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Despite the increasing academic interest for urban ruins and evolutions of urban tourism, research on ruin tourism as an emergent form of urban tourism practice is still lacking. Drawing on existing works on urban exploration, the purpose of this paper is to provide a first geographical insight into ruin tourism and its spatial implications in terms of imaginaries, practices and regulation of urban space.

Drawing on an urban and cultural geography approach, the research is based on a mix of empirical methodologies. Participant observation of organized ruin tours as well as formal and informal interviews with participants, organizers, institutional actors and inhabitants have been conducted during fieldwork completed in Berlin and Detroit. This paper also draws on the analysis of additional data provided by online material, especially official websites of tour organizers, forum threads and comments posted on different websites.

The research shows that ruin tourism can be analyzed as a new practice of urban tourism based on the reappropriation and commodification of alternative practices developing in marginalized urban areas. The paper provides evidence of ruin tourism’s contribution to the normalization of urban space through tourism conquest of new urban territories. It also shows that the practice fosters contested material and symbolic appropriations of place.

This paper contributes to current research on alternative tourism practices in marginalized urban areas as well as on tourist appropriation of liminal spaces. It provides a first analysis of ruin tourism and underscores its potential as a geographical object for the investigation of a wide range of urban issues.

The paper aims to clarify threats facing heritage management in developing countries. It investigates the challenges facing the application of the historic urban landscape approach (HUL) in the city of Alexandria in Egypt, where heritage is trapped between unplanned developments from one side and deterioration from another side.

This paper uses SWOT analysis regarding the heritage management approach of the historic site. Site observation, documentary reviews, an online questionnaire (due to the COVID situation) and some interviews with park visitors and shopkeepers have been adopted to capture the changes in the site management, specifically capturing the current status of the site.

The paper presented an empirical study covering the evolution of heritage management practices. It suggests that building and maintaining the synergy between the government, the private sector and the public is essential for the sustainability of urban development in the city of Alexandria. It also asserts that heritage is a major catalyst of urban regeneration in the city.

This paper highlights major threats facing Alexandrian heritage. However, it lacks generalizability.

It suggests inclusive urban conservation strategies that are based on the HUL approach that would revitalize the historic core and assist in preserving both its tangible and intangible heritage. These strategies can help decision makers to develop more sustainable approaches in managing city heritage and achieving sustainable development of the city core.

The paper presents a social implication through involving stakeholders in the sustainable revitalization project of Al-Shalalat district located in the city center of Alexandria.

The paper presents an empirical study that fulfills an identified need for adopting more sustainable strategies in heritage management in Alexandria.

This paper is an editorial to JCHMSD's Volume 2 Issue 1. Its purpose is to introduce the selection of papers in the issue.

The paper discusses the increased focus of national and local authorities, as well as multilateral agencies, on historic cities in a search for a more sustainable process of urban development that integrates environmental, social and cultural concerns into the planning, design and implementation of urban management programmes and projects. The recent adoption of a new policy instrument by UNESCO, the 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape, is providing a set of general principles in support of sustainable urban heritage management and the paper further explains the first results of a field testing of the embedded Historic Urban Landscape approach in two different geo‐cultural regions of the world (i.e. Central Asia and East Africa). It points to fields of further research, which are linked to the papers selected for this issue.

The Historic Urban Landscape approach, as promoted in the new UNESCO Recommendation on the subject, facilitates a structuring and priority setting of the manifold needs and wishes in the broader urban development and heritage management process, thereby creating clarity and understanding in an often very complex process with competing demands.

The new UNESCO Recommendation was adopted on 10 November 2011 and this research paper is the first to expound on an implementation of the approach embedded therein, explaining its merits and potential.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the planned urban renewal and re-scripting of Riyadh’s downtown as part of the capital’s aim to become a globally recognized city. Specifically, this paper examines in how far internationally established values and narratives are leveraged in the creation of an urban mega-destination that seeks to attract a transnational class of knowledge workers and tourists. The question is explored, in how far and to what extent urban heritage sites and iconic architectural projects are used as strategic tools to promote a process of cultural and economic transformation and in how far the resulting symbolic capital is leveraged to create a status of singularization that appeals to a national and international audience. This study investigates several neighborhoods in the area, analyzing how these will be transformed by Riyadh’s plan to turn the downtown into a commercially viable mixed-use destination by means of designated heritage destinations and iconic architecture.

