The port city in the post-crisis context: identity and humanisation in the processes of turistification

Abstract

There is a growing number of European cities that are at risk due to the phenomenon termed touristification. These port cities, that boast many cultural options and beautiful historic areas, have been swamped by mass tourism from the ever-larger cruise ships and the budding low-cost tourism industry, so their identity is now in jeopardy. The touristification has started a trend of replacing local assets with global ones. Services, facilities and businesses become tourist-oriented instead of citizen-oriented. The transformation in response to this mass tourism has been so extreme that city inhabitants have gradually abandoned these areas, which are now little more than theme parks, devoid of local activity. In addition, the current post-economic downturn scenario we are currently immersed in does not favour large urban interventions like the ones that were undertaken in these spaces, so other, more participatory forms of intervention, known as bottom-up urbanism, are gaining momentum, especially in old industrial cities. In these, e.g., empty industrial buildings that had been embedded into the urban fabric have been occupied for local activities, thus guaranteeing the living memory of the urban life in the area. The industrial past of these threatened port cities has left many old, unused industrial buildings, so challenge and opportunity have converged at exactly the right time. In short, in the post-crisis scenario of western countries, the lack of financial resources to implement far-reaching urban regeneration operations at the port/city interface points becomes an opportunity to develop new forms of intervention. They will serve to add value to local identity and counter the destructive effect of gentrification (local inhabitants and activities) that the modern phenomenon of touristification causes in these cities.