Leticia Serrano-EstradaUniversity of Alicante | UA · Building Sciences and Urbanism Department
Leticia Serrano-Estrada
PhD Arch., M.Arch., LEED AP
Analysis of urban phenomena through geolocated social media data
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67
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Introduction
Lecturer and researcher in the field of urban design. Co-founder of the Mappingame research group (mappingame.com), based in the Urban Design and Regional Planning Unit at the University of Alicante, Spain. My research focuses on the analysis of urban phenomena through the interpretation of social networks data, and more specifically, on topics related to the use, spatial configuration, and perception of urban public spaces.
Publications
Publications (67)
Link to book:
https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/the-sage-handbook-of-social-media-research-methods/book272098#contents
Link to Chapter:
https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/the-sage-handbook-of-social-media-research-methods-2e/i3375.xml
Research that tackles the pedagogical use of geolocated social media as an investigative tool for understanding cities in Geography and Urban Studies higher education programs has not been fully exploited. This study contributes by addressing the transferability of these sources as a research medium for enhancing student knowledge of urban phenomen...
This study revisits the debate surrounding the definition of neighborhood boundaries by addressing the disconnect between the city’s Administrative Neighborhoods and its functional organization. A method is proposed for dividing the city into more meaningful units through the spatial distribution of urban activities by retrieving data from Google P...
Analysing the city through data retrieved from Location Based Social Networks (LBSNs) has received considerable attention as a promising method for applied research. However, the use of these data is not without its challenges and has given rise to a stream of polemical arguments over the validity of this source of information. This paper addresses...
Locative social media networks as open sources of data allow researchers and professionals to acknowledge which city places are preferred, used and livable. Following this hypothesis, this paper proposes a methodology to identify successful public spaces – plazas – through the location-based social media network Foursquare and to analyze their urba...
Accessibility to cultural heritage is crucial for fostering inclusive urban environments and preserving historical and cultural identities. This study addresses the gap between heritage conservation and urban accessibility with two objectives: (1) to identify tangible and intangible cultural heritage elements based on user preferences from the soci...
This proposal implements geolocated social media data and other web services to address urban phenomena according to theoretical-practical contents of three subjects in the field of Urban Planning whose contents include urban morphology, public space and landscape. The proposal consists of elaborating cartographies based on exercises that allow stu...
The demand for innovative solutions to address urban complexities, with accessibility being crucial for sustainable environments, is growing globally. As demographic shifts and disability prevalence evolve, understanding spatial dynamics affecting accessibility becomes urgent. The research hypothesis suggests that investigating both physical and pe...
Esta investigación aborda la brecha existente entre la teoría de la movilidad urbana y las dimensiones del cuidado, y la aplicación práctica de estas teorías en las ciudades. A partir de una revisión de estudios previos, se elabora una clasificación taxonómica de lugares del cuidado y se propone un método para diagnosticar su disponibilidad y diver...
This research conducts a comparative urban analysis of two coastal cities with analogous tourism models situated in distinct geographical regions: Balneá rio Camboriú in Brazil and Benidorm in Spain. The study delves into two critical urban phenomena impacting the sustainability of tourist cities, utilising social network data to gather insights in...
For many years, urban sciences relied heavily on traditional, authoritative data sources. However, a paradigm shift has occurred recently with the advent of citizen-driven data contribution. This evolution in data acquisition for urban science is attributable to advancements in positioning and navigation technologies, widespread use of digital devi...
The study focuses on diagnosing urban sustainability in coastal tourist areas facing in- creasing demand and rapid urbanization. It aims to identify key factors influencing sustainability in order to balance tourist activity with the needs of the local population. The comparative analysis targets two cities with similar tourist models, Balneário Ca...
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the tourism industry worldwide. This study aims to understand the early effects of the pandemic on tourist supply and demand by analysing Airbnb's occupancy rates and accommodation prices at both city and neighborhood/district scales in Madrid and Valencia, two Spanish destinations with distinct...
This study contributes to the existing knowledge on the aspects that are commonly found in socially preferred public spaces. Specifically, it provides a thematic characterisation of specific factors that may play a critical role in their success. User-generated data is used for identifying, characterising, and comparing the most successful public s...
This work offers an overview of possible future lines of work in the field of social geolocated data applied to urban studies, implementing a selection of social networks that have been used to understand a wide variety of urban phenomena. To this end, a review of recent specific literature with several experiences that use these networks data to a...
There are many different approaches emerging from urban research which recognize the great potential of social media data for describing, diagnosing, predicting, and prescribing decision-making processes in the field of urban planning and urban regeneration. Numerous methods and sources have been widely explored to enrich our knowledge of cities. H...