This paper examines the views and experiences of governmental agencies, architects, developers and residents who are directly or indirectly involved with the planned restructuring of Riyadh’s historical downtown. In total, 40 semi-structured interviews were drawn from this stakeholder group to investigate their current understanding of the downtown associated with the effort to convert Riyadh’s historical downtown into a profitable urban destination. Five of these interviews were conducted with involved planning offices, and 35 with current residents in the area. In addition, a detailed site survey was conducted through a series of maps to reveal existing land uses, building typologies, states of disrepair, activity levels, pedestrian and car circulation patterns, as well as landmarks, and public spaces in each of the areas.

The subsequent data show that despite many positive outcomes in terms of commercial redevelopment, the adaptive reuse of the existing urban fabric is not considered, nor the preservation of underutilized or abandoned buildings along with its resident diverse communities, activities and milieus, many of which carry on evolving traditions.

This is significant because this paper presents a massive case study that ties into a larger debate on cultural globalization where similar practices around the world entail a spatial reorientation of urban districts to attract a transnational cosmopolitan middle class along with a simultaneous displacement of diverse and migrant communities, albeit on a much larger scale. While highlighting the rationale and effectiveness of this approach to create a well-packaged commodity, this paper also underscores the ambiguous consequences of this strategy, which entails the loss of a layered urban fabric that documents the city’s evolution through different economic periods, along with the dispersal of migrant communities and their vernacular practices.

Within this context, the current cultural value of the downtown as a heterogeneous, dynamic and multilayered fabric is debated, which documents the socio-economic conditions of the times in which these layers were formed. Departing from the UNESCO’s 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape and globally accepted sustainability standards, this study contrasts the proposed top-down tabula rasa approach proposed by the local authorities with an inclusive bottom-up approach, which would focus on the adaptive reuse of existing structures by taking into consideration the social meanings of belonging that heritage has for contemporary communities while fostering a more inclusive understanding of heritage as an ongoing cultural process.

The implications of the planned conversion of Riyadh’s historical downtown into an urban destination have not been previously explored and as a result, there is a conflict of interest between the creation of a marketable image, the preservation of heritage values, sustainable urban practices, social inclusion and Riyadh’s aim to become a globally recognized city.

This paper explores the employment of urban renewal and city branding within the context of Riyadh’s aim to become a world city. Within this framework, the paper examines the capital’s plan to convert the historic downtown into a mega-destination for the country’s middle class and national and international tourists.

The general concept of public space in Saudi Arabia is relatively recent; it is the result of an attempt to modernize several conservative traditions and norms, as well as the ambitious vision of 2030, which reprioritized Saudi cities' public spaces by implementing a quality-of-life improvement program. This study aims to investigate the relationship between mosque location and surrounding urban context as a significant urban design issue in order to comprehend the potential for transforming such an element into a multifunctional public space destination in a dense urban fabric.

The study's objectives are divided into two areas: a spatial configuration analysis to examine the urban context and an urban analysis of the mosque site with a study area boundary of a 400-m buffer zone. Quantitative and qualitative methodologies were utilized; in addition, a user feedback survey was conducted in which several key insights were compiled, such as the importance of safety urban element factors, aesthetic elements and green areas in the built environment in making mosques places that are active public spaces.

The study’s main finding encourages governmental institutions to change their mindset from “open space around the mosque” to “the mosque as an element within public space,” which will have a significant impact on how the authors approach, improve and redevelop existing mosque locations. Several concepts were presented that should be reconsidered and redeveloped in order to align with the most recent sustainable urban design tools; the mosque to be overlooked as a community gathering place rather than just a place for religious rituals.

This study is limited to sacred mosque sites primarily found in Islamic countries; it focuses on Saudi Arabian urban and planning practices in relation to sociocultural norms. The authors believe that increasing the number of study samples or broadening the scope of the study to include other Saudi regions or other Middle Eastern countries could yield new findings and insights.

The study offers a conceptual design model based on survey results and qualitative analysis and recommending strategies that planners, designers and policymakers can use to design successful mosque places and pedestrian-oriented developments.

This study aims to investigate whether the correlation between Saudi Arabia’s social and economic reforms, urban megaprojects and sustainable urbanism can lead to an increased quality of life (QoL) in the capital, create a comprehensive lifestyle setup for Riyadh’s residents while also aiming to attract foreign investment.

