborg Eden Accepted 15 October 2020

The City of Malm€o Streets, Parks and Property Department, Malm€o, Sweden

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how skateboarding as a community, sport and cultural
phenomenon can become integrated into and drive the development, branding and marketing of a city (Malm€o).
Design/methodology/approach – This paper is produced through a communicative co-constructed process
of one scholar and one practitioner within the skateboarding field. Through the narrative told by the
practitioner, and with basis in the established understanding and conceptualization of place marketing through
sport, success factors of the skateboarding initiatives in Malm€o are identified.
Findings – The skateboarding story of Malm€o fits well into the established conceptualization of place
branding and marketing, neoliberalism and urban entrepreneurialism. Also, it demonstrates the power of a
unique user-driven partnerships between skaters, a non-profit organization and public institutions to create a
skateboard-friendly city and as a consequence a strong internationally renowned skate-image. The multi-level,
multi-content approach is founded in shared values and mutual benefits. Instead of fitting a phenomenon into
an outward-oriented image-strategy, skateboarding as a sport and culture has been allowed to develop
organically, creating a credible and unique image for Malm€o.
Originality/value – This study adds to the literature on sport and city marketing/branding by developing a
deeper, empirically founded, understanding of how to combine top-down and bottom-up approaches in urban
development, marketing and branding. The results have scientific as well as practical value.
Keywords Skateboarding, Skate-city, Place marketing, City marketing, Place branding, Urban
entrepreneurialism, Collaboration, Partnerships, Authenticity, Sport, Malm€o
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Malm€o has achieved a reputation as a uniquely skateboarding-friendly city. The local
skateboarding organization has a strong history of collaborating with the municipality which
has resulted in standout outcomes as stated in the Huck Magazine article “Is Malm€o the most
skateboarding-friendly city in the world?” (Joa, 2016).
At the time of writing, Malm€o boasts a series of skateparks and skate-adapted squares, is
home to a skateboarding high school, several skate-related companies and businesses, one
world champion, countless professional skateboarders and a publicly employed
skateboarding coordinator.
Malm€o’s work with skateboarding offers great value to the skateboarding community, but
also generates other outcomes, among these tourism and branding benefits. Skateboarding
transcends categories of sport, art and leisure and operates according to different paradigms.
For the city, skateboarding helps generate a spectrum of other outcomes than those of
traditional sports. Skateboarding is a part in the marketing and branding of Malm€o;
expressed in tourism guides, official strategies and official pictures of the city. International Journal of Sports
Marketing and Sponsorship
All over the world, sport is a popular tool in place development, marketing and branding. © Emerald Publishing Limited
1464-6668
Skateboarding is more than a sport. The purpose of this paper is to examine how DOI 10.1108/IJSMS-05-2020-0101
IJSMS skateboarding as a community, sport and cultural phenomenon can become integrated into
and drive the development, branding and marketing of a city (Malm€o). How did Malm€o
develop into a recognized skateboarding city and how could the skateboarding development
be understood within the conventional framework of sport-related urban marketing and
branding?