La situación de emergencia sanitaria COVID-19 ha impactado múltiples dimensiones de la compleja estructura física, social, funcional y económica de las ciudades. Esta investigación lleva a cabo un diagnóstico comparado sobre algunos cambios y transformaciones que se han producido en el entorno urbano a causa de la crisis y que se reflejan en los da...
This edited book covers ongoing research in both theory and practical applications of using deep learning for social media data. Social networking platforms are overwhelmed by different contents, and their huge amounts of data have enormous potential to influence business, politics, security, planning, and other social aspects. Recently, deep learn...
La revolución de los datos masivos —Big Data— ha irrumpido con nuevas fuentes de datos y novedosas metodologías en el estudio de la ciudad. Entre estos datos sobresalen aquellos que están geolocalizados y, por tanto, ofrecen información precisa sobre los lugares de la ciudad en los que se generan o comparten; en este sentido, destacan los datos geo...
Social and economic instability in cities caused by the pandemic emergency has highlighted the necessity of carrying out diagnoses to identify courses of action for the purpose of reducing the vulnerability of urban areas in the face of future crisis. This research aims to identify how the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures adopted ha...
An accessible city is one that provides high-quality public spaces to facilitate gatherings, access to services, and comfortable journeys for people of all ages and abilities. In order to achieve such spaces, public participation is crucial for planning, urban policy formulation and decision making that ultimately have a direct impact on the city....
This research sheds light on the relationship between the presence of location-based social network (LBSN) data and other economic and demographic variables in the city of Valencia (Spain). For that purpose, a comparison is made between location patterns of geolocated data from various social networks (i.e., Google Places, Foursquare, Twitter, Airb...
Acknowledging and sustaining the ethnic and cultural diversity that the phenomenon of globalization has brought to the urban environment is one of the target objectives to seek spatial and social sustainability in today's cities. This study aims to build upon previous research approaches that sought to characterize culturally diverse, urban public...
As of today, many studies have demonstrated the possibilities that geolocated data from social networks have for the study of urban phenomena. This chapter offers a retrospective and panoramic view of a selection of social networks that have been used to understand a wide range of urban dynamics. Findings from this review and previous experiences e...
El objetivo del presente trabajo es evaluar el impacto de la innovación en un ámbito geográ- fico a partir de datos de redes sociales. Para la obtención de este fin, se desarrolla una estra- tegia de estudio en la que se enmarca el área geográfica correspondiente a la Comunidad Autónoma del País Vasco, región española con un sistema de innovación a...
This research focuses on the intermediate city, composed of urban areas located right outside the city center typically maintaining an in-between urban/suburban character. It aims to explore the degree to which this segment of the city exhibits urban activity and social life through the identification of activity areas in the so-called Third Places...
Metropolitan road axes are spaces of urban centrality and opportunity to promote a greater connectivity between different parts of the urban continuum. In this sense, the functional characterization of six representative axes in Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, London, New York and Mexico City allows obtaining a current analysis of the density and diversi...
La revolución de los datos ha llegado ya hace algún tiempo y abre la puerta a nuevos instrumentos y nuevas formas de analizar y proyectar la ciudad y el territorio. La visión cuantitativa o sistémica de la realidad ya supuso en los años sesenta un espejismo en el que las disciplinas del urbanismo y la geografía cayeron a través de modelos de datos...
The design of efficient Green Infrastructure-GI-systems is a key issue to achieve sustainable development city planning goals in the twenty-first century. This study's main contribution is the identification of potential GI elements to better align the environmental, social and economic perspectives in the GI design by including information about t...
This study addresses the problem of facilitating critical thinking about the real-world complexities that underlie the Sustainable Development (SD) concept among university students of architecture. The Socratic Seminar was adopted because of its characteristic exploratory questions that are closely aligned to the question-types used by the lecture...
An insight on urban tourism-related phenomena is provided in this study by analysing open and volunteered user generated content. A reference framework method is proposed and applied to an illustrative case study to meet a twofold objective: to identify Tourist Activity Centre – TAC – areas based on their functional character – sightseeing, shoppin...
The information generated in geolocated social networks is the product of virtual socialization, which offers a wide range of possibilities for the study of urban phenomena in present-day cities. This information, that is publicly and voluntarily shared data, creates footprints that often leave traces reflecting people-environment interaction. Thes...
> Objective:
Geolocated data generated by social networks allow various kinds of urban-related issues to be addressed, broadening knowledge on the different dynamics that occur in the city. This study has a twofold objective: (1) to identify which data variables from five well known social networks —Foursquare, Instagram, Twitter, Google Places and...
