Pablo Martí Ciriquián

Morphological and functional attributes of preferred urban public spaces in Alicante province

Introduction Abstract. Understanding the role of urban public spaces in today’s historic Spanish Mediterranean cities is a key issue for researchers and urban professionals. Increasingly, social media showcases users’ preferences, a trend that can provide an indication as to why some urban public spaces are preferred over others. This research focuses on the study of morphological and functional attributes of preferred urban public spaces in historic cities of the Province of Alicante (Spain). Two main objectives are pursued: to describe urban morphological features of preferred plazas within the city; and, to identify functional patterns taking into account building uses and activities found in these public spaces. Eight plazas, selected from a previous study using Foursquare social media data, were used as a case study. The research

Frentes marítimo-fluviales en ciudades españolas: nuevos espacios urbanos

Many Spanish city waterfronts have been renewed in the last thirty years. These transformations had common origins, that is, the obsolescence of activities and land uses that were previously hosted, or the degradation and disconnection of these maritime and river fronts in relation to the surrounding urban fabric. A selection of case studies shows the diversity of contexts and strategies that finally resulted in four important improvements at different scales: i) increase in territorial and urban connectivity; ii) redistribution of facilities in the city, iii) environmental regeneration, and iv) an interconnected network of urban and peri-urban public spaces. River and maritime waterfronts have acquired a renewed role through regeneration strategies, which have not only transformed places physically but have also changed the population’s perception of these areas. Nowadays, changes in user perceptions can be readily accessed and identified by using social networks to analyze user preferences and activities in urban spaces. Specifically, heat-maps provided by Instasights’ cartography are generated by managing geolocated data and hashtags from images uploaded by users of Instagram social network. The resulting heat-maps provide a research tool that can cross-check assumptions made about the mix of activities occurring at urban waterfronts.