Approach and design

This paper deviates from traditional research papers in that it is produced as a joint effort to
link theory and practice by linking an inside and outside perspective. It is an attempt to tell a
subjective (success) story while framing and analyzing it objectively. The text is developed in
interaction between two authors, with different roles in the process.
Book (Author 1) is a scholar within the fields of sport sciences and urban planning with
the role as the reflecting researcher. Svanborg Eden (Author 2) is a civil servant, the last five
years titled “skateboarding coordinator,” at the Streets Parks and Property Department of the
City of Malm€o. Moreover, he is an experienced skater and knowledgeable about the urban
skateboarding community. In this text, Author 2 has the role of an active, reflecting informant.
With basis in the overall aim, Author 1 built the conceptual background which draws on
the established understanding and conceptualization of city marketing. In order to gather
relevant empirical material concerning skateboarding strategies and work in Malm€o,
interviews with initiated persons would have been conventional method to use. Instead,
Author 2 was actively involved in writing his story based on three questions formulated by
Author 1. As a result, the narrative about skateboarding in Malm€o is not a secondary source
interpretation.
The key questions for Author 2 to build his statement around were:
(1) How did Malm€o develop a brand as a skateboarding city and destination?
(2) What elements and actors contribute to the brand?
(3) What seems to be the success factors?
Hence, the empirical part of the paper mainly consists of Author 2’s statement as an initiated
expert inside an official department and within the skate community. As he is a
representative at the Streets Parks and Property Department responsible for the publicly
supported skateboarding initiatives, the story is based on proven experience underbuilt by
some documentation/facts created in a self-reflexive process. The empirical statement has
continuously been discussed with and questioned by Author 1, mainly in terms of
speculations vs evidence and relevance in relation to the aim. Author 1 had the main
responsibility for the final discussion and conclusions.
To verify Author 2’s story, three other actors involved in Malm€o’s skateboarding
development were asked to review the statements. The Bryggeriet head of event production,
high-school deputy headmaster and previous project manager for the municipality’s
skateboard events have provided comments and confirmed facts. Park Series senior officials
have also provided input on the motivation behind partnering with Malm€o. Each of these
parties are themselves invested in the Malm€o skateboarding story and biased towards a
positive narrative. No outspoken critics of Skate Malm€o situated to have insight have been
sourced and thereby the account lacks this dimension of criticism. There could of course be
other narratives of Malm€o’s skateboarding story. This is for another paper to explore.
Although not an ethnographic text, our approach is inspired by methodological
characteristics from co-constructed autoethnography and para-ethnography. In a co-
constructed autoethnographic approach an inside and outside perspective are combined. A
situated individual (insider) writes about the self, is then subjected to questioning, and forced
to reflect by a co-author (outsider) with the aim to arrive at a shared understanding and Malm€o – the
explanation (Cox et al., 2017). In para-ethnography (e.g. Holmes and Marcus, 2006), skateboarding
ethnographers “loosen their hold on ethnographic authority, and take seriously the efforts of
their informants in producing academically relevant knowledge” (Islam, 2014, p. 232). Para-
city
ethnography involves collaboration with organization members (insiders) who are not just
(insiders) being sources of raw data but also themselves producers of cultural analysis.
Instead of the “traditional” researcher stepping inside, the production of inside knowledge is
left to the expert on the inside who is expected to be able to be self-conscious, analytical and
strategic. One argument behind this is that systematized knowledge interacts with everyday
work situations. A critical point concerns interpretation and representation, as the insider
expert, in our case Author 2, represents the organizational elite. Related to this, as pointed out
by Islam (2014), another critical point is to grounding claims in reflexivity beyond the notion
of the “anecdotal” which might counter received knowledge. The formal and anecdotal
knowledge can coevolve as converging or as competing discourses.
Based on the para-ethnographic approach, Islam (2014) discusses how the loss of a clear
authorial standpoint begs the question of how para-ethnographic insights should ultimately
be translated into academic texts, maybe in the form of “jointly-told tales” enriching academic
writing by presenting diverse points of view. By questioning the authorship of theory,
academic writing conventions could be destabilized, for better or for worse.
This text is an attempt to try this “jointly-told tale” approach. While aware of the
limitations, we primarily see advantages with this approach. The process of co-construction
created a mutual process in which both authors got familiar with and reflexive about the
whole material. Early in the process the different text sections and responsibilities were
clearly separated but in the end all parts have been processed by both authors. The
skateboarding story is still Author 2’s but with new theoretical insights and reflections. When
processing the story, Author 1 developed a deeper understanding of its practical implications
and relations. This also acted to inform the content of the conceptual framework.

Conceptual background
Driving forces behind urban entrepreneurialism and the marketing of cities
Malm€o has transformed considerably during the last four decades, from an industrial to a
post-industrial city. To frame the development, we will start this paper by giving a more
general, condensed background to the main driving forces behind the increased importance
of city marketing, mainly from a Western world perspective.
During the late 1970s and the 1980s, a considerable quantity of the former industrial cities
in the Western World, of which Malm€o is a good example, experienced an economic
restructuring. Deindustrialization was at the core of this change and as a consequence, many
cities lost their main economic base (e.g. Paddison and Hutton, 2015; Hall, 1998). The former
industrial cities had to promote and develop favorable conditions for other economic
activities, focusing on service-, knowledge- and information-based industries, but also the so
called experience economy, leisure industries and “creative” sectors (to relate to the highly
adopted and increasingly criticized “creative class” dogma by Florida). Before the 1980s few
cities or urban policy makers ascribed tourism any major economic importance, but since
then tourism has become an attractive prospective source of income. Therefore, a significant
share of the development and marketing policies have often been directed towards tourism.
In their economic restructuring cities had to work hard with different development
strategies and marketing campaigns to show an attractive, modern image. A magazine
advertisement from the 1990s for the former industrial city of Birmingham clearly illustrates
the struggle for a new image by shifting the economic focus towards an experience economy:
“From exhibitions, to entertainments, to conferences, to conventions, to sports, to
spectaculars” (Hall, 1998, p. 131).
IJSMS The economic restructuring was driven by and contributed to an increased globalization.
On the one hand, places were increasingly connected by international networks. On the other
hand, globalization escalated competition between places (e.g. Kotler et al., 1999). Companies,
investments, workers, tourists, consumers, students, etc. became increasingly mobile and
informed. Today, places are subject to competition, but at different geographical levels, and
international competition is increasing.
The economic changes transformed urban policy making and planning in Sweden and
many other countries. The role of local government changed and regional politics was
reshaped to handle growth in a world more subject to competition. According to the classic
text by Harvey (1989), a shift from urban managerialism to entrepreneurialism occurred. At
the core of the more entrepreneurial urban politics developing, is that the tools and strategies
of the corporate sector have been adopted by the public sector (Boisen et al., 2018). Among
these we find growing interest in marketing the city as a product. In conjunction with the
above development, many cities experienced a shift towards a more neoliberal urban politics
emphasizing the power of the free market (Jonas et al., 2015). As stated by Listerborn (2017, p.
16): “moments of crisis, unemployment, and de-industrialization have been entry points for
neoliberal planning transformations.”
From a planning perspective, since around 1980 Sweden and many other western
countries have experienced a shift from an authoritarian, centrally controlled to a more
communicative type of urban planning and politics. Here, citizens are given more
opportunities of influence on the one hand and commercial actors in line with neoliberal
politics on the other. As Zakhour and Metzger (2018, p. 48) put it:
Under the emergent neoliberal urban governance landscape and its relentless pursuit of economic
growth the role of planning is no longer characterised by steamrolling opposition through the
reference of a supposedly neutral ‘public interest’, but by reining in dissident voices through the
pretence of participation, agreement and consensus.
However, practice often demonstrates difficulties to balance interests. According to Roy
(2015, p. 67):
These ideals thus provide an effective veil to hide the true nature of the post-political space of citizen
engagement fostered through present governance arrangements within the predominantly market-
driven political-economic regime.

