AccueilTourism and Gentrification in the Metropolis

AccueilTourism and Gentrification in the Metropolis

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Publié le mardi 24 février 2015

Résumé

A wide literature analyzes the changes that affect contemporary metropolises trough the concept of gentrification, i.e. Urban regeneration policies, the New Build gentrification, the Return to the city movement, the Displacement patterns analysis. Although bibliography analyzes the extent of gentrification in tourist cities little attention has been paid to tourism and tourist traffic as main factors of gentrification in metropolitan areas, or to tourism as the central strategic focus of the regeneration policies. Tourism gentrification is difficult to analyze, as it is affected by the changing patterns of tourism flow; it is however a critical shaping force of socio-economic and contemporary urban landscapes. 

Annonce

Argument

A wide literature analyzes the changes that affect contemporary metropolises trough the concept of gentrification, i.e. Urban regeneration policies (Smith, 2003; 2004, Lees, 2008), the New Build gentrification (Davidson & Lees, 2010; He, 2010; Rérat, Söderström, Piguet, 2010), the Return to the city movement (Bidou-Zachariassen, 2003; Van Criekingen, 2008), the Displacement patterns analysis (Newman & Wyly, 2006). 

Although bibliography analyzes the extent of gentrification in tourist cities (Bures and Cain, 2008) little attention has been paid to tourism and tourist traffic as main factors of gentrification in metropolitan areas (Gotham, 2004), or to tourism as the central strategic focus of the regeneration policies (Abe s.d.). Tourism gentrification is difficult to analyze, as it is affected by the changing patterns of tourism flow; it is however a critical shaping force of socio-economic and contemporary urban landscapes. 

This session intends to explain the multiple and complex relationships between tourism and gentrification in the contemporary metropolis. Several questions arise. How does tourism gentrification manifest itself and how does it affect the urban landscapes? What are the impacts for urban design and planning? Who are the actors, the beneficiaries and the victims of tourism gentrification? How do local (tourism) actors cope with tourism gentrification phenomena? What is the impact on local economies, urban functions and services? What are the outcomes for intra-metropolitan territories? What does it mean in terms of metropolitan governance? 

Proposals present and analyze tourism gentrification based on the following aspects:

- The expression of changes due to the transitional/temporary installation of tourists in regular homes and apartments [the “AirBnB syndrome”] 

- The growing trend of second-home ownership (or multiple home ownership) for leisure and leisure‐related investment purposes [the “poly-topical” living (Stock, 2012) phenomenon]. - The urban changes due to the development of activities linked with the tourism economy (tourist attractions, leisure activities, hotels, shops, etc.) within or adjacent to middle-class neighborhoods [the “disneyfication” phenomenon] 

- The urban transformation that results from important projects of heritage restoration that transform neighborhoods into places for tourism consumption [the “museumfication syndrome”] 

- The implementation of luxury leisure developments (spas, palaces, upscale shops and services, etc.) addressing transnational elites (Sklair, 2002) [the “esthetic capitalism” (Serroy and Lipovetsky, 2013) phenomenon]. 

-The transformation of residential/working urban landscapes into artscapes addressed to global aesthetic consumption [the artialisation syndrome]. 

This double session brings together eight papers exploring the different dimensions of the touristic gentrification phenomenon in Paris, Berlin, Rome, New York, Cape Town, San Francisco and Carthagena.

Program 

SESSION 1 

12:40-2:20 

Chair – Sandra Guinand, Visiting researcher at the Graduate Center, Center for place, culture and politics, CUNY, associate researcher EA EIREST 7337, Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne 

Introduction – Maria Gravari-Barbas, Professor in Geography, University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, EA 7337 EIREST & Sandra Guinand Visiting researcher at the Graduate Center, Center for place, culture and politics, CUNY, associate researcher EA 7337 EIREST Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne 

Discutant – Johanes Novy, Brandenburgische Technische University 

1/Grunge Authenticity: The Tenement as Upscale Tourist Destination 

  • Sampson Elissa, UNC Chapel Hill 

Abstract 

This paper focuses on the interplay between the reinvention of New York’s Lower East Side as a visitor destination and the evolution of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. The Lower East Side’s remaining built environment and ethnic enclaves are threatened by rapid gentrification. The Museum is seen as an “economic engine” in an “iconic neighborhood” with galleries, upscale eateries, and new condos. The Museum participates in the commemoration and commodification of past immigrant life in a living neighborhood through its interest in increasing visitor numbers and real estate. Gentrification gets linked to busy “revitalized” streetscapes invoked as collective memories in selling the past to tourists. The museumification process demonstrates how being in place becomes harder as place hollows out. 

