Historic Downtown Research Articles

Shaken, not stirred: New debates on touristification and the limits of gentrification

The recent touristification of the historic downtown quarters of many European cities is not without its social, spatial and economic impacts. In turn, many global cities show a lack of efficient tools in tackling and addressing the negative impacts derived from touristification. Facing this, some scholars have importantly examined the interplay between tourism, gentrification and urban change. However, we urban studies scholars have not yet admitted the existence of serious limitations regarding our current theoretical, conceptual and methodological approach in exploring the Tourist City. In this paper we argue that the rapid and intense touristification of central areas of post-industrial cities across the world requires a new breakthrough approach in order to understand the process of urban touristication in all its complexity. That is why we argue that what many scholars sometimes erroneously call ‘tourism gentrification’ need to go beyond the ‘classical’ approach used to explore how urban touristification affects the social, cultural and urban fabric of our cities.

The planned destruction of Chinatowns in the United States and Canada since c.1900

ABSTRACTUnlike virtually all other old immigrant enclaves in North American cities, the historic downtown Chinatowns of big cities in the United States and Canada largely survive, though not for lack of plans to destroy them. City Beautiful era plans, development projects, and other public and private interventions displaced or sought to eradicate Chinatowns, from Los Angeles to Victoria to Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia. Urban renewal era projects destroyed large portions of many Chinatowns, and some entirely. This article traces these broad patterns and trends of planned and realized destruction and preservation across 15 of the major cities in twentieth-century Canada and the United States.

Subverting Colonial Choreographies of Memory: Drag the Red and the March for Tina Fontaine

Winnipeg, Manitoba is located on the sacred territory of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, Dene, and the Métis Nation. Like most Canadian cityscapes, though, these unceded lands are the grounds on which Jets hockey, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR), and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB) take centre stage. Punctuating the city’s skyline from the historic downtown Forks site, the CMHR marks Winnipeg’s rising sense of self as a tolerant multicultural centre. However, as Indigenous-led choreographies of assembly continue to demonstrate, these sites of settler life are the same sites where Indigenous women and men are brutalized. In this essay, I specifically move with the February 2018 March for Tina Fontaine and the annual Drag the Red initiative as my objects of analysis. Looking closely at gendered racial violence, performativity, and necropolitics, I discuss how these public assemblies spotlight settler space as always already ghosted and constituted by Indigenous bodies. In particular, I explore how the March and Drag the Red subvert the sweeping grand narratives of human rights and liberal multiculturalism rehearsed by the CMHR, The Forks, and the Red River, where colonial violence is reiterated as an ever more insidious, moving target. The march and Drag the Red underscore how Indigenous people continue to fall from the national story. However, the rigorous physical labour performed by those who march and dredge is a form of radical care for those disappeared and site of Indigenous resurgence.

The American Academy of Health Behavior 2018 Annual Scientific Meeting: "An Equity Approach to Health Behavior Innovations"

The American Academy of Health Behavior (AAHB) hosted its 18th Annual Scientific Meeting at the Embassy Suites by Hilton in historic downtown Portland, OR March 4-7, 2018. The meeting’s theme was “An Equity Approach to Health Behavior Innovations.” This publication describes the meeting theme and includes the refereed abstracts presented at the 2018 Annual Scientific Meeting.

A perspective on applications of in-memory and associative approaches supporting cultural big data analytics

Business intelligence, advanced analytics, big data, in-memory database and associative technologies are actually the key enablers for enhanced business decision making. In this paper, we provide a perspective on applications of in-memory approaches supporting analytics in the field of the cultural heritage applied to information resources including structured and unstructured contents, geo-spatial and social network data, multimedia (MM), multiple domain vocabularies, classifiers and ontologies. The proposed approach has been implemented in an information system exploiting associative in-memory technologies in a cloud context, as well as integrating semantic technologies for merging and analysing information coming from heterogeneous sources. We analyse and describe the application of this system to trace a behavioural and interest profile of users and visitors for cultural events (exhibitions, museums, etc.) and territorial (tourist areas and routes including cultural resources, historical down-town, and archaeological sites). The results of ongoing experimentation encourage a business intelligence approach which is suitable for supporting cultural heritage asset crowdsourcing, promotion, publication, management and usage.

