The story of the Canadian town that changed its name “that...

• David Cox
• BBC

Many cities and towns in the world have inappropriate or ominous names. While some of them were able to achieve material gains from that, others preferred to change their names, so which of the two options is better?

Attracting investors or those wishing to establish new companies is not an easy task for any city on earth, especially in light of the highly competitive environment prevailing in the world in this regard.

But this task becomes more difficult when the city happens to bear the name of a mineral that causes cancer, and its use is banned in about 60 countries. Specifically, this constitutes the plight of “asbestos”; This small town in the southeast of the French-speaking Quebec in Canada.

The most telling of the negative reactions that this town received because of its name, is what happened to an employee of its local council last year, when he went to attend a conference in the United States, in order to attract investments to it.

According to Caroline Pei, a member of the town’s local council, “The conference attendees were refusing to take his professional identification card from him, because the word asbestos was written on it, because they thought the card itself was dangerous. It is absolutely inappropriate, for someone to start their mission on this one. Like “.

Situations involving contempt such as these led the local authorities in the town to take very drastic measures to deal with this matter, as it witnessed, between the 14th and 18th of this month, a referendum to change its name.

A population of about 6,800 people participated in the referendum to choose an alternative name for “asbestos” from a list, the number of which had been increased from four to six names, after residents complained earlier this month that they lacked sufficient options to choose between them. .

Residents chose the name “Val de Sorses,” which means “Valley of Sources”. Although the referendum process in its various stages was not easy financially, as it cost the region nearly one hundred thousand US dollars, local officials there are convinced that it will bring benefits in the future. “We are losing very important economic opportunities, just because of the name of our town,” Pei says. “It is very sad.”

But it wasn’t that bad all the time. In the past, “asbestos” was a sought-after mineral. And it was extracted from a mine in the town for a century, for use in construction and manufacturing. That mine, which bore the name “Geoffrey”, was spread over an enormous area of ​​up to two kilometers in width. During the period of its operation, the mine provided thousands of well-paid job opportunities for the townspeople, which led to the design of the features of development processes in its lands, and the formation of its identity as well.

However, since the 1920s, evidence has increasingly appeared linking asbestos to diseases such as lung cancer and mesothelioma, which is a type of cancer that affects the lining that covers the outer surface of some body systems.

In the past, the World Health Organization estimated that more than a hundred thousand people die annually as a result of diseases linked to exposure to “asbestos”. And in 2011, the Geoffrey mine was closed forever.

Since then, the town has tried again and again to give new features to its image, and to devise various ways to support its local economy. There was an attempt to convert the mine into a tourist area for adventure enthusiasts, including places for climbing rocks and mountain paths for cyclists. But this perception was never materialized in reality, given public health concerns.

Pei says that the local authorities in the town of “asbestos” have used experts in public relations and the formation of mental images, to redesign their logo and change the look of their website. Also, representatives of the town were sent on a large number of trips abroad, to persuade foreign companies to invest their money there.

But all this did not bear any fruit. An example of this happened last year, when the Canadian town, because of its name, lost the opportunity to incubate investments that would create 30 new job opportunities for its children, says Caroline Pied. It was among the main criteria for the company that was considering pumping these investments, that the name of the place in which its project resides, should not cause problems in the shipping or export operations. However, according to this lady, this incident is only one of many similar examples witnessed in the past few years.

If we look at what this town is suffering from from a broader perspective, we will find that it highlights the economic consequences of carrying a region, town or city with a name, especially if this name leads over time to the crystallization of meanings and negative connotations in the minds, or until it is considered Unfamiliar people.

The ways in which different places adapt to a problem differ, depending on the nature of their inhabitants, and the name itself. Some of them made great strides in terms of changing the name, while others took advantage of it to attract attention to it, and were able to find ways to make it a source of abundant profit.

An example that can be cited here is the French town of Vandal, south of Mies. The town, whose name means “saboteurs”, suffered from unwanted visitors, many of whom would come to it – as its mayor Claude Fellet says – and in their minds that they would encounter “a corrupt quality of people.” Perhaps that is what prompted the town in 2008 to organize a referendum to change its name to “Fantocian”, in an attempt to erase its old name from the minds of the public. At the time, the mayor said, “We are not saboteurs, and there is no reason for people to refer to us this way.”

Conversely, there are place names that carry enormous commercial value. The Norwegian village of Hill is perhaps the most prominent example of this for a long time. This village derives its name from the Norwegian word hellir, which was prevalent in the Middle Ages, meaning the cave located on a cliff.

This spot has been a popular tourist destination for about a century. In the 1930s, The New York Times reported that Americans visit this village to have pictures taken next to the sign at its railway station, which bears her name of course, and to buy postcards written with a phrase that can be translated as “Hell is frozen here” or as “Frozen hill here,” referring to the village’s name. Thanks to this name, the Norwegian village has become a venue for hosting many international events, including music festivals and sports competitions.

Chesti Greiger, in charge of marketing and communications in the Norwegian province of Trondelag, says the name has made this village on the list of well-known brands in the tourism and travel industry. He pointed out that its residents put the name of their village on one of the hills to make it more visible, similar to what is in place, with Hollywood, the capital of cinema in the United States, for example.

In recent years, other cities and towns have sought to find innovative ways to benefit from their names, by taking advantage of the effectiveness of social media platforms and their popularity among users.