The ironies and virtues of the Museum’s presence are sharply felt at 97 Orchard Street, its poor landmarked tenement expressly reconstructed for upscale, heritage tourism. This case study traces how the acquisition of its building affected its interpretive politics of representation and discursive formations, and how its contested narratives, once adopted for visitor consumption, get stuck in place. 97 Orchard is used as a lens for probing how and where its stories of local “historic” and living communities get told, and which groups get placed into the historic past. This analysis of the represented interplay of ethnic presences and absences affords a nuanced approach to the fate of collective memories in and of a common place of origin, as it gets reconfigured into a cosmopolitan playground. 

2/“Just Kids”. An exploration to the Smith-Mapplethorpe Urban landscape through the lenses of tourism gentrification in New York 

  • Maria Gravari-Barbas, Professor in Geography, University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, EA 7337 EIREST 

Abstract 

“Just Kids” (Patty Smith, 2010) retraces, through the life of Smith and Mapplethorpe, the ambiance and urban reality of New York City in the 60s and 70s. A great number of the spaces that Smith presents in the book have seen their functions change significantly during the last two decades. 

Geographers and sociologists put in evidence the process through which artists served involuntarily gentrification phenomena. Smith’s books offers however a precious and original material allowing to show the transformation of then emerging New York spaces into contemporary spaces of spectacular consumption. 

The paper is an attempt to explore geographically significant data through the analysis of literature. It will follow the traces of Smith and Mapplethorpe. It will map and analyze the spaces presented in the book with special focus on their contemporary tourism transformation and occupation. It will show that tourism imaginary of New York was produced in a huge extend by the underground rock culture of the 60s. It will finally show the ways that the gentrification process took place of some of the most emblematic spaces presented in the book 

3/Tourism / Gentrification: sex, gender and crossed resistances 

  • Amandine Chapuis, Post-doc researcher, Lab’Urba, University Paris Est ; EA 7337 EIREST, University Paris 1 
  • Sébastien Jacquot, Lecturer in Geography, University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, EA 7337 EIREST 
  • Maria Gravari-Barbas, Professor in Geography, University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, EA 7337 EIREST 

Abstract 

Tourism and gentrification have been described as co-producers of the neo-liberal city, particularly when dealing with the regeneration processes experienced by many European city centers during the last decades. A “cross-fertilization” stance lies in the narratives of this relation, which insists on the common dynamics and interests of several groups at stake: local authorities, urban planners and marketers, tourism businesses, international capitals, gentrifiers and international tourists. While drawing on this literature, we wish to raise back the critical analysis of the relationship between tourism and gentrification, regarding the evolution of two major touristic neighborhoods: Paris historic gay district Le Marais and Amsterdam sex-consumption Red-Light District. 

In considering the recent urban policies implemented in these neighborhoods, we wish to interrogate two hyper-central, touristic and gentrifying areas (though at different stages). We argue that touristification and gentrification are not systematically cumulative phenomena. They can even be antagonistic. 

To highlight this relationship, we focus on gender and sexual minorities as a stand-point to propose an alternative reading of tourism gentrification policies. We mirror Amsterdam’s Plan 1012, which redesigns the Red-Light District and the local negotiations around the evolution of the regulations of the uses of Le Marais by different populations. We argue that gender mainstreaming and the “pink economy”, are not marginal issues in these processes, but lie at the heart of the production of a tamed, commodified and upgraded urban environment, ready-to-consume by so-called “qualitative” tourists as well as local families. However, in both cities, this production can be challenged, and contested by businesses, inhabitants, workers and visitors. 

