ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how imaginaries of the city as a cosmopolitan, open, and diverse place are constituted, supported, and regulated at times of crisis. Through an empirical case study – the #LondonIsOpen campaign and the debates it generated after the Brexit vote – the chapter examines how urban imaginaries are shaped and contested at the intersection of cultural diversity and the mediated vision of a city that is recognizable, desirable, and powerful. London’s campaign in response to the Brexit referendum, #LondonIsOpen, represents the empirical starting point for this discussion. The discussion analyzes two of the campaign’s promotional films and the responses they generated online and offline. The #LondonIsOpen campaign was initiated by the Mayor of London, but quickly spilled from the city’s headquarters to the digital and material street, and reflects the institutional and vernacular complexities and contradictions of urban imaginaries at times of cosmopolitan crisis.