Place marketing, branding and promotion – conceptual challenges

In this paper we are interested in how sport, in this case skateboarding as a sport and cultural
phenomenon, becomes integrated into the development, branding and marketing of a place
(Malm€o). When approaching the concept of place marketing, it is clear that these similar but
not synonymous concepts overlap. As Boisen et al. (2018, p. 5) state:
Even when not being used synonymously, place promotion, place marketing and place branding
mean different things to different people at different times and in different situations. This is also the
case in the general meaning and use of these concepts.
Place promotion means sender-to-receiver communication with the aim to gain attention for a
product, in this case a place, amongst a selected target audience (Boisen et al., 2018). Boisen
et al. (2018, p. 6) highlight the following quote from Hospers (2009, p. 51): “A campaign will not
make the city more attractive or entrepreneurial than it is.” Place marketing is about more
than communicating a message. It involves the process through which the product (i.e. a
place) is created grounded in identified needs and preferences. The potential consumers or
users and their demands constitute the starting point for the marketing, which means a
demand-driven approach (Boisen et al., 2018). Finding a coherent definition of the place
marketing concept proves hard, but Braun (2008, p. 43) contributes with a comprehensive Malm€o – the
definition, which we find useful: skateboarding
(. . .) coordinated use of marketing tools supported by a shared customer-oriented philosophy, for city
creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging urban offerings that have value for the city’s
customers and the city’s community at large.
This definition includes a focus on new consumers/visitors/users as well as the residents of
the city, in other words an outward as well as an inward perspective (see below). Also, it
includes all steps from developing to communicating and selling the product. Syssner (2013,
p. 11) defines place marketing as “a long-term, strategic work aiming to change, improve and
enhance the image of a place.” According to this definition branding becomes a part of
marketing. Place branding is identity-driven and aims at creating and managing the image of
a place. The brand is highly dependent on perceptions and meanings (for further discussion
see Boisen et al., 2018). As such, the place branding concept is highly complex, which is
discussed in more detail in Kavaratzis and Kalandides (2015).
Place marketing, as well as branding, could, and should, have one outward-oriented and one
inward-oriented dimension. Outward-orientation here meaning developing, packaging and
selling the place as a product to potential customers, for instance companies and tourists (e.g.
Syssner, 2013). This is probably the dominating and most obvious dimension of place
marketing. Often, outward-oriented strategies raise discussions regarding the value for
different groups. Strategies for placing the city on the international map through spectacular
infrastructure or events do not necessarily benefit local residents. As pointed out by Insch
(2011, p. 11): “(. . .) if the decision is made to appeal to an external audience, such as tourists, the
city brand might offend the residents and even alienate them.” To avoid this, the strategies need
to gain acceptance and importantly be integrated in the everyday landscape of the residents.
The inward-oriented dimension of place marketing focuses on the residents and local
businesses and organizations. It is often stated that the marketing and branding process must
be based on the local identity and authentic values associated with the location as artificial
narratives are not effective (Rius Ulldemolins, 2014). Pedeliento and Kavaratzis (2019)
emphasize the connection between culture, identity and image. A challenge regards the
questions of representation, stereotypes and inclusion. To identify and develop a brand
grounded in the common identity, not just varnish and banal slogans, requires involvement
from multiple stakeholders in a way that is relevant, consistent and coherent (Syssner, 2013;
Insch, 2011; Richelieu, 2018). As pointed out by Dinnie (2011, p. 4): “part of the complexity of city
brands derives from the obligation to address the need of a spectrum of fundamentally different
target audiences.” The elitist (top-down) perspective must be complemented by a more
participatory (bottom-up) approach. This goes both hand in hand with the entrepreneurial,
neoliberal urban governance trend presented above, and against it. To make the equation even
more complex, the importance of a unique positioning is often emphasized (e.g. Richelieu, 2018).
From a place marketing perspective, strategies which manage to integrate the outward and
inward perspectives have the potential of becoming more successful.
Aitken and Campelo (2011) highlight the importance of co-creation in branding, as an
open-ended process “so that meaning is achieved through the interplay between social
relationships and communal experience” (p. 916). Co-creation changes the control and
ownership from firm (or in our case the city) to consumer-centered where rights, roles,
responsibilities and relationships might be altered and interweaved.

