Metropolitics

Finding the People's City

Benjamin Holtzman — 2024-03-26T06:00:00Z

In A People's Guide to New York City, Carolina Bank Muñoz, Penny Lewis and Emily Tumpson Molina provide an engaging exploration into sites throughout the city. The authors expose complicated histories, of both iconic and lesser-known sites, that highlight change from below while also demonstrating how powerful institutions have shaped New York in the face of grassroots resistance.
There is no shortage of guidebooks to New York City. There are guides designed to assist visitors in exploring

- Reviews / New York, tourism, urban tourism, history, urban history, resistance, power play, protest, community

New Tourism Geographies and the Politics of Tourist Taxation

Elizabeth Strom — 2022-06-07T05:00:00Z

The changing geography of urban tourism has led to new forms of political contestation. How hotel-tax revenues are spent—where and for whom—is a central issue. Elizabeth Strom argues that political mobilization can encourage elected officials and the tourism industry to use tax revenues to improve cities for residents, not just tourists.
Two decades ago, Dennis Judd wrote with some concern about the construction of “tourist bubbles”—the downtown enclaves found in US cities that included some

- Essays / tourism, urban tourism, taxation, hotel tax, protest, mobilization, United States

Invisible Lines in the Sand: Bather Arrests in Early 20th-Century Los Angeles

Elsa Devienne & translated by Oliver Waine — 2018-07-13T05:00:00Z

Can beaches reveal the tensions that run through society at a given moment in time? Here, Elsa Devienne shows how Californian beaches in the early 20th century crystallized tensions resulting from the gradual rejection of Victorian values and exposed, via the way people presented their bodies, the changes under way with regard to moral order and American society.
In the late 1910s, Los Angeles was the scene of a series of arrests of bathers and beachgoers. The individuals arrested, caught

- From the Field / gender, United States, Los Angeles, public order, tourism, order in public, women, beach, California, leisure, social order, moral order, clothing, bathing suit, seaside resort, resort town, Santa Monica

Birdwatching in the City: A Case for Multispecies Tourism

Elizabeth Cherry & August Davidson-Onsgard & Lisa Jean Moore — 2018-01-16T06:00:00Z

This essay analyzes the growth of urban avitourism—wildlife tourism focused on birds—as an activity that drives humans and revenue to urban centers. Two sociologists and a birder/wildlife photographer consider the implications of heightened human awareness of nature in cities.
Birds as urban celebrities
In early December of 2015, a painted bunting was sighted in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. Birders from all over the New York metropolitan area learned of the bird's arrival through their “rare

- Essays / parks, nature, New York, tourism, wildlife, urban tourism, avitourism, urban wildlife, migratory birds, bird habitats, birds, birding, birdwatching, wildlife tourism, ecotourism, urban parks

In Havana, Tourism Development Before the US Tsunami

Lily M. Hoffman — 2016-03-22T06:00:00Z

The easing of Cuban–US relations will likely bring a new wave of tourists to Cuba. Although the Cuban government needs the foreign investment, it is wary about the all-too-common ills of tourism. Cubans talk about growing inequality and corruption. Lily Hoffman considers the difficult choices facing the country and their likely impact on Havana.
In the wake of President Obama's visit this week (March 21–22, 2016) to Cuba, Cuba is poised to become the next hot tourist destination. Cuban

- Essays / inequalities, urban development, tourism, Cuba, Havana, urban heritage

Taking Research to the Streets

Jonathan R. Wynn & Richard E. Ocejo — 2015-06-09T05:00:00Z

Residents of iconic neighborhoods in New York City have grown accustomed to walking tourism in their midst—clumps of curious observers and amateur historians following a knowledgeable guide who points to signs of the past in the contemporary landscape. This multimedia article follows sociologists Jonathan Wynn and Richard Ocejo on a tour whose subject is both the East Village neighborhood and the phenomenon of the walking tour itself. We follow the guides from Astor Place to the Bowery, via

- From the Field / gentrification, United States, New York, night, tourism, walking tour guides, bars, East Village, nightlife, walking

The Future of Asbury Park: Gentrification and Youth in a Coastal Community

Alicia Raia-Hawrylak — 2015-03-31T04:55:00Z

Once known as a successful beach community, with a lively boardwalk and thriving rock music scene, the city of Asbury Park, New Jersey, faced steep decline as investment shifted to the suburbs and other places of amusement. With gentrification occurring since the early 2000s, Alicia Raia-Hawrylak documents the experience of an oft-neglected group in both academic research and urban politics, the city's youth, and considers their inclusion in future urban planning.
Asbury Park, New Jersey is a

- From the Field / gentrification, United States, children, teenagers, tourism, youth, community

Nantes' urban project: putting the Bilbao model to the test

Amélie Nicolas & translated by Oliver Waine — 2014-11-13T05:50:00Z

The experiences of Bilbao and its urban transformations have been shared and integrated into the urban-planning cultures of numerous European cities. In Nantes, the success of Bilbao initially inspired much of the strategic thinking and planning for the Île de Nantes project, until criticisms of the “Bilbao model” began to come to the fore, ultimately leading to the development of a “Nantes-style urban planning” that takes account of the city's specificities – and which could even be considered

- From the Field / urban planning, urban renewal, urban regeneration, heritage, Nantes, Bilbao, urban project, dissemination of urban references, flagship facility, culture-based economy, tourism, museum