Search results

The non-material benefits which people derive from ecosystems, cultural ecosystem services (CES), can be difficult to measure and quantify. This study aims to demonstrate the usefulness of social media analysis.

The widespread use of social media applications has provided a novel methodology for obtaining crowd-sourced data, which can reveal patterns in how social media users interact with urban greenspace and participate in place-making activities. This study explores how urban trees are represented in images tagged with the city of Bolzano, Italy, and uploaded over the course of a year to the image-sharing application Instagram.

A third of all the images contained some elements of green nature, with 3.1% of the images portraying urban trees as the main subject and 11% with urban trees as background features. Seasonal preferences for winter and summer scenes emerged. Accompanying text, in the form of hashtags and image descriptions, was mostly positive and showed how enthusiastically people describe urban nature. An assessment of the images in terms of CES revealed that beyond aesthetic factors and the inspiration to take photographs of nature, a wide range of CES are represented, reflecting the recognition of the benefits of urban trees by Instagrammers. The collection of images provided a unique snapshot of the city of Bolzano.

This reinforces the importance of urban trees within planning policy for providing sense of place, recreation and stress relief for residents and tourists.

The study builds on recent advances in social media research, focussing on the important field of urban CES.

The purpose of this paper is to develop strategies of re-imaging the Rosetta historic district through choosing the suitable uses and their specific locations in compliance with the urban design fabric of the historic core. These strategies are to be fulfilled using Space Syntax as an urban analysis tool, in the context of “connectivity analysis.”

The research methodology follows the combined strategy between three methods of research: a SWOT analysis, to reveal the historic core status; an experimental research approach, which stimulates the chosen area via Space Syntax; and the third is a case study of the Rosetta historic core.

The re-usage of the Rosetta old core was not originally planned as commercial and to host movable vendors, but the core was forced to adapt afterwards to suit this usage, while the Souk and those big new residential building urban blocks have clearly deformed the historic image of the Rosetta historic core. Moving from one space to another, it was found that well-connected spaces have higher movement density, such as Al Souk Street, while less dense spaces can tolerate more movement without conflicting with highly dense ones. The existing commercial activities can be classified into movable activities – which can be easily relocated – and shop-based, which need a developmental approach in their original locations. The disconnected district can be used as a commercial zone for the movable vendors, to which human flow can be successfully directed in order to reduce the density in the more connected spaces.

The research value lies in exploring how to re-image urban heritage via relocating the places reused with unsuitable activities through Space Syntax.

Contemporary cities are the subject of new forms of visualization that are not only changing how we see the urban world but how it operates as a social environment. This chapter explores Google's Street View database and the Google Maps platform as sites for the production of distinctive new streams of visual data about cities around the world. I argue that this kind of digital infrastructure presents urban researchers with both new opportunities and new challenges, raising complex questions about the role of visual images in the context of the ongoing transition to a digital, computational, and networked image world.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the cultural images of an urban quarter have been formulated by analyzing the Wing Lee Street (WLS) case in Hong Kong. This study aims to fill the gap in knowledge, which is predominantly associated with the effects of cultural policies on the production of attractive urban images, but has overlooked the social and ideological constructions placed on such imagery by the people viewing them.

In accordance with the study’s purpose, these images have been taken to have been formulated, thanks to the participation of different social forces that act based on their own respective interests.

This research has identified four social parties involved in the WLS project: the Urban Renewal Authority, which is a self-financed public corporation; local residents; nonprofit cultural organizations concerned with cultural continuity; and community interests, and artists and the media.

This study reveals the collisions, constraints and influences that result from these social forces’ interactions with one another, and how these have shaped the cultural image of WLS. Finally, this research presents the five dimensions of the cultural image of WLS.

Photographs are primary source documents that, like manuscripts and printed documents, carry layers of embedded information. As an example of a research strategy that can be used to study the time, place, and context of the development of early photographic businesses in America, a project to research and geo-reference the early photographic studios in New York City using information culled from imprints, census records, city directories, and other period sources is described. This case study example will focus on analyzing photographs and photographers operating in New York City and Brooklyn from the birth of popular photography in the 1840s to ca 1870s, and what researchers can learn about the development of the urban environments during this era. The study will provide an example of a research trajectory, brief background on the processes and early photographic business development, and note some of the research challenges that arise using historic photographs to study urban environments.

In urban studies, understanding how individuals perceive density is a complex challenge due to the subjective nature of this perception, which is influenced by sociocultural, personal and environmental factors. This study addresses these complexities by proposing a systematic framework for comprehending how people perceive density within urban contexts.

The methodology for developing the framework involved a systematic review of existing literature on the perception of density and related concepts, followed by integrating insights from empirical investigations. The framework designed through this process overcomes the limitations identified in previous research and provides a comprehensive guide for studying perceived density in urban environments.

The successful application of the framework on case studies in Glasgow and international settings enabled the identification of 20 critical spatial factors (buildings, public realm and urban massing) influencing density perception. The research provided insights into the subjective nature of density perception and the impact that spatial characters of urban form play, demonstrating the framework's effectiveness in understanding the impact of urban form, which is the realm of design and planning professions, on individual experiences.

The paper's originality lies in its comprehensive synthesis of the existing knowledge on the perception of density, the development of a user-responsive framework adaptable to future research and its application in case studies of different natures to identify recurrent links between urban form and user-specific constructs.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the tourist landscape as represented in Turisme de Barcelona’s YouTube tourism promotional videos, looking at the landscape’s tangible locations, symbolic and tourist assets and the protagonists in an effort to interpret its storytelling in an overtourism context.

