Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
lack a large number of conventional attractions and were not planned - and until recently not
marketed - as tourist zones'.
Cosmopolitanism is often an important mechanism of gentrifi ed spaces and has affected
urban policy across the world, generally stemming from the particular cultural norms and
lifestyle predilections of gentrifying groups. Indeed, Binnie et al. (2006: 16) argue that the
global habitus of gentrifi ers 'seems to refl ect the attitudes and practices of cosmopolitanism,
including an active celebration of and desire for diversity', although they warn that this may
produce an exclusion of difference by drawing symbolic boundaries between acceptable and
non-acceptable difference. This, they note, produces a paradox within the consumption prac-
tices of the new middle-class gentrifi er, whereby certain groups are not seen as appropriate
for the neighbourhood and which leads to a loss of a space's distinctive and diverse identity,
which had originally attracted the globally oriented middle classes (Binnie et al. , 2006:
16-17). As such, with tourism's presence in neighbourhoods 'pacifi ed by Cappuccino' (Zukin,
1995: 28), there is clearly an uneasy tension, particularly within cities where social, ethnic
and cultural diversity prevails and is on the increase.
Shaw et al. (2004) examined the inner-cit y London neighbourhood of Spitalfi elds in terms
of the promotion of multicultural districts for tourism. They highlight the promotion of
'streets and neighbourhoods, whose very names once signifi ed the poverty of marginalised
communities . . . repositioned to attract people with sophisticated and cosmopolitan tastes'
(p. 1983). Hall and Rath (2007: 143) also argue that the promotion of tourism to ethnic
neighbourhoods can result in cultural commodifi cation and commercial gentrifi cation,
maintaining that residential gentrifi cation effects raise the question of what the gains from
tourism actually are and how they can be translated into community well-being.
The linking of gentrifi cation processes with notions of cosmopolitanism in neighbourhood-
based tourism brings to the fore issues of gender, sexuality, class, race and ethnicity (see Keith,
2005; Kwame, 2006; Sennett, 2000). In this respect, the role of cosmopolitan production and
consumption of tourism in city neighbourhoods is clearly a very important area for future
research within tourism geographies, and while a detailed examination is beyond the scope of
this chapter, any examination of gentrifi cation's relationship to tourism needs to consider
cosmopolitan urbanism as a central notion. Also mentioning gentrifi cation (albeit not centrally)
in cosmopolitan tourism areas, Pappalepore et al. (2010) also focus on London's Spitalfi elds as
an alternative tourism area, noting that the 'creative' neighbourhood represents an established
yet off-the-beaten-track concentration point for urban tourism, that is now experiencing
growth in terms of more mainstream tourism.
There is also an emergent interest in tourism by those working in the domain of urban
social movements and neighbourhood development in working-class areas, contextualised
within the question of the 'right to the city' and the ' just city' (Marcuse et al. , 2009). In
research framed by Lefebvre's (1991) work on the struggle for the 'right to the city', LeVine
(2001) examined urban transformations in the city-turned-neighbourhood of Jaffa (the
economic and cultural capital of pre-1948 Arab Palestine and now a mixed Arab-Jewish
quarter), Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. He focused on Arab Jaffa's development during the late
1980s/1990s when Jaffa began to be developed for tourism and as a new, chic neighbourhood.
In the face of this process (which included considerable gentrifi cation and displacement
effects) he examined how Arab residents have attempted to re-imagine their city and open up
new spaces for agency and empowerment.
Tourism and gentrifi cation in Manhattan's Harlem neighbourhood has been the object of
a number of studies. Hoffman (2003) researched tourism and regulation in Harlem and,
indeed, Sandford had already observed in the 1980s that tourism had a more direct impact on
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search