This research examines five government-sponsored mega-destinations and their master plans against the objectives of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030’s Quality of Life Program. Furthermore, the author analyzed to what extent the proposed projects fulfill global mandates of sustainable urban development and how they might help raise the QoL for Riyadh’s residents. The author’s methodology rests primarily on detailed policy evaluation proposed by Vision 2030, literature research and data collected from proposed urban development plans. In parallel, the author conducted informal conversations with people living in affected areas and architectural offices who are involved in the design of the five megaprojects. After collecting the data for each project, the author compared the QoL Program criteria to the data of the proposed megaprojects to examine to what extent the proposed designs implement the QoL criteria of Vision 2030. In the last step, the author evaluated whether and how the proposed plans adhere to globally established guidelines of sustainable urban revitalization by studying possible overlaps and contingencies on an urban level.

The analysis reveals that although each case study project targets one or more specific lifestyle domains, the projects combined fulfill all lifestyle categories specified in Saudi Arabia’s QoL program. In addition, each project contributes measures to improve livability in the categories of urban design and environment, infrastructure and transport, social engagement and safety while also providing a range of economic and educational opportunities for different demographics. In terms of sustainable development criteria, the analysis demonstrates that all case studies provide ample measures to enhance Riyadh’s mobility by providing greenways for pedestrians and cyclists, which connect to public transport. Furthermore, when strategically combined as a series of urban layers, the projects demonstrate potential to form urban synergies among different lifestyle domains that could positively affect existing and proposed neighborhoods, particularly when extended through an inclusive, participatory planning framework, which, in turn, could significantly raise the QoL for a broad socioeconomic demographic.

This research reveals the complex role of megaprojects as change agents for socioeconomic reforms, as signifiers of livability and as planning frameworks to implement sustainable urbanism in Saudi Arabia’s capital, while also creating a lifestyle infrastructure for Riyadh’s residents.

With their sensitive approach to climate, ecologically driven landscape projects and regionalist architecture inspired by the traditional Arab city, these case study projects may serve as an example to other countries in hot arid zones on sustainably revitalizing their urban environments.

This study demonstrates how social and economic reforms intertwine with sustainable urban planning and placemaking to create a comprehensive lifestyle setup for Riyadh’s residents that has not previously existed. On the planning side, this includes creating a massive public infrastructure that encourages walkability and residents’ active participation in recreational, cultural, entertainment and sports activities. However, as the analysis has also revealed, while offering a large number of public facilities, the projects do not embrace a mixed-income project model, which would allow low-income families to live within a market-rate environment. In addition, one of the projects entails the displacement of benefit low-income and migrant communities. Although the government has a separate program that specifically aims at providing affordable housing in other areas of the city, these model destinations primarily target luxury tourists and affluent Saudis, potentially cementing existing socio-spatial divides in the city. Consequently, the megaprojects demonstrate Saudi Arabia’s conflicted response to the logic of entrepreneurial neoliberalism: on the one side, progressive attempts to promote an egalitarian approach to urban livability; on the other, strategic efforts to use megaprojects as spectacular showcases in the global marketplace.

The correlation between Saudi Arabia’s socioeconomic reforms, megaprojects and sustainable urbanism in Riyadh has not been previously explored. Compared to Western countries’ cities, few attempts have been made to investigate the role of livability in the context of emerging countries’ fast-growing urban areas. This paper presents a considerable case study in Saudi Arabia that ties into a more extensive debate on cultural globalization where cities, particularly in the developing world, use megaprojects as change agents to reconstruct their urban territories according to standardized livability indices to elevate their image in the global marketplace.

Links between urban areas and public space have always had a central presence in the field of Urban Sociology. During the last four decades, and in relation with globalization processes, reflection about city places and what constitutes the “public” has increasingly been in line with what has been called an “emplacing heritage process,” which emerged as a controversial point of intervention in urban areas. In this sense, itineraries have been considered of primary importance in urban heritage signification, recognition, and symbolic production. In short, these routes appear as ways in which public space is materially and symbolically occupied, becoming emplacing heritage processes in themselves.

In this chapter, we study two heritage-making processes through neighborhood itineraries, which are carried out in district territory and are located in two peripheral neighborhoods belonging to the City of Madrid (Hortaleza and Carabanchel). Ultimately, the point here is that these routes are not merely a pathway that “goes” along acknowledged heritage places; these itineraries are an emplacement and a signification of patrimony itself. These processes act as markers of iconic places and as remembrance performances of neighborhood memory. We would argue that routes around historical places in Carabanchel, as well as the “Three Wise Men” popular parades in Hortaleza bring shared geographical imaginaries, collective memory, and iconic places together in everyday experiences of both places. These itineraries change both urban sites in terms of their neighborhood heritage by disputing spatial discourses and imaginaries of heritage, urban place, and neighborhood.