We want to focus of these disturbances and resistances. We put forward the notion of « resistance » as a crucial concept to analyze the relation between tourism processes and gentrification: gentrification policies (and the related upgrading of tourism) encounter reluctances from tourist practices and entrepreneurs, while tourism development is challenged by gentrification strategies and tactics. We call for a deeper understanding of tourism gentrification not only as a stage of a multifaceted gentrification dynamic, but also as a potentially disruptive, antagonistic dimension. 

4/Urban tourism, gentrification and the de-gaying of Cape Town’s De Waterkant 

  • Gustav Visser, Department of Geography, University of the Free State 

Abstract 

This investigation is set against the observation that analysis of South African neighbourhood development and evolution is very uneven, with limited reflection on historically white neighbourhoods in close proximity of former White CBDs. The study focuses on the intersection between neighbourhood change in this type of setting and urban tourism and sexuality. Consideration is given to the role of sexual identity, as well as urban tourism and leisure seeking, in contributing towards the changing geographies of De Waterkant. It is suggested that this nexus has been central to dramatically altering the physical character and symbolic meaning of De Waterkant. Questions are posed as to why De Waterkant developed in the manner it has and issues that arise from such neighbourhood change. A central conclusion is that this neighbourhood has undergone dramatic changes towards super gentrification which exclude of a broad spectrum of urban dwellers. 

SESSION 2 

2:40-4:20 

Chair – Maria Gravari-Barbas, Professor in Geography, University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, EA 7337 EIREST 

Introduction – Maria Gravari-Barbas, Professor in Geography, University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, EA 7337 EIREST & Sandra Guinand Visiting researcher at the Graduate Center, Center for place, culture and politics, CUNY, associate researcher EIREST Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne 

Discutant – Anne-Marie d’Hauteserre 

University of Waikato 

1/Rome, cultural metropolis versus industrial heritage : a paradoxical touristification strategy? 

  • Sarah Lilia Baudry, PhD Student, Paris Diderot University, Géographie Cités laboratory 

Abstract 

Rome is among the most touristic cities in the world. The UNESCO-classified historical center as a urban space represents a range of monuments whose exceptional value is universally acknowledged, and is an integral part of the city’s strength as a metropolis (Djament Tran, 2011). Long seen as a static city, Rome has been undergoing important 

urban processes in the last decades, which are associated to large scale planification for revitalization from different policies (Il Modello Roma whose economic strategy was partly based on tourism as a growth factor, notably with historical center valorization and emphasis on cultural events) to the point that it has now reached the status of cultural metropolis – ranking even with London or Berlin. 

The implementation of these different touristification strategies, where the private sector plays a significant role, seems to be responsible for gentrification effects. Indeed, the point is to ensure the durability of its considerable cultural heritage ; but also to reveal an urban alternative culture when industrial landscape restoration is the current trend in a certain number of European cities. The goal is to inspect this paradoxical emphasis on post-industrial landscape and alternative tourism (abandoned facility reconversion in cultural landscapes such as Testaccio, MAAM museum, Space Metropoliz) in a city with a low industrial heritage. Here, touristification is close to the artialisation syndrome even though working urban landscape is scarce to begin with. This process is part of an ongoing cultural competition between different European cities where Rome wishes to take its place. 

2/ Share Economy and its role in metropolitan tourism 

  • Andreas Kagermeier, University of Trier, Leisure and Tourism Geography 

Abstract 

"What's Mine is Yours", the popular book by Rachel Botsmann and Roo Rogers has become the slogan of the so-called Share Economy, which boosts since a couple of years. The main impact of the Share Economy-movement in tourism lays in the accommodation sector. Sharing websites like couchsurfing.org or airbnb.com offer not only overnight stays for free or at affordable prices, but promise a new, authentic experience to visitors of urban and metropolitan areas. The questions • "Who participates in the tourism share economy?" • "What are the motivations and expectations behind the offer and usage of shared accommodations?" • "What experiences have been made?" will be treated on the basis of various quantitative and qualitative empirical surveys based on a case study in Berlin. The aim is mainly to contribute to the question, what collaborative consumption in tourism means for the so-called explorer-tourists searching for authentic experiences off the beaten track and outside the tourist bubble. At the same time the implication for the traditional hotel industry as well as gentrification effects will be touched as well. References: BOTSMAN, RACHEL & ROO ROGERS (2011): What's Mine is Yours - How Collaborative Consumption is Changing the Way we Live. London. 