In the last decade, urban studies scholars have recognised the potential of using Location Based Social Networks — LBSNs— for assessing city dynamics. This growing body of research underscores the importance of transferring, to the teaching-learning context, the methods and skills required to make the most of the increasing amount of data available...
This study provides an analytical approach to using collaborative heatmaps from Instasights to gain an insight on the impact of renewed waterfront urban areas in terms of their relevant role in the perceived functional dynamism and livability of the city. The proposed method enables the identification of perceived functional thematic areas-district...
The use of location based social networks—LBSNs—for diagnosing phenomena in contemporary cities is evolving at a fast pace. However, methodological frameworks for informing urban regeneration at a fine-grain neighborhood scale through LBSNs is still by and large an unchartered territory, which this research seeks to address. This research bridges t...
Breakthrough changes in the rental market have occurred with the introduction of peer-to-peer accommodation services such as Airbnb. This phenomenon is attracting tourists who contribute to the sustainability of local trade and the economic development of the city. This research enriches the current debate on the range of factors that influence Air...
span lang="ES">La Costa Blanca (España) es uno de los destinos turísticos más relevantes de la costa mediterránea. La importante transformación urbana experimentada por la intensa demanda turística invita a estudiar cuáles son las estrategias de ocupación de suelo y los patrones de organización espacial que configuran estos asentamientos turísticos...
Understanding the role of urban public spaces in today’s historic Spanish Mediterranean cities is a key priority for researchers and urban professionals. Increasingly, social media showcases users’ preferences, a trend that can provide an indication as to why some urban public spaces are preferred over others. This research focuses on preferred urb...
Spanish Mediterranean tourist cities have traditionally been developed under compact urban patterns, following pre-existing urban forms. However, during the last two decades, the transformation of these areas has challenged the original character of Mediterranean cities, replacing it with urban sprawl growth patterns; functional specialization area...
Resultados del Workshop La Condesa Online y Offline, realizado con la Universidad La Salle, Ciudad de México.
El análisis del espacio público urbano a partir de su dimensión perceptual ha sido, tradicionalmente, un recurso
fundamental para reconocer qué características físicas lo diferencian y le confieren actividad y vitalidad. Esta
aproximación es particularmente relevante en entornos urbanos transformados. Conocer la percepción social
sobre el espacio p...
This paper analyzes success public spaces (specifically plazas) in the urban fabric of the city of Murcia, Spain. Two approaches were adopted. Firstly, the city was visualized as a complex network whose nodes represent plazas. A centrality algorithm was applied to determine the importance of each node. Secondly, data sets were used from social netw...
Between the 19th and 20th centuries, a controversial debate has arisen as to whether the development of working-class neighbourhoods in Spain was advisable or not. At the beginning, the Sociedad Central de Arquitectos -SCA- took a leading role. The SCA included the discussion in the first National Congress of Architects agenda and led the debate fo...
Between the 19th and 20th centuries, a controversial debate has arisen as to whether the development of working-class neighbourhoods in Spain was advisable or not. At the beginning, the Sociedad Central de Arquitectos —SCA— took a leading role. The SCA included the discussion in the first National Congress of Architects agenda and led the debate fo...
Entre los siglos XIX y XX, se desarrolló en España una intensa polémica sobre la conveniencia o no de construir barrios obreros. La Sociedad Central de Arquitectos —SCA— asumió inicialmente un papel protagonista, incluyendo el debate en el programa de su primer Congreso Nacional y liderándolo durante una década. Conforme avanzó la política social d...
El presente libro es una síntesis del trabajo realizado durante el primer semestre del curso académico 2015-2016 en las asignaturas Urbanismo 1, Urbanismo 2 y Urbanismo 4 del Grado en Arquitectura y del Grado en Fundamentos de la Arquitectura de la Universidad de Alicante. Esta selección es una muestra representativa de las diferentes aproximacione...
The social preferences of individuals have been traditionally identified through traditional means using field techniques such as direct interviewing, observation and people-counting. The virtual layer of the social system currently allows new ways to identify the most preferred urban areas or venues. With that in mind, this paper aims to study how...
The Costa Blanca in the province of Alicante (Spain) represents an emblematic example of suburban development around Mediterranean medium-sized cities, with the existence of a wide range of residential settlements devoted both to the native population and foreign-born groups. Condominiums, gated communities and single-family housing have few facili...
Esta exposición es una iniciativa de un grupo de profesores del Área de Urbanística y Ordenación del Territorio de la Universidad de Alicante.