Sport as a platform for place marketing and branding

Sport has a great potential as a platform for city marketing and branding (e.g. Richelieu,
2018). There is a large and ever-growing economy around sport. The sport sector is growing
IJSMS and becoming more diversified, sport tourism is growing and sport engages at different
levels. Moreover, sport is spatially manifested, making it attractive to integrate in the urban
marketing strategies.
The most common as well as researched sport-related marketing and image-enhancing
strategy is event-hosting (e.g. Richelieu, 2018; Chalip and Fairley, 2019; Book and Eskilsson,
2010; Jago et al., 2003). Events meet several of the desired criteria set out above, have the
potential to attract visitors and gain attention through several channels (e.g. Herstein and
Berger, 2013; for a discussion regarding the event legacy concept see i.e. Preuss, 2019;
Richelieu, 2018). The trend of building large-scale arenas and stadiums is clearly linked to
this, enabling sport events while signaling a sport-image by profiling flagship buildings
(Mason et al., 2018). A third common marketing strategy is the use of sport teams, clubs and
successful athletes to represent the place. The football teams of Manchester help build the
image of the city just as the tiny village/ski resort of T€arnaby in Nothern Sweden make use of
former residents and alpine ski stars Anja P€arsson and Ingemar Stenmark as guarantors
for its credibility. The large-scale, spectacular and successful have been given ingredients in
the sport-related place marketing strategies over a long period of time.
The marketing focus on the more spectacular side of sport, including large-scale events,
stadiums and successful teams has witnessed a growing criticism accusing it of being one-
sided. As urban marketing and branding tools, these phenomena are controversial. Already
in 2006, Hall with clarity interpreted sport mega-events as one of the hallmarks of modernity
with imaging aims. He captures the essence of the above highlighted development steps:
Imaging a city through the organization of spectacular urban space by, for example, hosting a mega-
event, is therefore a mechanism for attracting mobile capital and people (of the right sort) in a period of
intense inter-urban competition and urban entrepreneurialism in which neoliberalism has become one of
the major frameworks by which the experience of urban development is understood. (Hall, 2006, p. 63).
Rosentraub (e.g. 1996, and in later publications) discusses investments in professional sport
teams and facilities in terms of “the emperor’s new clothes”: “I still believe the emperor has no
clothes, but the roar from the crowds may suggest those clothes are visible from other
vantage points” (p. 39). As a consequence of this criticism, spectacular strategies have
increasingly come to be developed with a higher awareness and community-orientation. It
has also become more common to embrace and highlight other aspects of sport than the
spectacular when developing and marketing the city, like health aspects, innovative outdoor
activity spaces, bike-friendliness or skate-friendliness.
To summarize, the potential of sport’s place marketing contains several elements: Sport
emotionally engages both internally and externally; sport is expressed in and through
infrastructure, activities, people, emotions and economies; sport exists at different
geographical levels – from the very local level to the global; sport’s popularity and media
coverage is huge; etc.
As highlighted earlier in the paper, collaborative and participatory processes are essential
in the place development and marketing process. Richelieu (2018) presents a holistic approach
to place branding through sport articulated around four dimensions: sport; economic;
commercial; and social. He also emphasizes co-creation and cooperation involving multiple
stakeholders, and, in connection to the social dimension, the importance of “willingness from
managers and politicians to communicate, collaborate and find a consensus for the benefit of
the local population” (p. 366).

Turning our eyes towards Malm€ o – the city with two faces
Malm€o fits into the general framework of urban development in many respects (Dannestam,
2009). Malm€o has, as mentioned, transformed into a post-industrial city. A great loss of jobs
and population in the 1980 and 1990s forced the city to develop an urban policy aiming at Malm€o – the
standing out as an attractive, modern city (e.g. Salonen et al., 2019). During a few decades with skateboarding
target-oriented politics, a number of spectacular projects, including flagship buildings,
stadiums and international events, were launched, with the municipality as the main or
city
supporting actor. Malm€o clearly aimed for an international audience through urban
governance with neoliberal undertones (e.g. Listerborn, 2017). Malm€o still has the aim to
attract mega-events (Gillberg, 2018) and build a profiling, spectacular infrastructure.
However, it has been obvious that the fancy facade cannot hide internal problems. Even
though the transformation to a post-industrial city has been quite successful, inequality and
income gaps have been growing. The city demonstrates a very diverse and young population
and a marked socioeconomic polarization (Salonen et al., 2019). Therefore, the city has started
to develop a large variety of strategies to improve the living-conditions for its residents and
hopefully its problematic image. Among the strategies we find support for urban sport,
development of public spaces and grassroots initiatives.
On the one hand there is tension between the visions for the city and the actual urban
condition in Malm€o (Listerborn, 2017). On the other hand there is a will and decision-making
capacity to deal with the problems and even develop its urban brand based on the new
initiatives. On the city’s webpage (City of Malm€o, 2020) one can read: “How a post-industrial
city reinvented itself as a dynamic knowledge centre built on cultural diversity, youth and
sustainable development.” Today, ideas of participation, diversity and youth are celebrated
in words, practices and in the branding of Mal€o€o. In this context skateboarding fits well, or to
use the concept of image congruence (e.g. Zhang et al., 2020): there is an image congruence
between the skateboard efforts and the overall image.

