Tourism and Gentrification in Contemporary Metropolises

International Perspectives

Maria Gravari-Barbas, Sandra Guinand, Maria Gravari-Barbas, Sandra Guinand

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Business
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317244974
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

Tourism gentrification is a critical shaping force of socio-economic and contemporary urban landscapes. This book aims to be the first substantive text on this subject, explaining the multiple and complex relationships between tourism and gentrification and their outcomes and manifestations in contemporary metropolises. This is achieved by drawing on in-depth case analyses addressing the different issues at stake.

Part I deals with the manifestations of tourism gentrification and the ways it affects urban landscapes through heritagization and urban regeneration strategies. Part II looks at the correlations between tourism gentrification and culture. Finally, the last two parts aim to identify and examine forms and expressions of tourism gentrification, distinguishing among the actors, beneficiaries, and victims of the phenomenon while looking at its implications for intra-metropolitan territories and metropolitan governance.

The book approaches these issues in an innovative way, by looking at a variety of metropolises in a diverse range of countries and by dealing with the different relations and management issues generated by gentrification in relation to tourism. Through interdisciplinary approaches, this groundbreaking text sheds light on the role tourism plays in contemporary metropolises, furthering knowledge of urban tourism. For these reasons, it will be of particular interest to scholars and students of tourism, urban studies, geography, anthropology and sociology.

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1 Introduction

Addressing tourism-gentrification processes in contemporary metropolises

Maria Gravari-Barbas and Sandra Guinand

Contemporary metropolises – socio-economic and morphological changes in the urban landscape

Since the 1980s, cities have been experiencing tremendous change. As the world’s population continues to grow more urban (54 per cent of the world’s population is currently living in urban areas) (Nations-Unies, 2014) urban territories have been expanding, leading to the metropolization phenomenon, “human and material wealth concentration phenomenon in the biggest cities”¹ (Ascher, 1995), characterized by new centralities as well as urban sprawl (Halbert, 2010). Meanwhile, the flow of globalization and the structural shift in the economy and new technologies have contributed to accelerate the transformation of cities (Friedmann, 1986). These moves have left behind vacant industrial sites, while contributing to inner-city reinvestments by bringing back new residents, commercial and socio-cultural activities (Laska et al., 1982). But it has also changed the way people move around, look at and interact with each other and the world.

A wide range of literature has been analysing the changes that affect contemporary metropolises through the concept of gentrification. When Ruth Glass first coined the term in 1964, she most likely did not anticipate the numerous variations the concept would hold less than forty years later. Associated with the changes in the conduct of urban affairs and the simultaneous modification of the urban landscape, gentrification has been extensively studied, mostly in connection with urban regeneration policies (Lees et al., 2008; Smith, 2006). First, as urban regeneration was implemented as a means to improve inner cities through housing policies (Cameron, 1992; Couch, 2003), voices were quick to denounce its failure to primarily allocate public resources to the affluent instead of those most in need. Since then, and exacerbated by the increasing competition for resource allocation between territories, urban regeneration has become a global strategy pursued more or less aggressively by contemporary metropolises (Smith, 2002). The neoliberal turn has indeed opened new territories to capital accumulation and real estate speculation, pushing further the new urban frontier (Smith, 1996) but has also considerably altered actors’ governance around urban agendas (Mosedale, 2014). With failing urban economies and shrinking public budgets (at all levels), public authorities have been more and more reliant on private funders, diversifying their economies and revenues.

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As such, capitalizing on land by recapturing former industrial or vacant sites and transforming them into mixed-used neighbourhoods with luxurious condominiums targeting the upper social class has been a trend developed from London to Beijing, especially on waterfronts (Figure 1.1). This dramatic transformation of former blue-collar landscapes into high-end facilities has been investigated and designated by scholars as “new build gentrification” (Davidson and Lees, 2005, 2010; He, 2010; Rérat et al., 2010). Yet, these gentrification patterns are also the result of structural change in mobility and residential preferences, which have mainly been looked at under the “back to the city” movement (Bidou-Zachariassen, 2003) and the geography of “induced-displacement” (Van Criekingen, 2008).

Although academic literature analyses the extent of gentrification in tourist cities (Bures and Cain, 2008) little attention has been paid to tourism and tourist mobility as main factors of gentrification in metropolitan areas (Gotham, 2005). Tourism gentrification is difficult to grasp, 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.

