This article, through an exposition and conceptual discussion about city marketing, proposes a reflection on the ethical limits of incorporating marketing strategies to the cities. Since the nineties, cities have been adopting explicitly some marketing concepts so as to improve their image internally, for their citizens, and mainly externally, for potentials investors. One of the goals of city marketing strategies is to place the city in a privileged position in a globalized market of people, investments and information flows. This strategy's critics argue that it transforms the city into merchandise; those who are for it say that it is an innovative tool for articulating public and private agents, so as to improve the social-economic aspects of cities and consequently respond to the public interest.
city marketing; urban management; public ethics