Boosterism
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Boosterism is the act of "boosting" or otherwise promoting one's city or organization, with the goal of improving the overall quality of the city or organization, as well as its public perception. This can be as simple as talking up the entity at a party, or as elaborate as establishing a visitors' bureau. It is somewhat associated with American small towns.
During the expansion of the Canadian West, Boosterism became epidemic as the leaders and owners of small towns made extravagant predictions for their settlement in the hope of attracting more residents, and not coincidentally inflating real estate prices.
Boosterism is an important theme of the novel Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis.
References and External Link
- The Promised Land, by Pierre Berton
- Babbitt (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new?id=LewBabb&tag=public&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&part=0) by Sinclair Lewis