Malm€ o’s skateboarding story

San Francisco has its hills, Los Angeles its concrete urban sprawl and Barcelona its dynamic
architecture. They offer a rich cultural vibrancy and, crucially for skateboarders, a mostly
dry and temperate climate. Their status as important skateboarding destinations is not
surprising. Malm€o, on the other hand offers a post-industrial city of rough surfaces and
cobblestoned squares under seemingly endless grey skies with temperatures not clearly
determining any given season. After 20 years of continuous collaboration the Malm€o story
stands as an example of what can be created. Other skateboarding Meccas tell the story of
what is already there.
That Malm€o has developed into a recognized skateboarding destination illustrates how
consistent, constructive partnerships between municipalities and user groups can generate
branding outcomes. The following sections will offer a brief outline of Malm€o’s development
as a skateboarding city, told by the skateboarding coordinator in Malm€o.

Malm€o’s skateboarding development

In the early 1990s Malm€o’s skateboarders spent their winters in a garage underneath a central
mall. After being subjected to systematic muggings and conflicts with security guards, they
caught the attention of local youth organizations. Here engaged individuals set out to help the
skaters navigate the different interfaces of The City of Malm€o. In 1998, this resulted in the
establishment of the not-for-profit organization and indoor skatepark Bryggeriet.
Bryggeriet established an institutional platform for community-based initiatives. The
skateboarders’ entrepreneurship coupled with municipal support allowed Malm€o’ skate
activities to grow. Bryggeriet established a consistent economy for skateboarders to work
with skateboarding.
An early initiative was the project plan for a concrete skatepark. Stapelb€addsparken was
approved as the skaters’ plan coincided with municipal objectives to establish public space
IJSMS for youth within the redevelopment of the Western Harbour. The skaters stressed the need to
use skater-run construction companies as well as participating in the build themselves. The
result was one of Europe’s largest concrete skateparks, but also the apprenticeship for
Malm€o’s own skatepark construction industry.
When Stapelb€addsparken was set to be completed, Bryggeriet reached out to the brand
Quicksilver, offering to co-host their European Championship event Bowlriders. The scale of
Bowlriders required support from the municipality’s Events Division under the Streets and
Parks Department (SPD), opening a key avenue for collaboration between Bryggeriet and the
municipality. Bowlriders introduced large-scale skateboarding events to the general public in
Malm€o and important local and international exposure. It also established a recurring
municipal budget for skateboarding activities which enabled Malm€o to launch the event
brand Ultrabowl when Bowlriders was discontinued.
In 2006, Bryggeriet High School was launched and set out to combine the passion for
skateboarding with formal education. It stands as a key element in Malm€o’s skate-identity.
The school has acted as a platform, magnet and forum for skaters from across Scandinavia to
participate in- and help build Malm€o’s skate-scene.
Ultrabowl and Bowlriders were designed for broad appeal, but Bryggeriet also developed
strictly community-oriented events. Out of these, the event with the highest cultural
significance is Vert Attack, yet this remains largely unknown to the general public. Vert
Attack has attracted the only visit to date of the world’s most recognized skateboarder Tony
Hawk, illustrating the event’s appeal. This visit was, however, kept secret to avoid the crowds
to come, illustrating the events community orientation.
Vert Attack and Bryggeriet’s other community-oriented activities have established
cultural credibility where Ultra Bowl has offered magnitude. Vert Attack has awarded Malm€o
a voice in international contest networks and played an important role in attracting the world
championship Vans Park Series to Malm€o.
When Vans Park Series launched their first global World Championship tour in 2016,
Malm€o was selected as the partner-city for Europe, Middle-East and Africa (EMEA). The
motivation was that Malm€o was seen as a partner sharing similar goals of growing
skateboarding and actively developing skateboarding culture. The established municipal
partnership acted as a guarantor for these goals and Malm€o was able to influence the event to
include the establishment a permanent legacy skatepark and a female competition. The event
significantly elevated the exposure of Malm€o as a skateboarding destination and the legacy
park generated long-term social benefits while setting the stage for future championships in
2017 and 2018. Park Series also provided a stage for local Malm€o talent, including Karl
Berglind and Oskar “Oski” Rozenberg-Hallberg, the latter claiming the World Championship
title in 2017 and 2019.

