The evolution of place identity narratives: Long-term textual practices in the Chinese Baroque Historic Area

In the processes of urban renewal and place branding, narratives of place identity undergo continuous evolution. As vital sites for local development, historic districts have seen their identity narratives become key strategies in urban marketing and spatial planning. However, existing research has overlooked the complexity of the dynamic evolution of place identity narratives, thereby limiting the effectiveness of planning, design, and communication in place branding. To systematically examine the long-term dynamic evolution of place identity narratives in historic districts, this study focuses on the Chinese Baroque Historic Area in Harbin, China. A total of 24 planning documents, news reports, and promotional texts from 2007 to 2024 were collected and categorized into three stages: the early stage, the middle stage, and the late stage. Subsequently, employing both quantitative analysis using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic model and qualitative research methods, this study systematically reveals the characteristics of themes across different phases through dimensions such as information priority, structural dominance, and degree of dispersion. It further analyzes the evolutionary features of information structures across texts spanning these phases. The findings reveal a distinct phased evolution in the information structure of the place identity narrative for the Chinese Baroque Historic Area: the early stage was dominated by planning and policy documents, featuring highly concentrated information with institutional themes taking precedence. The middle stage saw a substantial increase in news and promotional texts, shifting the information structure from a high-concentration to a multi-thematic coexistence, accompanied by a redistribution of information priorities. The late stage is dominated by promotional and new media texts, in which themes of experience, image, and daily life gradually take a central position, leading to a relatively balanced information structure. Overall, the place identity narrative continuously evolves and gradually stabilizes through adjustments in information priority and restructuring of relational dynamics. The findings reveal the dynamic mechanisms and structural evolution of place identity narratives, providing important insights for advancing urban renewal and place branding practices.