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Using locative social media and urban cartographies to identify and
locate successful urban plazas
Pablo Martí ⁎, Leticia Serrano-Estrada, Almudena Nolasco-Cirugeda
University of Alicante, Building Sciences and Urbanism Department, Carretera San Vicente del Raspeig s/n., 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante, Spain.
abstractarticle info
Article history:
Received 25 November 2016
Received in revised form 18 January 2017
Accepted 18 February 2017
Available online xxxx
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 identifysuccessful public spaces–plazas –through thelocation-based social media network Foursquare and to
analyze their urban position using morphological and historical cartographies.
The overall methodology comprises three stages. First, the most important cities of the province of Alicante were
selected. Second, the most relevant plaza of eachcity was identified using data retrieved from the socialnetwork
Foursquare. Finally, the locationof each plaza is analyzed in relation to the historic center and themain axes of the
city. Possible correlations between their urban location and theirvibrant character were subsequently identified.
Two findings have emerged from this study: (a) a strong spatial relationship exists between the most successful
plazas and the historiccity center, which reinforces their traditional social character; and (b) all plazas share two
similar traits, their location within the urban network and their proximity to the main axes of the city.
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords:
Public space
Plaza
Square
Social networks
Livable spaces
Social spaces
1. Introduction
City spaces have traditionally functioned as places for social interac-
tion and cultural representation. However, with the relatively recent
introduction of new technologies, people interact differently with and
within urban public spaces. Social networks greatly affect individual's
willingness to socialize and take part in public gatherings. This fact
along with others such as reduced opportunities for pedestrianism as
a form of transport, due to the limited space, noise, pollution,obstacles,
etc. (Gehl, 2010), have led to an increasing wave of online socialization.
Thus, face-to-face encounters among strangers and friends are highly
dependent on online relationships (Gaspar & Glaeser, 1996; Moss,
1998).
This situation urges the recognition of socially accepted public
spaces as a crucial matter for urban planners and designers. Why
some places are more socially successful than others is a key question
whose answer may lead to an understanding of the local population's
social dynamics and the reasonsbehind the preference for some places
over others. These preferences have traditionally been explored by
means of quantitative and qualitative field studies. However, given
that there is ample information available online, it is now possible to
identify which spaces are preferred over others and study their charac-
teristics with a view to learning from them. This will aid the assessment
of future decision-making processes related to urban systems
(Agryzkov, Martí, Tortosa, & Vicent, 2016; Calabrese, Ferrari, &
Blondel, 2014; Ruíz Sánchez, 2012).
The preference of onespace over others has todo with many factors
–location in relation to the city, proportion of the space, sense of con-
tainment, etc. –which have been broadly theorized by authors like
Bosselmann (2008),Carmona, Tiesdell, Heath and Oc (2010),Gehl
(2010) and Whyte (1980). The identification of the most successful
public spaces of a city is an endeavor which may lead to interesting
studies about their physical configuration. This could provide important
clues as to what a local community appreciates in a public space.
Given that a city's open spaces are varied in terms of size, features
and shape, this study adopts the definition of plaza as a Mediterranean
square, described in the Spanish Glossary of Urbanism as “the urban
element par excellence, which from antiquity has supported public
activity —religious, commercial, administrative, leisure, etc.”(Blasco,
Alonso, & Piñón, 1991a,b). Although the origin of this term comes
from the Latin language –platea –the Spanish word was introduced
in the English language in 1683 (Merriam-Webster, 2016). Nowadays
one of the four English meanings of the word plaza refers to a public
square or open area while the other three are related to traffic spaces
and shopping centers (Merriam-Webster, 2016). Therefore, in this
paper plaza appears in italics so as to maintain the original Spanish
meaning of the word and distinguish it form the aforementioned
English definitions.
However, given the frequent use of the term plaza in different con-
texts, it is necessary to clarify the three ways the term appears: a) in
Cities 64 (2017) 66–78
⁎Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: pablo.marti@ua.es (P. Martí), leticia.serrano@ua.es
(L. Serrano-Estrada), almudena.nolasco@ua.es (A. Nolasco-Cirugeda).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2017.02.007
0264-2751/© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Cities
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cities
italics —plaza, when referring to the Spanish concept of public space;
b) in normal font —Plaza, when it is part of the official name of a square;
and c) in quotations —“plaza”, when it refers to one of the standardized
subcategories that social network Foursquare establishes for open
spaces.
