This article addresses the opportunities of cities, big and small, in the experience economy. It proposes an understanding of “experience economy”, which encompasses not only entertainment and culture, but also services and places. To territorial development, the most interesting kind of experience consumption is the one co-located with its production. It is interesting because it invites people to stay and spend their money, either as residents or as tourists. Art and culture is known to cluster, and in big cities, the variety of the experience offer is an attraction in itself. Nevertheless, small cities embark on experience-based strategies, for example, related to events and branding. The article develops a theoretical framework that unfolds the territorial aspects of the experience economy. It does so in a comparative perspective, with a view to earlier (and coexisting paradigms), namely the industrial and the knowledge economy. Based on literature review it analyses the location patterns, the role of...

Cities in the Experience Economy

Recognizing urban functions is crucial for understanding urban spatial structures and urban planning. Previous work has investigated urban functions based on human activities that were derived from...

Urban function recognition by integrating social media and street-level imagery:

Urban nighttime leisure spaces (UNLSs), important urban sites of nighttime economic activity, have created enormous economic and social benefits. Both the physical features (e.g., location, shape, and area) and the social functions (e.g., commercial streets, office buildings, and entertainment venues) of UNLSs are important in UNLS mapping. However, most studies rely solely on census data or nighttime light (NTL) images to map the physical features of UNLSs, which limits UNLS mapping, and few studies perform UNLS mapping from a social function perspective. Point-of-interest (POI) data, which can reflect social activity functions, are needed. As a result, a novel methodological UNLS mapping framework, that integrates NTL images and POI data is required. Consequently, we first extracted high-NTL intensity and high-POI density areas from composite data as areas with high nightlife activity levels. Then, the POI data were analyzed to identify the social functions of leisure spaces revealing that nighttime leisure activities are not abundant in Beijing overall, the total UNLS area in Beijing is 31.08 km2, which accounts for only 0.2% of the total area of Beijing. In addition, the nightlife activities in the central urban area are more abundant than those in the suburbs. The main urban area has the largest UNLS area. Compared with the nightlife landmarks in Beijing established by the government, our results provide more details on the spatial pattern of nighttime leisure activities throughout the city. Our study aims to provide new insights into how multisource data can be leveraged for UNLS mapping to enable researchers to broaden their study scope. This investigation can also help government departments better understand the local nightlife situation to rationally formulate planning and adjustment measures.

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8656078/file/8664373.pdf

Urban nighttime leisure space mapping with nighttime light images and POI data

Digital marketing activities by Dutch place management partnerships: A resource-based view

This research focuses on the intermediate city, composed of urban areas located right outside the city center typically maintaining an in-between urban/suburban character. It aims to explore the degree to which this segment of the city exhibits urban activity and social life through the identification of activity areas in the so-called Third Places. Four intermediate city neighborhoods in Gothenburg, Sweden are adopted as case areas and are analyzed using a twofold approach. First, socio-economic statistics provide a quantitative understanding of the case areas and, second, geolocated Social Media Data (SMD) from Foursquare, Google Places and Twitter makes it possible to identify the intermediate city’s urban activity areas and socially preferred urban spaces. The findings suggest that a) the four analyzed intermediate city areas of Gothenburg all have a degree of social activity, especially where economic activities are clustered together; b) Third Places in more affluent areas tend to be linked to commodified consumption of urban space while neighborhoods with lower income levels and higher ethnic diversity seem to emphasize open public space as Third Places; and c) nowadays the typology of Third Places has evolved from the types identified in previous decades to include additional types of places, such as those you pass on the way to something else (e.g. gas and bus stations). The study has verified the value of SMD for studies of urban social life but also identified a number of topics for further research. Additional sources of SMD should be identified to secure a just representation of Third Places across diverse social groups. Furthermore, new methods for effective cross validation of SMD with other types of data are crucial, including e.g. statistics, on-site observations and surveys/interviews, not least to identify Third Places that are not frequently present (or are misrepresented) in SMD.

/pdf/social-activity-in-gothenburg-s-intermediate-city-mapping-26ppbpxrq6.pdf

Demi van Weerdenburg

Papers

Where to go and what to do: Extracting leisure activity potentials from Web data on urban space

Redactioneel: het verleden als kans voor de toekomst

Redactioneel: Corona deed online dromen van een langzaam leven

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