Speaker
Description
The paper frames selected spatial questions linked to the ‘pandemic shock by Covid-19’ into the
transition studies and spatial turn literature. Specifically, the research focuses on socioeconomic
conditions related to the tourist sector in Milan, Florence, Rome before and after the Covid-19
crisis, to investigate if and which spatial effects were produced by the pandemic, by a re-
negotiation of the space linked to new policies, and, thus, which new actors took the fore, acquiring
power.
The research focuses on tourism, culture and leisure, which is a wide field to be studied under
dozens of lenses (economic, sociological, geographical, anthropological, political…). Thus, the first
phase of the work was aimed at reducing the scope of these multi-scalar and intertwined domains,
framing tourism as a socioeconomic and spatial ambit characterised by flows of people that
cross places for specific reasons, mainly linked to leisure activities, and by economic actors that
are related to the supply (online platforms, traditional economies, public bodies, associations,
activists). Leisure activities are all those satellite activities that sustain the supply in tourist cities,
while culture is meant as a material cultural heritage that tourists can visit. The governance
related to those is also taken into consideration by the research.
The final aim is to trace the emergence of ‘niches of innovation’, that are provided by firms,
governments, and civil society groups and promote sustainable transitions “as shifts from one stable
socio-technical configuration to a new one by interacting processes at the different “levels” of
landscape, regimes and niches, hence the term MLP (multi-level approach, noa). […The] MLP
approach suffers from a missing or naive conceptualization of space (Cooke, 2010; Hodson e
Marvin, 2010; Smith et al., 2010; Spath e Rohracher, 2010)”. (Coenen e Truffer, 2012: 369).
In order to achieve the research goal related to the tourist sector in cultural cities (Milan, Florence,
Rome), a one-year study on the field led to some statistical evidence and geographical information
to introduce the state of the art before and after the pandemic and some hints from a set of semi-
structured interviews to specific actors in the sector (public, private, institutional, associations).
Indeed, the question of the spatial externalities related to Covid-19 necessarily takes into
consideration the governance sphere at different levels. Are the political institutions aware of and
responsive to the changes linked to the tourist sector (not only the socioeconomic ones but also
the spatial ones) in cultural over touristic cities? The awareness and responsiveness (in terms of
enabling or disabling processes of innovation) of the institutions can improve the preparedness,
social bonding and sustainability of transitions at the local level. Thus, it is crucial to evidence
the ‘niches of innovation’ and the interactions between them and the public sphere.
The paper is part of a wider research funded by the Ministry of Research that investigates not only
the tourist sector, but also the industry, logistics, and higher education in the three case studies
mentioned above.
References
Balducci A. (2020), I territori fragili di fronte al COVID-19, «Scienze del territorio», Numero
Speciale dicembre 2020, pp. 169-17
Barbanente A., Grassini, L. (2022). “Fostering transitions in landscape policies: A multi-level
perspective”. Land Use Policy 112
Brenner N., Schmid C. (2015). The ‘urban age’ in question, International Journal of urban and
regional Research, 38(3), p. 731-755
Cooke, P. (2010) Regional innovation systems: Development opportunities from the “green turn”,
Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 22(7), pp. 831–844
Schmid C. (2015). “Specificity and Urbanization. A theoretical outlook” in ETH Studio Basel Ed.
The Inevitable Specificity of Cities. Zurich, Lars Muller, pp: 283-307
| Keywords | overtourism; urban space; urban policy; governance; preparedness |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
