Utilización de nuevas tecnologías en la revalorización de espacios públicos significantes para la sociedad

Abstract

Public spaces have the capability to produce emotional relationships between the citizens and the built environment. The longer the spaces witness day-to-day doings, the stronger these relationships become. However, the increasing virtuality has modified the way social interaction happens with and within city spaces. Thus, the following question arises: what is the urban relation between today’s relevant public spaces and the historic city centre? To that end, the Alicante province’s historical cities were considered as case studies. A socially relevant public plaza of each city was selected using Foursquare, a location-based social networking website for mobile devices. Once selected, the plaza location was analyzed in relation to the city’s historical centre and two situations were identified. First, the plaza possesses a strong spatial association to the city’s historical area, and second, it is connected to the rest of the city through main axes that, in most cases, correspond to the direction of the urban expansion axes.