Figure 1.1 Talinn, Rotermanni Kvartal

Source: Sandra Guinand, 2014

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This edited volume brings together different perspectives and geographies on the tourism gentrification phenomenon. It intends to explain the subtle balance that exists between the multiple and complex relationships of tourism and gentrification, and their outcomes and manifestations in contemporary metropolises. The contributions by the various authors in this book draw on in-depth case analyses addressing the different issues at stake raised by tourism gentrification. They examine the changes induced in the urban landscape and the impacts for urban design, planning and tourism. As tourism gentrification is a phenomenon imbedded in the broader context of globalization and forms of (neo)liberalism (Harvey, 2007), the book also sheds light on the new actors, prescribers, beneficiaries or victims of the phenomenon. It shows how it can be implemented or resisted as well as how local actors cope or surrender. By bringing light on the features of the phenomenon, the constellations of actors behind it, its governance, its outcomes on urban space and consequences for metropolitan territories, this book aims at bringing a solid basis for further, more specific, research on tourism gentrification. This introductory chapter will position tourism as a gentrification process and/or result thereof, and drawing on examples from the contributions, it will identify its key components and attempt to replace it in the larger debate on gentrification.

Tourism as a gentrifying process

When did tourism become a gentrifying process? This question may be difficult to answer as tourism has from its very beginning had an impact on the places being visited, by the implementation of new infrastructures or services offered, but also by the new and fresh perspectives the tourist “gaze” (Urry, 2002) has brought on places and landscapes.

Tourism, urban development and gentrification have always been strongly imbedded. Kevin Gotham was one of the first researchers to formulate the expression in his article on the Vieux Carré French Quarter of New Orleans (Gotham, 2005). For the author, tourism gentrification can be defined as “the transformation of a middle-class neighbourhood into a relatively affluent and exclusive enclave marked by a proliferation of corporate entertainment and tourism venues” (ibid., 1102). Gotham argues that the concept brings out the dual processes of globalization and localization imbedded in urban redevelopment, since tourism is characterized by international global actors (hotel chains, car rentals, tour operators, etc.), linked to the service industry (communications, finance, etc.) while at the same time investing at the local level by developing local culture, products and places for consumption that will appeal to visitors. For Gotham, this nexus between the global and the local in tourism (Milne and Ateljevic, 2001) cannot be disconnected. However, if the author insists on the forces of corporate tourism industries influencing space development and consumption, we will argue in this book that local actors, local inhabitants, as well as the tourists themselves, also contribute to the gentrification phenomena. Furthermore, as Herzfeld demonstrates in this volume (Ch.10), local actors do act, cope and structure their environment in order to take advantage of the tourism economy. If “tourism gentrification provides the conceptual link between production-side and demand-side explanations of gentrification while avoiding one-sided conceptions” (Gotham, 2005: 1103), this book shows that actors are intermingled in this process.

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The relationship between tourism and gentrification is indeed complex and diverse. Tourists are attracted by gentrified and gentrifying neighbourhoods. The SoHo cast-iron buildings, inhabited since the 60s by artists and urban bohemians (Zukin, 1989), became, concomitantly with their gentrification, a prime urban destination for strolling, shopping or gourmet-fooding. Tourism often follows urban gentrifiers (Bridge, 2007; Schlichtman and Patch, 2014) and invests, in return on the ‘rediscovered, ‘trendy’ urban areas that are experiencing the gentrification phenomena. This can also be understood by both the physical and the symbolic changes that these areas experienced after their gentrification: heritagization, improvement of the urban infrastructure and public spaces, with simultaneous creation of shops that cater to new residents and are also very attractive to tourists (farmers’ markets and gourmet shops, designer retail shops, specialized bookstores, art galleries, etc.). These phenomena were, for instance, observed in the Le Marais area of Paris, where tourism developed in this neighbourhood after its heritagization and the general up-grading of its image and accessibility (Maria Gravari-Barbas, this volume, Ch. 13).