Mix-use adaptations in sustainable regeneration of barrack complexes

Historical barrack complexes constitute a separate genre in architectural typology and a crucial component of cultural landscape in garrison towns. Their construction impacted spatial development of historic cities. Military compounds were usually formed in a raster pattern, which spawned the grid plan further to adjacent streets forming a connection with the existing urban area, thus stimulating growth and modernization of cities. Originally positioned on the outskirts, today they become liaisons between historic downtowns and contemporary suburbs. They are excellently suited for that role, because by default they are utilitarian. Still they are endangered and neglected. For singleminded investors their material substance is worthless compared to the land they stand upon. The Wrzeszcz Barracks give proof that there exists a way to innovatively reintroduce this genre into city scope. Following in the footsteps of European exponents in Turin or Freiburg, the ‘Garnizon Neighborhood’ is one of the most successful mix-use regeneration efforts of post-military complexes in Poland. The paper constitutes a case study of regeneration indicating its strong and weak points in relation to similar undertakings.

Walking Towards Resilience: The Rebirth of High River Post Flood ( breakout presentation )

Following the Southern Alberta floods of 2013, the Town of High River discovered opportunity in the aftermath of disaster. As floodwaters receded, a new vision for the historic downtown emerged. This session will present the public engagement methods and design solutions that leveraged a disaster into an act of urban renewal. The flood gave High River a rare opportunity the streets had to be ripped up to replace infrastructure ruined by the flood. The goal for the project was to strengthen social and cultural resilience post-disaster by transforming the downtown into an attractive people-focused place. The aftermath of the flood required a quick solution to replace the underground infrastructure. A rapid engagement and planning process was undertaken to create new vision for the downtown. The resulting design solution created a pedestrian-focused streetscape and main street buildings that brought an authentic image back to the Town. The resulting vision for the downtown transformed car-centric wide roads, narrow sidewalks and angle parking to pedestrian-friendly narrow streets, wide sidewalks and limited parallel parking. The main street was designed to act as a shared space during events with rolled curbs and continuous pedestrian paving materials. The image of the downtown is now defined by tree-lined sidewalks, patios, main street storefronts and midblock connections between buildings. How do you retain authenticity in the face of adversity? The Town of High River used the natural disaster of a devastating flood to rapidly re-imagine and rebuild their downtown. Through an intensive public engagement process the Town reconsidered 40 years of automobile dominance and chose to rebuild a set of downtown streets in order to prioritize placemaking and pedestrian life. High River is a rare example of a rural prairie town that is moving away from pick-up trucks to walkable main streets.

Emergency Preparedness and Management at the University of L'aquila (Central Italy) and the Role of Students' Associations in the April 6th 2009 Earthquake.

Introduction: On April 6th 2009 an earthquake of Mw=6.3 hit the historical downtown of L’Aquila and its hinterland causing more than 300 fatalities and severe damage to private and public buildings. At the time, the University of L’Aquila represented a major source of employment and income for the city. The earthquake impacted both the facilities and the administrative, financial and patrimonial activities of the university, bringing into the open the tendency – widespread in Italy – to rely on adaptive tactics rather than on strategic pre-disaster plans. This paper investigates the university’s emergency preparedness and response capability and the strategies adopted to restore the education activities as well as avoid students migration to other universities. In addition, emphasis is placed on the role played by Student Associations in pre and post-disaster phases, and how students perceived the activities performed by these associations.Methods: To achieve this goal, it was undertaken: i) qualitative evaluation to assess the impact of earthquake on services and facilities of the university, the emergency preparedness and the measures adopted to face the emergency, ii) survey on the role played by Student Associations, both in emergency preparedness and response, according to students’ perception; iii) quantitative analysis to measure changes in the enrollment trend after the earthquake, and how university policies could curb students’ migration.Results: The policies adopted by the University allowed to diminish students’ migration; however, the measures taken by the university were based on an ad hoc plan as no emergency and continuity plans were prepared in advance. Similarly Student Associations got involved more in restoration activities than in emergency preparedness and risk awareness promotion.Discussion: Greater awareness and involvement are essential at each level (administrators, faculties, students) to plan in advance for an adverse scenario and to make important steps forward in understanding and embracing a culture of safety. The present paper is starting point for future research to deepen the emergency preparedness of Universities and the role that Student Associations may play to support and spread such a culture of safety.

Habitação em centros históricos: um desafio à integração das políticas públicas

Resumo O artigo parte do suposto de que a habitação, entendida como política pública integrada, constitui um componente central nos processos de reabilitação das áreas centrais das cidades e, principalmente, de seus centros históricos. Propõe estudar, por meio dos exemplos das cidades de Salvador, no Brasil, e do Porto, em Portugal, os condicionantes que permitiram estruturar programas ou políticas públicas continuadas, com significativos resultados nos processos de reabilitação e preservação. Pretende, ainda, contextualizar as formulações programáticas e os fundamentos conceituais a elas associados, de forma a compreender a relevância das práticas de planejamento urbano que integram a questão habitacional, suas formas de articulação e impactos nos processos de sociabilidade e de revitalização funcional dos centros históricos.

