The rise of neoliberalism has thrust cities into fierce competition for jobs, investments, and “creative” residents who many believe to be the purveyors of urban economic development. In response, city governments have devised entrepreneurial strategies aiming to establish distinct local identities through marketing their supposedly unique culture and/or history via place branding campaigns and accumulating what David Harvey calls “collective symbolic capital”. However, with disproportionate scholarly attention focusing on large urban centers, little is known about how these processes have unfolded, or what they entail, in smaller cities. Adding to a growing body of literature interested in urban processes down the urban hierarchy, this research traces the historical development of Knoxville, Tennessee’s gentrification efforts and examines the contradictions—and their implications—at work within the interactions between the associated processes of gentrification, urban entrepreneurialism, monopoly rent seeking, collective symbolic capital accumulation, place branding, and creative city policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]