This paper aims to discuss tourism development, tourism policy development and its challenges in Rotterdam through the lens of “new urban tourism”, reviewing the relevance of the concept.

This paper comprises a review of the concept of new urban tourism and a case study of Rotterdam. Methods used include a literature review and social media search, an analysis of policy documents and street interviews.

Tourism in Rotterdam has grown rapidly, exhibiting aspects of new urban tourism such as encounters with the ordinary and everydayness, authenticity and de-differentiation. Details about tourism motives and nature of tourism are unknown. It is concluded that the concept of new urban tourism is a rather elusive and difficult notion to apply to the case of Rotterdam.

This research is a case study of one city.

This paper suggests that different tourism information and statistics are needed for policymaking and for understanding urban tourism.

The Rotterdam case raises new questions about new urban tourism, as the concept appears to be rather indefinable.

In the past decade, urban tourism has increased worldwide as a result of the development of peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation platforms such as Airbnb, causing a major disruption to the tourism industry and urban space. The expansion of tourist accommodation in cities has motivated many governments to act, to control its effects and reduce conflicts between tourists and residents. The purpose of this paper is to identify the attractions that have motivated the concentration of P2P accommodation and its effects in specific areas of Valencia different from the historical centre: the Russafa and El Cabanyal-Canyamelar neighbourhoods.

The methodology used includes fieldwork and spatial analysis of factors such as the housing market, tourist attractions, local businesses and urban renewal policies.

The current spatial distribution pattern of tourist housing in Valencia is the result of the convergence of various factors: the initial presence of tourists in some areas; the evolution of certain aspects of the neighbourhood due to urban renewal; the concentration of tourist and leisure activities; the effects of the legal framework

Many researchers have addressed the effects of rising short-term rentals (STRs) in cities, but the causes of their concentration in specific neighbourhoods different from historical centres have not yet been sufficiently investigated. This research looks in depth at the urban causes and effects of the spatial distribution of tourist housing in Valencia, to anticipate possible future concentrations of STRs in other areas and to avoid gentrification. The methodology and results could be applied to other cities. The research implies a detailed and analysis of different aspects that act simultaneously such as the housing market, the evolution of the population and changes in the business.

This paper seeks to explore a host of straight‐to‐DVD and direct‐download motion picture marketing, production, and distribution strategies deployed by Florida‐based Maverick Entertainment. The focus is Maverick's most prominent and successful sub‐genre “urban teen gangsta” films.

The somewhat wide‐ranging and eclectic approach taken in this paper draws from two emergent academic subdisciplines: consumer culture theory (CCT), largely on the business‐school side, and media industry studies (MIS), largely on the communications‐school side. The project thus attempts to bridge the interpretive poetics and eclecticism of CCT with the interpretive aesthetics and eclecticism of MIS and relies on a blend of filmic, marketing, PR, journalistic, trade publication, and academic evidence.

It is argued that “marketing mimicry” – where Maverick imitates specific successful urban‐teen themed cross‐over film marketing strategies of major and mini‐major Hollywood studio titles – was crucial to the start‐up's success.

Marketers outside the USA will find it somewhat difficult to glean generalizable lessons based on the strategies and principles evaluated here. Future research should be conducted in the area of direct‐download of urban teen filmed content, particularly vis‐à‐vis Maverick's new direct‐download partners such as Hulu, YouTube, Amazon VOD, Facebook Store, and Gigaplex. Future research should also look into the extent to which the somewhat pervasive notion of a “global teen audience” is valid for this sub‐genre of films.

Marketers are advised to thin‐slice the appeals of their teen‐themed product‐lines to maximize the appeal to given sub‐segments. Marketers may beneifit by developing ethical non‐harmful iterations of marketing‐mimicry in their market space.

Scholars who analyze teen‐themed marketing strategies often tend to construct some version of the “global teenager”. The current paper focuses largely on African American and Latino American teens.

This is the first paper to analyse how a small firm successfully markets to the urban American teen film audience. It is also the first academic paper to explore the concept of marketing‐mimicry.