The mixed methodology is based on a visual content analysis of promotional videos posted on the official Barcelona tourism YouTube channel. Quantitative data analysis about the assets and their localization was completed with a qualitative assessment of the way these assets are displayed to unveil the narrative they convey.

The results highlight that Barcelona’s projected image is mainly based on tangible heritage (especially monuments), its recognizable cityscape and its eno-gastronomic assets. This rather conventional image is geographically concentrated on the neighborhoods perceived as tourist neighborhoods.

This analysis provides a critical reflection of the actual strategy of destination management organizations and the storytelling they transmit. The findings can help to orientate their future actions and provide a method of analysis that can be repeated for other destinations.

This paper sheds new light on the use of urban landscapes in nonstatic images both as a narrative subject and as a tangible tourist space in promotional discourse.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how future urban icons can effectively contribute to the development of an authentic city brand linked to local identity. Urban icons have been one of the main tools of city branding to promote a unique and distinctive image of the city. However, the rising of the globalization reflects a series of strong dilemmas regarding the contemporary urban icons because these have been reproduced in a standardized way around the world without any connection to the local context.

This exploratory study consisted of 30 in-depth interviews with visual aids of urban icons conducted with local residents of the city of Monterrey, Mexico.

The results demonstrate that the acceptance of a contemporary urban icon by local residents depends on their relationship with the most representative aspects of the local identity and their ability to generate positive experiences. The outcomes of the research suggest that future urban icons should favor the local identity and the free coexistence between local residents over the attractive visual design and the private space.

The article discusses the dynamics between urban icons and the city brand from a new theoretical approach supported by empirical evidence. The novelty of this approach consists of the vision of the urban icon as an element capable of linking the city brand with the values and ideals of local residents.

This paper aims to systematically visualize the structure and trends from 2005 to 2021, which will help scholars gain a deeper appreciation for existing studies and grasp future research possibilities and directions.

The approach is bibliometric, using VOSviewer and CiteSpace to analyze 765 journal articles and reviews from the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases over the past 16 years.

There is considerable interest in urban tourism destination image (U-TDI), partly because of the role of image in promoting the economic development of urban tourism and the associated benefits to stakeholders. Most research output concerns China, the USA, Spain and the United Kingdom (UK); research in the USA context has had a particularly wide range of influence. Highly cited journals play a crucial role, while subject structure, key articles and high-frequency keywords indicate popular topics, sub-themes and development trends. Drawing on these findings, the authors identify four topics that deserve further study.

This systematic review will enhance understanding of U-TDI research and inform future research directions as well as highlighting the need to explore destination image in greater depth, it guides policymakers in the tourism industry seeking to develop city image.

In the past years, the importance of the cultural economy has led urbanism to a new perspective. Simultaneously, the main international institutions have pointed out the need to shift the urban economy into a sustainable one, green and energy efficient. The confluence of both flows explains why the imaginaries of the urban future are related to the concept of creative cities. Hence, the new economic engine of the cities should be founded on art, creativity and culture, all of them understood as clean energies. This study aims to show the crucial role of cultural heritage as a propeller of a new kind of urban development, more flexible and democratic, based on the construction of the city as a communicational, collective and open effort. Therefore, the city is conceived as a cultural heritage platform where tangible and intangible, social and creative interactions happen. Within this context, urban narratives appear as a dynamic material drawn on the possibilities offered by the heritage received from the past as a resource to be used for re-thinking and re-shaping the future.

The approach of this paper is based on a profound analysis of historical cities, mainly in the European context, supported by the work carried out within the H2020 ROCK project. The cities within the project are: Athens, Bologna, Cluj-Napoca, Eindhoven, Lisbon, Liverpool, Lyon, Torino, Skopje and Vilnius. A wide variety of case studies coming mainly from these cities have been considered to understand better the theoretical point of view on the role of heritage, urban development and city branding. The information about cultural heritage projects used as case studies has been collected and selected coming from the direct work made on the field and the communication open with institutions and cultural stakeholders in every city. Even more, parallel seminars on cultural heritage and city branding organized within the project have allowed the authors to gather very valuable, updated and fresh information on these issues in every particular case.

The study proves that cultural heritage has been traditionally underrated as a mechanism for developing the future of the city and its communicative strategy. Cultural heritage appears as a practical tool for constructing more cohesive urban communities based on the use of public space and shared memories as storytelling platforms. The capacity of resiliency and sustainability revealed by cultural heritage through the time is, as well, a clear reference to construct a potential sustainable city, socially, culturally and environmentally.

Cultural heritage projects are shown as a perfect way to build stronger communities. Through the engagement and participation of citizens, urban storytelling reinforces a more open, real and sustainable city able to face the challenges of contemporary life (gentrification, pollution, mobility, etc.). Like that, heritage appears as a feasible tool for including citizens coming from all ages and backgrounds in the construction of a collective narrative of the city, based on the past and looking at the foreseen.

This study tries to relate fields that traditionally have remained not well connected: urban development, city branding and cultural heritage. The study demonstrates that cultural heritage is crucial as an urban narrative tool and consequently, as a planning/branding mechanism. Moreover, cultural institutions and cultural projects are very relevant platforms for social interaction, inviting citizens to have a more active role in the construction of the city as a collective communicational effort based on a network of social and cultural relations. Storytelling turns up as a new key element for communicating the city from grassroots, in a sustainable, democratic and inclusive manner, far away from the traditional top-down official perspective. Crowdsourcing methods are very powerful for establishing a shared and cohesive city brand, now rooted in its cultural and social foundations and not the marketing campaign clichés. Finally, storytelling emerges as a creative resource that enhances the social, cultural and economic layout of the city, forcing urbanists to include a greener, fairer and more democratic perspective in the future of cities.