3/ Being a “real San Franciscan” or a “ciudadaño porteño”: comparative tourism gentrification and urban citizenship in dispute 

  • Florian Opillard, PhD Student, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) 

Abstract 

This presentation intends to examine the role that tourism plays in two distinct cases of gentrifying cities, along with the ways in which resistance to gentrification is built in both contexts. 

San Francisco is well known for its tech induced process of hyper-gentrification (Brahinsky, 2014), in which tourism gentrification plays a great part. On the one hand, a great deal of luxury live-work condominiums changing the face of neighborhoods becomes second homes for the Silicon Valley tech elite. On the other hand, the success of AirBnB rentals partly relies on speculative processes that take out entire buildings out of the housing stock to turn them into AirBnB rentals. 

As opposed to San Francisco, Valparaiso’s gentrification process is only 15 yers old, with the implementation of a UNESCO preservation area in the historical district. It is now experiencing the very beginning of a second wave of both state and corporate induced tourism gentrification through the building of a Mall on the seashore. Far from disrupting the UNESCO approach to the local patrimonio, the mall seems like the direct consequence of the production of a marketed historical discourse that reifies social inequalities and fragmentation. 

In both cases, the focus on the resistance processes to material, symbolic and political processes of dispossession shows the crucial need for the building and celebration of a collective memory of communities, space and place. It also points out to the common construction of narratives of belonging that intend to build citizenship (San Francisco) and ciudadania (Valparaíso) through the legitimization of the use value over the exchange value. 

4/ Tourism Gentrification in the cities of developing countries: A case study of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia 

  • Pineros Saïri, PhD Student, EA 7337 EIREST, Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne University 

Abstract 

Cartagena, the capital of Bolivar Department, is a city located northwest in theColombian Caribbean coast. Its economic structures are related to the industry, trade, port activities and tourism. Since the 1950s, the tourism had begun to be integrated into the economic dynamics of the city through the development of beach activities located principally in the peninsula of Bocagrande. In 1984, due to the military architecture of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, which is represented by the Port, Fortresses and Group of monuments, Cartagena was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In recent years, the neighborhoods Centro, San Diego and Getsemani of historical center have changed due to heritage restoration. The old houses have been converted into hotels -luxury hotels in Centro, San Diego neighborhoods’ and hostels in Getsemani neighborhood- and other tourism activities like shops, galleries, bars, restaurants, etc. The purpose of this paper is to explain, with a case study, how the tourism gentrification manifests, affects and transforms the urban landscapes and urban functions in the cities in the developing countries.  

Organizers

  • Maria GRAVARI-BARBAS (Pr, EA 7337 EIREST, Université Paris I-Sorbonne) and
  • Sandra GUINAND (visiting scholar, PCP, City University of New York, associate researcher EA 7337 EIREST, Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne) 

Sponsors

AAG RTS Specialty Group and IGU Tourism Commission 

Catégories

Lieux

  • Room Skyway 238, Hyatt East Tower, blue level
    Chicago, États-Unis

Dates

  • mardi 21 avril 2015

Fichiers attachés

Mots-clés

  • gentrification, tourisme, métropole, paysage urbain, espace

Contacts

  • Sandra Guinand
    courriel : urbagraz [at] tugraz [dot] at
  • Gravari-Barbas Maria
    courriel : maria [dot] gravari-barbas [at] wanadoo [dot] fr

URLS de référence

Source de l'information

  • Sandra Guinand
    courriel : urbagraz [at] tugraz [dot] at

Licence

CC0-1.0 Cette annonce est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universel.

Pour citer cette annonce

« Tourism and Gentrification in the Metropolis », Colloque, Calenda, Publié le mardi 24 février 2015, https://doi.org/10.58079/s2r

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