Visual and aesthetic markers of gentrification: agency of mapping and tourist destinations

Abstract

Framed within the context of contemporary place making and the urban tourism destination, a novel trans-disciplinary approach to mapping and interpreting gentrification and cityscape change is presented. A combination of multi-scalar cartographic and visual techniques, including Google Street View (GSV) and geo-tagged images (Photo Sphere), is applied within the setting of Valletta, Malta, to convey cartographically the dynamism of urban transformations and detect tourism-led gentrification in a rapid way through the identification of the visual and aesthetic markers of gentrification. Utilising a critical approach, such map-making can inform and transform the understanding of the processes underpinning urban change and their cartographic and visual representation. It identifies and highlights issues of image and street-level ‘realities’ for both (re)imagining and marketing place. Individual tourists are able to access and utilise GSV and other mobile digital imaging and cartographic tools, as well as social media, to create their own, potentially counter, place-imaginaries and interpretations of urban change, thereby encouraging and/or discouraging visiting the city.

摘要

在当代城市旅游目的地地方营造的背景下, 本文提出了一种新的跨学科方法来绘制和解释士绅化和城市景观变化。本文综合应用多标量制图和视觉技术, 包括谷歌街景地图(GSV)和地理标记图像应用于瓦莱塔案例。本文通过快速识别士绅化的视觉和审美标志, 研究马耳他通过地图传达出的城市变革的活力以及由旅游业主导的士绅化。本文利用一种批判的方法, 此种地图制作可以告知并改变对支持城市变化的过程及其制图和可视化表示的理解。它识别并强调了形象问题和街道层面的“现实”, 不仅为了宣传或再宣传地方形象, 还进行了地方营销。散客旅游者可以访问和利用谷歌街景地图和其他移动数字图像、制图工具以及社交媒体来创造他们自己的、或潜在地抵制城市变化的场所形象和解读, 从而鼓励和/或阻止参观这座城市。

Keywords:

• Place making
• urban tourism
• cityscape change
• aesthetics
• mapping
• gentrification
• urban morphology
• Google Street View (GSV)
• Valletta
• Malta

关键词:

• 场所营造
• 城市旅游
• 城市景观变化
• 美学
• 图绘
• 士绅化
• 城市形态
• 谷歌街景地图
• 瓦莱塔
• 马耳他

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Janet Speake

Janet Speake, PhD is Associate Professor in Geography and Honorary Research Fellow at Liverpool Hope University. Her research interests include the contemporary transformation of urban areas, spaces of affectivity and the impacts of location based technologies. ([email protected])

Victoria Kennedy

Victoria Kennedy, PhD is Lecturer in Tourism at Liverpool Hope University. Her research interests include stakeholder theory and engagement, tourism policy, power, destination management and small island destinations. ([email protected])

Richard Love

Richard Love, is a PhD researcher at Ulster University. His interests include physical/urban mapping, environmental modelling, remote sensing and GIS. ([email protected])