From parks to the streets

Malm€o’s recurring events evolved the relationship between the SPD and Bryggeriet. In 2012,
this was formalized under the brand name and communications platform Skate Malm€o and in
2015 the dedication of a full-time municipal position informally recognized as the
skateboarding coordinator.
The coordinator’s position within the SPD opened opportunities to move the
skateboarding activities out of the skateparks into public space. The event concept Skate
Malm€o Street (SMS) was developed to extend the social impact of events by introducing
permanent skateboarding infrastructure in existing urban spaces. SMS also set out to
promote female and nonbinary skateboarding. In 2019 the fusion of events and urban
development motivated the partnership with the London-based Pushing Boarders conference
and the “Dork Zone” project; a strategy for introducing skateboarding into new
neighborhoods through placemaking and community building methods.
Malm€o DIY Malm€o – the
Malm€o’s skateboarding events have received significant public investment. They are not, skateboarding
however, what Malm€o is most renowned for within skateboarding culture. To dedicated
skateboarders, Malm€o’s Do-it-yourself (DIY) history is of greater significance than any
city
championship event is ever likely to be.
Malm€o’s DIY history runs parallel with the development of Bryggeriet and predates
Malm€o’s skateparks. Inspired by skaters in Portland, Oregon, Malm€o skaters began claiming
unused urban spaces to build their own skate spots in concrete. Gathering to build helped
solidify the community and shaped parts of the identity of the Malm€o skate scene (Borden,
2019). These largely illegal DIY projects helped connect the Malm€o skaters to Portland-based
skatepark builders, frame the idea of Stapelb€addsparken and lay the foundation for Malm€o’s
own skatepark building industry.
The DIY process was well documented by photographers and filmmakers within the skate
community. Local professional skateboarder Pontus Alv produced The Strongest of the
Strange and In Search of the Miraculous, two films that through a heart-on-sleeve narrative
showcased Malm€o’s skateboarding talent and development of DIY spaces. After decades of
Southern California claiming the cultural limelight, skaters living in conditions more similar
to Malm€o were open to a narrative about confronting adversity.
Malm€o’s DIY scene inspired a path to self-determination through building your own spots
and community and attracted the attention of international skateboard media, generating
numerous documentaries and articles. (e.g. Uncredited – What Youth). The Malm€o story
gained importance as a reference in a cultural progression where skaters around the world
began initiating their own DIY-projects (Borden, 2019).
The films established a global following for Alv from which he could launch the brand
Polar Skate Co. The launch of “Polar” was seen as a catalyst in a power shift where companies
outside the United States gained access to the global market. Other Malm€o-based companies
have followed, forming a local skate-industry.

Exposure and branding: events

Malm€o’s skateboarding development suggests that the direct funding of the municipality
does not necessarily correspond to exposure return. Public funding has been directed at
skateparks, Bryggeriet and the main events, yet the DIY scene and culturally driven
initiatives have had fundamental branding impact. An illustrative comparison can be made
between the exposure Malm€o receives from Park Series and Polar Skate Co.
Polar originates in Malm€o and is part of the Malm€o skateboarding story. Its brand identity
traces its appeal to the skateboarding community while being a consistently popular
streetwear brand worldwide. Malm€o is not central to Polar’s communication, yet the city is
commonly featured in association with the brand. Polar’s Instagram account has a large
following and its films are premiered in cities all over the world on release.
Park Series is an annual event series taking place in different cities around the world. It is
backed by the brand Vans which is fundamentally connected to the history of skateboarding
and closely associated with California. Park Series visited for three consecutive years and
Malm€o received exposure from the events in conjunction with these occasions. During the
Malm€o event windows, Skate Malm€o was showcased through Vans’ extensive media
platform and event webcast. The events generated broad global exposure beyond what Ultra
Bowl had ever achieved. The World Championship Final in particular had a broad, global
exposure, allowing the Malm€o skateboarding story to reach new audiences (an example being
the cover of Financial Times, September 9, 2016).
Polar Skate Co. and Park Series have generated valuable exposure for Malm€o. Polar has
clearly had the most branding impact as it makes up a fundamental element of the Malm€o
IJSMS skate story and identity. Park Series does not make up a part of this identity, but rather
complements it as an esteemed guest and partner that adds a dimension to the Malm€o story
and helps tell it to a broader audience.
Comparing Polar and Park Series indicates how investment in events can achieve
immediate exposure but activities rising from a community foundation can generate unique
branding-power and more long-term exposure. Events can broadcast what is there, but not
necessarily create it. The support for the legacy park bridged this dynamic by generating
community as well as branding values and feeding into Vans’ as well as Skate Malm€o’s
messaging for the event.

