Iconic site development and legitimating policies: The changing role of water in Dutch identity discourses

• The decline in territorial identities undermine the legitimacy of the nation-state.
• Iconic sites anchor spatial identities across scales, time and between communities.
• General policies on sustainability can be legitimized through local flagship sites.
• Heritage sites and flagship sites are linked to thick and thin spatial identities.
• New regions use iconic sites to anchor spatial identities locally and across scales.

This paper focusses on the role of iconic sites in the legitimation of policies. Traditionally the legitimation of administrations is based on national communities. The undermining of these territorial communities, through globalisation and individualisation, make iconic sites more important to anchor spatial identities and link these between groups and across scales. Traditional thick spatial identities based on a historically formed nested hierarchy of local, regional and national territorial communities are in decline. Administrations have to rely more on thinner, more forward looking identities. The spatiality of iconic sites makes them useful to communicate a consistent identity discourse linking different types and scales of spatial identities of administrations and populations. This paper differentiates between backward looking heritage sites and forward looking flagship sites previewing an ideal identity to be realised in the future. The ways these types of iconic sites are used in identity discourses by administration to legitimise policies is illustrated by an analysis of how local identity discourses on waterlogged backlands are linked with the changing national policies of water management in the Netherlands. This shows how the administration of the city region of Arnhem–Nijmegen uses a newly constructed park as an iconic site in their spatial identity discourse.

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