Among these towns are: American Boring, Dale Scottish, and Australian Bland, all named after the family names of the first residents who lived in them. The names of the first two towns mean “boring or boring”, while the name of the third town means “boring”. These towns formed what was called the “Association of Outstanding Housing” on Facebook, which appeared in advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, Unilever and Jaguar.

In addition, other towns have survived, and even benefited from, the embarrassment caused by their name. This happened, for example, in the fishermen’s village, Deldo, on the Canadian island of Newfoundland. The town’s name, which is believed to have been named after the paddle axles of rowing boats, means “sex toy”.

The controversy over this name began in the mid-eighties of the last century, after some residents were tired of others making fun of them because of it, which prompted them to demand that it be changed. But the majority of townspeople voted to keep the name as it was.

The irony is that this step paid off after thirty years. According to Andrew Pretty, a local official in that area, 40 percent of the town’s 1,200 residents now earn a living thanks to the influx of American and Canadian tourists to that place, after they read about its name. “We don’t need to market ourselves. Tourism comes to us on its own. Some destinations spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for promotion and marketing. We don’t spend a single penny,” says Priti.

The town was so famous that American TV presenter Jimmy Kimmel launched a satirical campaign in 2019 to promote his election as mayor of “Dildo”. This consequently led to a greater flow of tourists to it, to the extent that the towers of the local telephone network serving this town were overloaded.

“Interest in the town has increased tenfold since Jimmy Kimmel announced it. We have new companies arose in Dildo from people who have no connection to the local community at all, and it happened because the owners of those companies saw that this place had become a spot,” Priti said. You get a lot of attention at the moment. “

Given that Priti himself directly touched the material income that a place could bring, given that he had a strange name, he expressed relative astonishment at the decision of the “asbestos” residents to change the name of their town. He said, “If they change the name, they will not be able to stand out anymore.”

While the residents of “asbestos” may not hope to distinguish themselves from other towns, marketing experts believe that ridding the town of the traces of its tainted past with its relationship to this carcinogen because of its name will not be an easy task.

“It will be relatively easy for any potential investor considering moving to work in this town (after changing its name) to discover that it was previously known as ‘asbestos’,” says Andrea Inch, a researcher at the University of Otago, New Zealand.

Inch, who specializes in marketing for different cities and towns, adds: “You cannot simply hide the rich history so easily, and wake up the next day, to find that you are in a new town in every sense of the word.”

On the other hand, it can be said that some cities and towns did more well than others in terms of changing their name, with the aim of achieving financial gains. One example that we can give in this regard is the British town of “Staines”, which was ridiculed for its name in the movie “Ali G Endhouse”, which was a great success in 2002.

In 2012, the town announced the change of its name, to “Staines-upon-Thames”, thanks to the efforts of a local group of companies spearheading it. The aim was to prevent it from being linked to what was mentioned in the film on the one hand, and to give it a new character, making its image in the minds of others a center for emerging companies, by emphasizing its relative proximity to London, on the other hand.

This change has proven successful. A survey conducted in 2015 revealed that in 2013 and 2014, the town witnessed the largest increase in the rate of new business formation per 100,000 people in the United Kingdom. Analysts pointed out that the change of the town’s name, along with a promotional campaign launched by its local council to raise awareness of its inherent advantages, led to a change in its image, after it had been struggling in the past to attract companies and investments.

But other initiatives to change the name of some places have not had similar success. Usually, the reason for this was that the interest of the population did not always coincide with the interests of companies and economic institutions. Four years ago, for example, a group of workers in the town of Plename, which represents one of the centers of the wine industry and the hospitality sector in New Zealand, launched a campaign to change the name of the town to “Marlboro City”, to take advantage of the fame of the New Zealand province of Marlborough in the areas of tourism and wine production, hoping That this will attract alcohol-loving tourists.

Although the campaign was supported by institutions working in the tourism industry and companies producing wine, it was eventually canceled, after it angered the townspeople.

“I thought we would achieve an increase in tourism income, by between 10 percent and 15 percent (if the name changed),” said Mitchell Gardiner, who launched the campaign. “But things escalated dramatically, and the (angry) reaction from the population was tremendous. “I’m being bullied in the supermarket. However, I still see the possibility to do that in the future, but maybe you have to wait a generation or two.”

If we go back to the Canadian town of “Asbestos”, we will find that its residents were not given the option in the referendum to keep its current name, although some of them still object to changing it.

Researcher Andrea Inch says it is necessary to take into account their feelings with grace and ingenuity, if the town is to succeed in the process of changing its image. And clarifies her vision in this regard, saying: “You have to take into account the viewpoint of the population, as well as the reasons why they defend that name and want to keep it.”

And local officials in “asbestos” say that the main goal behind changing the name is to improve the chances of future generations, and they expect the benefits of that change to appear within a decade or a little more, which prompted them to make the voting age in the referendum, As of 14 years old.

We don’t expect the possibility of a major miracle happening, and everyone will come here suddenly. We feel that the positive impact will appear in five or maybe ten years, which is what makes us engage the next generation. These are the guys. They will live in the town for a longer time than we will. We believe that we are moving towards the future, by changing the name of the town, and that we are thus preparing to move forward, and to enjoy good economic development. “