Exposure and branding: the skate-friendly city

Malm€o’s skateboarding development indicates that skateboarders in Malm€o are included in
decision-making processes that other skate-communities are not. The high school,
skateboarding coordinator and inclusion of skateboarding elements in public space carry a
sensational appeal that informs the Malm€o brand in different ways.
Skate Malm€o Street has generated a platform to showcase Malm€o’s skate-friendly identity
and promote female, and nonbinary skateboarding. The municipality’s primary objective has
been the live event, yet social media exposure has far surpassed on-site attendance. The social
media strategy has also succeeded in engaging with the target communities, thereby
elevating the significance of the event within these. The Pushing Boarders conference
extended the reach of these efforts and offered Malm€o a voice in a culturally influential forum.
In this sense, the events primarily motivated by local attendance are generating important
global branding values through community engagement.
Malm€o’s inclusion of skateboarding in public spaces contrasts with a norm of defensive
strategies applied by many municipalities. This shapes Malm€o’s skate-identity and resonates
with skate-communities struggling with municipal support. Malm€o is consistently referenced
and consulted on skateboarding development by skaters and municipalities around the
world. Notably, Hull has utilized the Skate Malm€o model for the redevelopment of their
cultural center and the skaters of Bordeaux are following a parallel path (e.g. Mersom, 2017).
Bryggeriet high school regularly receives exposure and in a range of media (e.g. Dwell,
2019). It has a strong position in the Malm€o story where it is referenced as a sensational
example that elevates the overall identity of Malm€o as a skate friendly city. It adds a “wow-
factor” to the Malm€o brand by capturing the imagination. The school also importantly
generates a continuous flow of alumni who act as ambassadors for Malm€o skate scene.
World Champion Oskar Rozenberg-Hallberg illustrates the symbiosis between municipal
support and cultural relevance. He has gained cultural recognition through his presence in
Polar’s films, but reached public awareness through his performance in Park Series. He acts
as an ambassador for Malm€o both through his nominations for Male Athlete of the Year in the
Swedish Sports Gala and Skater of the Year for Thrasher Magazine. In both instances he
helps build the Malm€o brand.

Exposure and tourism

Malm€o sees a continuous flow of visiting skateboarders. Skate-media inform skaters of tricks
and trends, but also new places or “spots” where unique architecture offers unique skating
experiences. Pilgrimages to iconic spots are strong motivators and Malm€o’s DIY-spots are
just as important for visits to Malm€o as the skate parks are. The prevalence of films and
articles about the skate-scene have produced a positive feedback-loop that attracts further
documentation, visits and cements Malm€o’s reputation, building the brand further.
Numerous skaters, some professional, from all over the world have made Malm€o their
home to be part of the skate-scene. In spite of the climate, skateboarding in Malm€o offers a
social platform that feeds tourism, settlement and places Malm€o in an international context. Malm€o – the
Events attract visitors, but Bryggeriet, the DIY-and street-spots are just as important parts of skateboarding
the appeal.
city

Considering the success factors

Howell (2008) states that skateboarding has been picked out as an incubator of
entrepreneurialism, often within a neoliberal context endorsing privatization, public–
private collaboration, efficiency, citizen initiative and an expanded role for the non-profit
sector. That’s partly true in the Malm€o case but not with the overtones of privatization.
Rather, Malm€o presents a holistic approach, where the seemingly small can have the greater
impact. Driven by the grassroots level in cooperation with the public sector, interacting with
the private sector.
As shown, several factors stand behind Malm€o’s development as a skate city, of which the
exposure presented above is a result. The establishment of Bryggeriet as a sustainable and
independent not-for-profit institution has been fundamental. It has allowed skaters’
entrepreneurship to be mobilized and given the municipality a reliable partner for
venturing into new initiatives.
The collaboration between the City of Malm€o and Bryggeriet has operated from a platform
of shared values. Framing shared goals has been possible as the not-for-profit and municipal
goal hierarchies have corresponded. Bryggeriet and the municipality have generated user-
driven culturally credible activities that fulfil objectives of the municipality without needing
to generate direct profit. This would not be possible in a public-private partnership.
Cultural integrity has been central to the communication for Skate Malm€o. As
skateboarders are personally invested in the codes of their culture, they become
gatekeepers to protect it and the skateboarding community has historically been skeptical
to advances from uninvested parties (Borden, 2019). Skatemalmo.com is operated by
communicators with a background in skateboarding based on the understanding that only
members of a cultural group are articulate in the semantics of that group.
Malm€o skateboarding has been able to develop as it has been allowed to transcend
categorization. Skateboarders reject restricting their culture to art, sport or leisure and
correspondingly, Malm€o’s skateboarding initiatives have involved competitions, exhibitions,
cultural activities, education and more. Bryggeriet has secured support from different
departments of the municipality for different activities. Had support been limited to either
sport or culture, the skate-scene would likely have been less dynamic.
Malm€o is a medium-sized city which, compared to larger cities, has the advantage of short
organizational and physical distances between different departments and organizations.
This offers opportunities to create unity around an issue and visible community-wide results.
In the case of skateboarding in Malm€o, both physical and intangible traces can be identified
all over the city, in the suburbs as well as in central squares.