In some other cases however, tourism comes first. Some projects are planned and designed from their inception to cater to the visitors’ economy. It is during a second stage that these touristified urban areas are occupied by new individual owners, renters and consumers as well as other institutional and collective social actors (real estate agents, developers, mortgage lenders, etc.) (Hamnett, 1991) who are attracted by the services and the atmosphere created and promoted in order to attract local, regional or international visitors. This can be the case with derelict but centrally located places (former industrial, port or warehouse areas) that have experienced capital and human disinvestment since the second part of the twentieth century. These areas, often transformed into “tourism playgrounds” (Judd, 2003), can attract (sometimes with the help of public intervention) residential gentrification. This was, for instance, the case in Baltimore, where the private/public-led Inner Harbor redevelopment generated new-build gentrification phenomena in the adjacent areas.

Beyond this dual tourism and residential gentrification relationship, tourism also induces commercial gentrification. Tourism investment of a neighbourhood often contributes to a change in commerce and businesses’ landscape, which obviously goes far beyond the stereotypical image of the souvenir postcard, T-shirt shops and guided tours. The introduction of tourism in an urban area indeed implies the bringing of bigger, international and more sophisticated markets, which will also impact on the quality of restaurants, bars and shops as they are replaced by chains or trendy and upscale establishments.

Finally, tourism gentrification can also be seen as an internal phenomenon: the continuous upgrading of former middle-class, popular or marginal tourism areas into exclusive and high-end tourism ventures (Guinand, this volume, Ch. 9). For instance, Chapuis et al. (2015) analysed the upgrading transformation of the Red-Light district (De Wallen) in Amsterdam. This area, an identified tourism destination related to ‘window brothels’ experienced a tourism gentrification through a renovation plan aiming at changing the image of tourism and its practices (from mass tourism to qualitative tourism).

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Global tourists as international gentrifying elites

Research confirms that boundaries between tourists and locals have become increasingly blurred (Bock, 2015; Condevaux et al., 2016) due, among other reasons, to the fact that tourists are increasingly blending in with the local population. International tourists are seeking authentic and local experiences, “exploring ordinary but lively and diverse neighborhoods and visiting cafes, bars and markets that were previously almost exclusively frequented by locals” (Bock, 2015). This quest for ‘authenticity’ of local life, as opposed to the (past) tourist hot-spots and designated attractions, combined with the ability of transnational elites to (technically, socially and economically) live their life in selected places around the world and an “elective affinity” between tourists and the upper-class (Chapuis et al., 2015), have considerably impacted not only on the city centres but also on the peripheries. This phenomenon is also connected with the tourism experiential turn (Gravari-Barbas, 2015) made possible by the incredible advancements of technology and the rise of social media and interfaces. Tourist behaviours have considerably changed during recent years. The off-the-beaten-path tourism preferences (Gravari-Barbas and Delaplace, 2015) as well as the desire to live ‘like a local’, bring tourism to former working and more remote neighbourhoods which in turn become desirable and touristically marketed. These dynamics change the image, the patterns and the social composition in contemporary metropolises. They contribute in new and different ways to the gentrification phenomenon.

Contemporary mobilities, ‘poly-topical’ living and gentrification

The growing trend of second-home ownership (or multiple-home ownership), for leisure and leisure-related investment purposes, has seen the rise of a transnational class (Sklair, 2000) able to be ‘at home’ and to live ‘like a local’ in different contexts around the world.

Stock (2012) discusses the “poly-topical” living phenomenon, in which “different places can be familiar and identity-related, and not only a place of residence”.² Facilitated by contemporary means and communication/technology, information and transportation, “geographical individualization” (Stock, 2012) occurs where the choice of possible places to visit and live becomes higher; people become more distant from their place of residence; and individual spaces for living (“individual spatial trajectories”) are more autonomous from one another (ibid). People become “geographically plural”: they are simultaneously involved and “invested” in different places. According to Stock this means that (a) individuals become temporary residents of one or many places; (b) individuals have the ability to transform foreign places into familiar ones; (c) depending on intentionalities, one place could be the referen...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Tourism and Gentrification in Contemporary Metropolises
• Contemporary Geographies of Leisure, Tourism and Mobility
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Lists of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• 1 Introduction: Addressing Tourism-Gentrification Processes in Contemporary Metropolises
• PART I Tourism Gentrification, Heritagisation and Urban Regeneration
• PART II Tourism Gentrification and the Urban Cultural and Creative Turn
• PART III Who are the Tourism Gentrifiers?
• PART IV Forms and Expressions of Tourism Gentrification: A Critical Analysis
• Index