Showing papers by "Karima Kourtit published in 2019"

Creative actors and historical–cultural assets in urban regions

Abstract: This paper examines whether the distribution of creative actors (firms and employees) among Dutch urban agglomerations is related to historically shaped culture heritage assets (cultural amenities ...

Cultural Heritage Appraisal by Visitors to Global Cities : The Use of Social Media and Urban Analytics in Urban Buzz Research

Abstract: An attractive cultural heritage is an important magnet for visitors to many cities nowadays. The present paper aims to trace the constituents of the destination attractiveness of 40 global cities from the perspective of historical-cultural amenities, based on a merger of extensive systematic databases on these cities. The concept of cultural heritage buzz is introduced to highlight: (i) the importance of a varied collection of urban cultural amenities; (ii) the influence of urban cultural magnetism on foreign visitors, residents and artists; and (iii) the appreciation for a large set of local historical-cultural amenities by travelers collected from a systematic big data set (emerging from the global TripAdvisor platform). A multivariate and econometric analysis is undertaken to validate and test the quantitative picture of the above conceptual framework, with a view to assess the significance of historical-cultural assets and socio-cultural diversity in large urban agglomerations in the world as attraction factors for visitors. The results confirm our proposition on the significance of urban cultural heritage as a gravity factor for destination choices in international tourism in relation to a high appreciation for historical-cultural amenities.

Cultural heritage, smart cities and digital data analytics

Abstract: This paper addresses the new opportunities and pitfalls of smart cities, with a particular view to the maintenance and use of historical-cultural resources in a city. The emergence and wide-spread ...

Quality and Inequality in Urban and Regional Systems

Abstract: In the aftermath of both ongoing globalisation (with both widening and deepening effects on countries, regions and cities) and structural changes resulting from the 2008 economic recession, regions and cities in our world are confronted with a different arena of players, performances and institutions. The challenges are formidable and numerous. Many regions and cities seem to resort to their indigenous strength, without much regard to other players in the field. This has enormous consequences for the competitive behaviour and profile of regional and urban actors but has at the same time deep impacts on the distribution of wealth, income and employment over and within countries, regions and cities. There is indeed much evidence that disparities among regions and in cities are increasing in this new force field. This special issue of REGION makes a solid scientific attempt (i) to map out the spatial consequences of recent transitions in growth trajectories of countries or regions, and (ii) to trace policy strategies and design effective policy information, to cope adequately with these new challenges. The present special issue does so by highlighting the new force field of regional and urban dynamics from three angles in the context of spatial quality and inequality. These will be briefly sketched hereafter.

A meta-analysis of human health differences in urban and rural environments

Abstract: Human health outcomes are known to be affected not only by individual physical and socio-economic status, but also by external environmental conditions, as well as by place-based economic and geographical circumstances. In recent decades, a large number of studies have addressed the background of differences in health outcomes between rural and urban areas. Are rural ways of living healthier than urban ways of living? This has led to a wealth of studies on human health and the geographical differences of living and working. The effects of regional or urban characteristics on health outcomes are often inconsistent among different studies/countries. An important factor that seems to be important is the ambiguous definition of both health and urbanism, as well as the presence of intra-regional heterogeneity (e.g. inner-city areas). In the present study, we conduct a systematic review of the existing literature on space and health indicators, based on a broad, but concise overview of the underlying mechanisms involved. Next, we provide a quantitative research synthesis with the help of a meta-analysis of published studies on self-rated/self-reported physical health conditions in rural and urban areas. The results from our meta-analytical regression analysis indicate that there is not a clearly convincing difference between rural and urban areas; however, people in rural areas appear to rate themselves slightly healthier than their urban counterparts. In addition, we observe that self-rated/reported fair/poor health is also highly dependent on a number of personal and socio-economic factors; from a personal perspective, education, addiction, physical activity, and duration of residence appear to play a significant role, while, from a socio-economic perspective, in particular, community predictor measures (e.g. gross domestic product, population, unemployment rate) appear to exert a substantial influence.