Se trata de una muestra gráfica que presenta la trayectoria de una serie de estudios que se han realizado en torno al reconocimiento de dinámicas y fenómenos de la ciudad y el territorio a partir de la infor...
In this paper we study the success of public spaces (exactly, plazas) existing in the urban fabric of the city of Murcia, Spain, from two points of view. On the one hand, we apply an algorithm to classify the nodes of a graph in order of importance, from the data obtained through a fieldwork developed on the city itself. On the other hand, we use t...
In this paper we study the success of public spaces (exactly, plazas) existing in the urban fabric of the city of Murcia, Spain, from two points of view. On the one hand, we apply an algorithm to classify the nodes of a graph in order of importance, from the data obtained through a fieldwork developed on the city itself. On the other hand, we use t...
Teaching report of the workshop about graphic representation of data retrieved from social networks developed at the University of Alicante [Master in Architecture]
Three different models for visualisation of geolo-cated social networks data are presented in this paper. One is based on the concept of grid computing; another uses the nearest neighbour query location and the third adopts the urban network structure itself. The models follow two different approaches. They all consider the geographic location of d...
De entre los principales retos que plantea la docencia universitaria actual, destaca el de avanzar hacia modelos docentes centrados en el estudiante, capaces de desarrollar y conducir su aprendizaje de forma autónoma (tutorizada) tanto en las actividades presenciales como en las no presenciales. En este sentido, la posibilidad de operar con grandes...
This paper aims to represent the commercial activity of a city taking as source data the social network Foursquare. The city of Murcia is selected as case study, and the location-based social network Foursquare is the main source of information. After carrying out a reorganisation of the user-generated data extracted from Foursquare, it is possible...
El término movilidad añade al de transporte de un nuevo significado, pues este incluye la posibilidad de establecer relaciones y satisfacer necesidades enriqueciendo la forma tradicional de entender la acción de desplazarse. Mejorar la experiencia de la movilidad supone, en general, evitar la sensación de tiempo perdido durante el trayecto. Para el...
La Comunidad Valenciana ha experimentado uno de los mayores procesos de expansión urbana del conjunto de las comunidades autónomas españolas. Con el objeto de estudiar cómo ha afectado este proceso al tradicional equilibrio entre los centros urbanos y las periferias en las principales ciudades valencianas, se plantea el análisis del tipo de crecimi...
El sistema tradicional de evaluación continua implica asumir, en muchas ocasiones, algunas dificultades en
cuanto al seguimiento y valoración del trabajo del alumnado. La existencia de grupos numerosos y la necesidad de agilizar la comunicación profesor-alumno y entre alumnos, nos lleva a investigar las posibilidades que ofrecen las nuevas tecnolog...
Este próximo curso 2014-15 se implanta, con la oferta docente de quinto curso del Grado en Arquitectura, el
conjunto de asignaturas del área de Urbanística y Ordenación del Territorio en dicha titulación. Únicamente
faltaría la incorporación del Proyecto Final de Carrera que se iniciaría en el siguiente curso 2015-16 y con un
carácter más integral...
El auge de las redes sociales como lugar de encuentro virtual ha traído consigo nuevas formas de interacción ciudadana. Éstas, a su vez, han trascendido a una escala espacio-temporal tal que su estudio resulta difícilmente abarcable por métodos tradicionales. A partir de las relaciones que acontecen en línea, las redes sociales recogen una gran can...
Los espacios públicos tienen la capacidad de producir vínculos emocionales entre los
ciudadanos y el medio construido y son más significativos cuanto más tiempo han ejercido
como contenedores de sus acciones cotidianas. No obstante, la creciente virtualidad de las
relaciones sociales ha transformado la manera de interactuar con y en la ciudad, y co...
RESUMEN Tradicionalmente en el aprendizaje de las asignaturas del área de Urbanística se han utilizado sistemas colaborativos de enseñanza para el desarrollo de los programas docentes de las distintas materias. En este caso, se estudian las posibilidades de implementación de un sistema de comunicación complementario al presencial para mejorar la pa...
Questions
Question (1)
Dear Colleagues,
We are currently working on a paper where we discuss how far the planning and interventions in cities nowadays ( masterplans, regeneration plans) include decisions based on the analysis/findings obtained from social media data. There is quite a lot of research that has been done, reports, and so on that concur on the fact that these data are rather helpful for the diagnosis and prediction of numerous urban dynamics and for decision and policy making... but so far we find only very few examples (to our knowledge) where these approaches have been indeed implemented in a master plan and executed. We are wondering if there is a published example/report/study that considers social media data for diagnosis/prediction and has had an impact on actual planning decisions... Thanks in advance for your help!