Quando o projeto disfarça o plano: concepções de planejamento e suas metamorfoses em Belém (PA)

Resumo Uma recente iniciativa da Prefeitura Municipal de Belém de reformar a feira do Ver-o-Peso, principal símbolo do centro histórico da capital é tomada, neste artigo, como referência para discussão sobre as concepções de cidade e intervenções, conduzidas por grupos políticos locais, a partir de coalizões com o setor privado e a mídia local. Abordam-se, particularmente, as contradições presentes na tentativa de internacionalização da cidade e o caráter seletivo que o planejamento estratégico oferece, quando a esfera política não considera o ambiente urbano amazônico em sua complexidade. O texto alerta que seria possível criar mediações para as concepções exógenas de planejamento para propor uma base filosófica para a modernização de Belém atenta à participação popular, à festa inclusiva e à sociobiodiversidade local.

Conjunto de integración y mixtura social en el centro de La Serena, Chile.

El mayor problema hoy en Chile es su desigualdad. Indicadores de la OCDE lo sitúan como uno de los países de mayor desigualdad urbana. Este proyecto propone cambios tanto de gestión urbana como de arquitectura y mixtura tipológica de conjuntos habitacionales. La idea es revitalizar el centro de histórico de La Serena, promoviendo viviendas colectivas en densidad media considerando la población preexistente, en su mayoría allegados, evitando la gentrificación y densificando el sector con diversas tipologías y equipamiento. A nivel de gestión urbana, se propone un sistema de Empresa Pública que promueva la integración y equipamientos de escala intermedia. Siendo la integración lo fundamental, a nivel arquitectónico, el conjunto contempla tres escalas de integración: Comunal, barrial y vecinal. Así, se plantea la construcción de un parque comunal aledaño al polígono del conjunto. Además, se proyectan en primer piso del edificio una amplia plaza verde que se fuga con vista al Río Elqui y una plaza dura contenida de carácter interior y comunitario. Finalmente cada piso superior contiene uno o dos espacios de integración en los vértices del volumen que conectados a través de amplias galerías promueven la interacción de las siete diversas tipologías y 150 viviendas que componen esta propuesta.

Caracterización del patrimonio cultural edificado como parte del desarrollo sostenible en la ciudad de Chalchuapa, el Salvador

El crecimiento y progreso de la ciudad de Chalchuapa están poniendo en riesgo el patrimonio arquitectónico de las edificaciones del centro histórico de la ciudad. El ambiente arquitectónico con valor patrimonial ha sido sustituido por otro de carácter comercial que es contrario, con el agravante de que la norma de protección patrimonial es ineficaz. Para salvaguardar el patrimonio arquitectónico de las edificaciones del centro histórico es necesario un enfoque diferente que incluya crear normativas municipales específicas para proteger, promover y resguardar estos inmuebles. En este artículo se muestran los resultados de una investigación que caracteriza el patrimonio cultural edificado como punto de partida para el desarrollo sostenible de la ciudad de Chalchuapa. Para este fin se determinó el área, la cantidad y tipo de inmuebles con valor cultural que podrían integrarse a un plan de gestión integral de turismo sostenible; al mismo tiempo se analizó el estado de conservación de los inmuebles en el área de estudio establecida y, finalmente, se auscultó por el cumplimiento de la normativa de gestión del patrimonio edificado.

An associative engines based approach supporting collaborative analytics in the Internet of cultural things

In this paper we illustrate an integrated approach combining Business Intelligence, Big Data and Internet of Things (IoT), which is applied to information resources including structured and unstructured contents, Geo-Spatial and Social Network data, Multimedia (MM), multiple domain vocabularies, classifiers and ontologies. This is implemented in an information system which exploits Associative in-memory technologies in the context of Cloud Computing, as well as Semantic technologies for merging and analyzing information coming from heterogeneous sources. The primary aim is supporting Cultural Heritage Asset crowdsourcing, promotion, publication, management and usage. We describe and discuss, in particular, the application of this system for the analysis of behavior and interest of visitors in different types of populations and visits: on-site/ad-hoc (exhibitions, museums, cultural events) and territorial (historical downtown, archaeological or other touristic areas and routes including cultural resources). In this way it will be possible to provide a common ICT infrastructure and a set of advanced services for all types of subjects interested in the Cultural Heritage domain. The results of the experimentation encourage a Business Intelligence approach which is suitable for both nonprofit, research and business oriented organizations.

