Search Results (2)

This article takes representative uncultivated riverfront internet-famous sites (uncultivated RIFSs) in Changsha city, China, as an example to explore the internal mechanism of their formation and finds that they are closely related to the “urban subculture” and the “informality of urban public space”. In terms of methodology, through questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews, this study investigates the behavioral characteristics of onsite visitors, the overall perceptions and satisfaction of public spaces, and the perceptions of spatial and humanistic elements of visitors. The main findings are as follows: ① Onsite visitors are mainly male, with local tourists and nearby residents accounting for over 80%. Furthermore, over half of the visitors have limited understanding of the uncultivated RIFSs. ② People’s overall attitudes towards the uncultivated RIFSs are positive. And the ability to carry out meaningful activities and find comfort and safety are of the greatest concern to onsite tourists. ③ Among the visiting reasons, leisure stays accounted for the highest proportion, followed by sightseeing, sports stays and social stays. ④ The onsite visitors’ main focus of spatial elements and humanistic elements is different according to the different sites. However, visitors’ dissatisfaction is mainly reflected in poor site safety and sanitation conditions, inadequate facilities and poor surrounding environments. This paper also compares the online–offline differences in the spatial perceptions of the uncultivated RIFSs between this study and previous research; instead of focusing on the urban physical spaces, online social media users pay more attention to their self-presentation. Meanwhile, the visitors place greater emphasis on the functionality, practicality and experiential activities of the urban physical spaces. Finally, this article proposes optimization strategies for uncultivated RIFSs from planning and governance and public space design aspects to protect and strengthen the composite utilization of space, therefore enhancing diverse vitality. Full article

With the increasing online exposure of urban public spaces, the new concept of “internet-famous sites” has emerged in China. Social media users are the main contributors to this new phenomenon. To fully understand social media users’ preferences in such kinds of public spaces, this article took 27 typical riverfront internet-famous sites (RIFSs) in Changsha City (China) as an example. Through social media platform selection, keyword research, text and image data extraction, visual and emotional symbol coding, and manual calculations of coding frequency, this study investigated social media users’ perception of RIFSs, especially on visual and emotional preferences. The online images and review comments were extracted from the popular Chinese social media platform “Xiaohongshu”. We found that (1) the popularity of each RIFS had a significant head effect and there were far more positive emotions than neutral and negative emotions in review comments. (2) RIFSs in Changsha were divided into five categories: commercial RIFSs, art exhibition RIFSs, historical and cultural RIFSs, ecological recreational RIFSs, and uncultivated RIFSs. Social media users had different visual focuses on each kind of RIFS. (3) Social media users provided specific reasons for their emotional preferences towards different types of RIFSs. This study can provide a new perspective on improving waterfront vitality and offer a targeted and attractive method for waterfront regeneration that is different from traditional methods. Full article