Discussion
As shown above, the skateboarding story of Malm€o fits into the framework built around the
concepts of place branding, marketing, neoliberalism and urban entrepreneurialism. At the
same time, it demonstrates something different. Part of the attraction, but also the challenge,
of using skateboarding as a tool for developing and marketing a city lays in the complexity of
the sport, or culture. On the one hand, it is considered to be a young and rebellious sub-culture,
on the other it is becoming an established Olympic sport. It has developed into a global,
commercialized industry but is also a grassroots movement. It is seen as vitalizing public
space, but also as disruptive. Malm€o has managed to navigate and even capitalize on the
IJSMS complexity through a user-driven partnership approach. It is an example of the consumer-
centered co-creation process in which rights, roles, responsibilities and relationships becomes
interweaved, described by Aitken and Campelo (2011).
Acceptance has been central to the concept. Malm€o’s approach to embrace skateboarding
in public was greatly contrasted with other cities’ defensive strategies (e.g. Chiu and
Giamarino, 2019) and received international recognition. When it comes to embracing
skateboarding more generally as an attractive feature in urban development, Malm€o is,
however, not the only example. For instance, Beal et al. (2017) found that different groups are
interested in becoming part of skateboarding culture, from city governments, to health
foundations, to nonprofit groups to actors within the skateboard industry.
The focus on skateboarding in Malm€o does not come without skepticism, e.g. regarding
representation and uneven use of public resources. It could be argued that skateboarding is
an exclusive, excluding activity only involving a very limited a limited part of the local (and
global) community, mainly privileged young, white males (Beal et al., 2017). That is of course
(partly) true. However, skateboarding today is incorporating a broader spectrum of
participants including young women and minority ethnic young males (Atencio and Beal,
2016). In the case of Skate Malm€o, addressing the imbalance of participation in skateboarding
is indeed the defining drive behind the efforts toward increased inclusivity and focus on
social outcomes. The representation is uneven but the shared value platform between not-for-
profit organizations and municipality allow for strategies that are putting emphasis on
opening up and making accessible, and at the same time being authentic. Also, skateboarding
is just one of several elements developed in public space. Malm€o is working extensively with
e.g. outdoor gyms, multi-ball pitches, themed playgrounds, walkability and cycle-
friendliness. In fact, Malm€o has several times received international recognition for being
one of the most cycle-friendly cities in the world.

Conclusions
The City of Malm€o’s close collaboration with the skateboarding community illustrates how
co-creation strategies, with tangible as well as intangible elements, that enable culturally
demarcated groups to manifest their visions can generate unexpected and significant values.
Cultural communities can penetrate global audiences inaccessible to non-members and
establish brand identity for a city within them.
Drawing on the story of Malm€o’s skateboarding development as outlined above, we can
conclude that the success behind Malm€o’s establishment as a recognized skateboard city
rests on a multi-level, multi-content approach. Facilities include large-scale skate parks as
well as small scale DIY project and street-skating. Events range from World Championship
finals to community activities. Actors include engaged individuals and grassroots-
community as well as institutional support and not least the skateboarding coordinator
and Skate Malm€o. Local skaters ride side-by-side with renowned skateboard-profiles like
Oski. A growing commercial skateboard-industry is emerging and there is a skate-oriented
high-school. With the help of media exposure, not least social media, the brand of a
skateboarding-friendly city has emerged.
Importantly, the development has resulted from an interface with shared values between
the institutions that have enabled the shaping of common goals. Instead of fitting and forcing
a phenomenon into an outward-oriented image-strategy, skateboarding as a phenomenon
and culture has been allowed to develop organically, creating a credible, unique and
congruent image for Malm€o.
The Malm€o skateboarding case also shows the positive outcomes allowing small
grassroots efforts to snowball into something big and established, instead of trying to
implement a large-scale project from above. The different components overlap and involve a
wide spectrum of target-groups – in the city and outside. Moreover, the skateboarding efforts Malm€o – the
fit well into the broader marketing and branding strategies for Malm€o, built around skateboarding
complimentary identities. Uncoordinated strategies without political support are less likely to
gain acceptance. However, a strong grassroots initiative can, as in the case of Malm€o, be
city
adopted into a broader marketing framework. Furthermore, a skateboarding strategy, or
another strategy focusing on a specific activity, does not create an urban brand on its own.
The image and identity of a city must be built around a number of different features.
We believe that the structures and methods that have facilitated the development of
Malm€o as a skateboarding destination are potentially replicable and could offer a method for
municipalities to engage with culturally demarcated user-groups to establish constructive
partnerships. The individuals whose engagement and entrepreneurship have driven the
process are, however, unique for Malm€o. Malm€o’s example suggests that engaging with these
user-groups can favorably be done with respect for cultural integrity and expertise.
Municipalities can do well in trusting young people to define what is cool and deploy
strategies enabling them to do more of it. Communities looking for support can do well in
formulating goals that generate broader municipal values.

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Corresponding author
Karin Book can be contacted at: karin.book@mau.se

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