Place Attachment and the Historic Brewpub: A Case Study in Greensboro, North Carolina

Over the last few decades, brewpubs have emerged as a cultural phenomenon uniquely positioned to tie together downtown revitalization, historic preservation, and community connections to local place. This study seeks to understand how the benefits of historic preservation in a brewpub can extend beyond tax incentives to include positive social outcomes. In particular, the study here explores the types of attachments patrons may form to historic brewpub environments with an emphasis on the role of the physical built environment. This exploratory study used a mixed methods research design for a single case study brewpub site in Greensboro, North Carolina and in an establishment located along the main thoroughfare of the historic downtown. Data were collected through a structured online survey ( n = 78) followed by the piloting of a photography activity ( n = 7). Survey results revealed that attachment to the physical environment along with customer satisfaction were among the strongest predictors of overall place attachment. In addition, some meaningful differences in place attachment were identified based on sociodemographic factors such as frequency of visits and age. The photography project offered a more in–depth view of patron reactions to the brewpub's built environment. Taken together, the mixture of the methodologies employed in this study indicate that designing a historic physical environment in brewpubs is a promising strategy for engendering attachment to place for visitors.

Avila Beach: From Funky to Fabulous

Among California’s coastal communities, beach may be the one most defined by its history. Amanda Ross discusses the unique planning and redevelopment process there, starting with the cleanup of a decadeslong crude oil spill that had contaminated the soil and led to the reconstruction of its beach and the entire historic downtown. This article reflects part of the activities for Professor Paul Wack’s Plan Implementation graduate class in 2015. Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/focus Part of the Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons This Faculty and Student Work is brought to you for free and open access by the City and Regional Planning at DigitalCommons@CalPoly. It has been accepted for inclusion in Focus by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@CalPoly. For more information, please contact mwyngard@calpoly.edu. Recommended Citation Ross, Amanda (2016) Avila Beach: From Funky to Fabulous, Focus: Vol. 12: Iss. 1, Article 19. Available at: http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/focus/vol12/iss1/19 mong California s coastal communities, ila each ma be the one most defined b its histor manda Ross discusses the unique planning and redevelopment process there, starting with the cleanup of a decades long crude oil spill that had contaminated the soil and led to the reconstruction of its beach and the entire historic downtown. his article re ects part of the acti ies for Professor Paul Wack’s Plan Implementation graduate class in 2015. Beach: From Funky to Fabulous Amanda Ross Master of City and Regional Planning student, Cal Poly FOCUS 12 Faculty and Student Work Beach grew as a funky small shing town from its founding in in the late 19th Century as the main shipping port for San Luis Obispo. Buildings sprung up as the population grew, de ning a downtown along the beachfront (Figure 1). In 1906, Union Oil Co. built a 95-acre oil tank farm on higher ground next to the city and by World War II, 2 million gallons of crude oil a day were being pumped into tankers (Figure 2). Despite these operations, Beach remained a quaint small town with a popular beach. The appeal, built environment, and character of the town were forever changed in the early 1990s with the discovery that 22,000 gallons of crude oil from Unocal operations had been contaminating the soil under and surrounding the downtown for decades. The oil tanks leaked and so did the pipes that went under Front Street to connect to the tankers. Unocal agreed to pay $200 million in cleanup costs and damages in what was considered to be the largest environmental settlement in California’s history at the time. About 300,000 cubic yards of soil —sometimes 15 feet deep– had to be removed and replaced. The entire downtown including several residences were razed to remove the contaminated soil.

Nostalgia and Tourism: Narratives of Yucatán’s Tangible Heritage

Tourism in Mexico plays an important role in the country’s economy. It represents almost a third of the foreign currency that is invested in the country (Banco de Mexico, 2014). Remarkable pre-Hispanic sites, colonial cities that flourished during the colonial period, as well as those that did during the 19 th century, are key to understanding the diverse touristy attractions that can be found all over Mexico. Two major and related events, in terms of strategy for touristic promotion are analyzed here. Firstly, the controversy about the recently built monument of the founding fathers of Merida, Francisco de Montejo el Adelantado and Francisco de Montejo el Mozo . Secondly, Merida’s historical downtown Centro Historico’s development and the related project Haciendas del Mundo Maya derived from it. As I will argue, all these events are part of a an anachronic perspective that links Yucatan’s modernity to its glorious past, which have as their main goal the portrayal of Yucatan as being modern, yet anchored in its past and from this, the search to promote the State, both for tourists and locals, appealing to a sense of nostalgia as the main element of attraction.

Building from Scratch: New Cities, Privatized Urbanism and the Spatial Restructuring of Johannesburg after Apartheid

AbstractBy the start of the twenty‐first century, the once dominant historical downtown core of Johannesburg had lost its privileged status as the center of business and commercial activities, the metropolitan landscape having been restructured into an assemblage of sprawling, rival edge cities. Real estate developers have recently unveiled ambitious plans to build two completely new cities from scratch: Waterfall City and Lanseria Airport City (formerly called Cradle City) are master‐planned, holistically designed ‘satellite cities’ built on vacant land. While incorporating features found in earlier city‐building efforts, these two new self‐contained, privately‐managed cities operate outside the administrative reach of public authority and thus exemplify the global trend toward privatized urbanism. Waterfall City, located on land that has been owned by the same extended family for nearly 100 years, is spearheaded by a single corporate entity. Lanseria Airport City/Cradle City is a planned ‘aerotropolis’ surrounding the existing Lanseria airport at the northwest corner of the Johannesburg metropole. These two new private cities differ from earlier large‐scale urban projects because everything from basic infrastructure (including utilities, sewerage, and the installation and maintenance of roadways), landscaping, security services, the regulation of common spaces, and selling and branding the city are firmly in the hands of private profit‐making corporate entities and outside the mandate of public authorities.

The Distribution of Red and Yellow Tags in the City of Napa

The M 6.0 South Napa earthquake that occurred on 24 August 2014, strongly shook the City of Napa, damaging residential and commercial buildings from Brown’s Valley through the historic downtown. The damage to wood‐frame houses occurred largely from broken and cracked chimneys, although a number of houses were shifted on their foundations, or suffered racking or failure of cripple walls. In the downtown area, many masonry buildings, both unreinforced and retrofitted, were damaged, including the 1870 Napa courthouse. When earthquakes damage municipalities, it is important for planners and residents to understand the factors that condition this damage, because these factors can determine where damage will recur in future earthquakes. For areas subjected to strong ground motion, that is, peak accelerations exceeding 25% g and peak velocities exceeding 40 cm/s, municipal‐tagging data can provide a spatial detail of building damage that greatly exceeds what can be obtained from ground‐motion recordings or intensity surveys. In this paper, we use the red‐ and yellow‐tagging data assembled by the City of Napa to identify zones of extensive damage. We compare these zones with the pre‐1950 development of Napa, the recent alluvial geology of the Napa Valley (Witter et al. , 2006), and the depth of the underlying sedimentary basin, as inferred from the Bouguer gravity anomaly (Jachens et al. , 2006; Aagaard et al. , 2010). The extent of the central damage zone is strongly correlated with the pre‐1950 buildings and with the underlying sedimentary basin, but poorly correlated with the alluvial geology. The City of Napa, with the assistance of structural engineers who volunteered from many areas across California, tagged and retagged damaged buildings throughout the city (Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, 2014). The tagging data provide a complete municipal reporting of prohibited (red tags) or restricted (yellow tags) access to earthquake‐damaged structures. Some buildings received multiple …

Urban Fads and Consensual Fictions: Creative, Sustainable, and Competitive City Policies in Buenos Aires

Scholarship in urban sociology has pointed to the reliance of city governments on ever–more market mechanisms for organizing social and economic policy. This form of governance involves prioritizing cities’ cultural and social assets for their value in a global competition of urban “brands,” each competing for new infusions of human and investment capital. At the same time, however, cities have been at the center of seemingly progressive policy efforts aimed at promoting innovation, sustainability, and creativity. These themes represent a newly dominant planning discourse in cities across the globe. While researchers have thoroughly examined how “creative classes” and “creative cities” may exclude everyday, working–class, or poor residents, new urban imaginaries focused on sustainability potentially imply less stratified urban outcomes. Analyzing two high–profile interventions in Buenos Aires, Argentina—a sustainable urban regeneration plan for the historic downtown, and the creation of an arts cluster in the impoverished south of the city—this paper argues that despite divergent narratives, creative and sustainable urban projects suggest similar policy agendas, planning assumptions, and relationships to market mechanisms. Increasingly, global policies, whose design and objectives may appear to contradict market logics, may have outcomes that further them.

Urban Regeneration in Historic Downtown Areas: An Ex-Ante Evaluation of Traffic Impacts in Athens, Greece

Urban regeneration projects in modern metropolitan areas often incorporate major changes in the structure and operations of a city's transportation system. In this paper we discuss the traffic impacts of such a project—the pedestrianization of a major arterial, in the Athens, Greece, downtown area—by applying an ex-ante evaluation of the project on a city-wide level. A scenario planning approach is adopted to represent post-project traffic conditions. Findings indicate that although in the short-run traffic conditions will worsen, a potential traffic evaporation resulting from the project could significantly improve traffic and environmental conditions in the Athens downtown area.