The term “successful”in this paper, when referring to the analyzed
public spaces, is in accordance with the meaning attributed to it by
scholars such as Jacobs (1995),Gehl, Svarre, Press and Steenhard
(2013),Carmona et al. (2010),Mehta (2014),Sircus (2001),Lang
(2005), among others. This term is broadly used to refer to livable,
sociable, highly frequented public spaces. It is an indicator of the
quality of the spaces: attractiveness (Carmona et al., 2010, p. 10);
animatedness —the coming and going of people—; accessibility; com-
fortableness; liveliness; and safety (Lang, 2005, p. 278). A successful
place “engages us actively in an emotional experience orchestrated
and organised to communicate purpose and story”(Sircus, 2001,
p. 126). Specifically, “successful”is used hereafter to refer to a high de-
gree of social relevance and livability of plazas:“open to the public,
where people are present throughout the day and week, engaged –in-
dividually or in groups –in a variety of active or passive social behav-
iours that are predominantly stationary and sustained in nature”
(Mehta, 2014,p.23).
With the above considerations, this research presents a twofold
objective: First, to identify the most successful public plazas across the
province of Alicante; and second, to analyze their location in relation
to the city structure.
In order to obtain a ranking of preferred public spaces in a city, data
were retrieved from the location-based social network Foursquare.
Once the most relevant urban public plazas were identified, we validat-
ed this method by studying their historic development and their special
relationship to the city structure.
The research is structured as follows: first, a theoretical approach
involves a revision of the scholarly literature on the use of user-
generated data retrieved from social media as a source of information
for urban analysis. Second, a methodology is proposed for identifying
successful urban public plazas and for studying their location. Finally,
the results obtained are followed by a final discussion and conclusion.
2. Social media and the study of public spaces
The technological advances –telephone, television, video and com-
puters –have introduced new models of recreational and social
activities that have substituted those that previously occurred sponta-
neously in the urbanpublic space. Consequently, the physical configura-
tion of contemporary cities has been strongly influenced by emerging
information and communication technology (Carmona et al., 2010;
Moss, 1998). But apart from this physical consideration, the focus on
human encounters and where and how they take place in the urban en-
vironment is crucial for the design of cities (Bentley, Cramer, & Müller,
2015).
Much recent qualitative research about urban public spaces
addresses the lack of vibrant urban environments that are capable of
generating socially active communities (Giampino, Picone, & Schilleci,
2012). Likewise, attractive and livable urban spaces are studied with a
rather generalized approach that overlooks the fact that, even when
livable, some public spaces are more visited than others, and better
accepted for activities such as, citizen gathering, political demonstra-
tions or festivity celebration.
Specifically, plazas as urban elements, are spaces contained and
framed by buildings where social encounters have traditionally taken
place. Plazas, in the context of urban studies, are open spaces that pro-
vide the opportunity for different kinds of activities. Whether they are
designed for civic prestige —grandeur, or to exhibit a particular build-
ing, or for informal public life (Carmona et al., 2010) these spaces are
of specific interest in this study. Recognizing which public plazas are
socially successful and their location within the city structure may
shed light on why these spaces are preferred over others.
There is an important debate surrounding the influence of social
media over physical interaction. Authors such as Aurigi (2005) have
previously acknowledged a strong concern over whether the virtuality
of social relationships is replacing the face-to-face social encounters
that traditionally occurred in the public space. One of the reasons for
this reasoning is that “digital communication provides alternatives to
physical travel between locations”and, in some cases, renders it unnec-
essary (Carmona et al., 2010). The opposite school of thought argues
that telecommunications “may be a complement, or atleast not a strong
substitute for cities and face-to-face interactions”(Catalán, Saurí, &
Serra, 2008; Foster, 2013; Gaspar & Glaeser, 1996; Low & Smith,
2006). This paper is inclined towards the secondapproach,with the un-
derstanding that the interaction happening in social networks mirrors
that in the physical reality.
The data tracking of these online relationships is publicly available in
the form of easily accessible data through social networks and social
media APIs (Application Programming Interface). These traces leave
evidence of the citizen's preferences and usage patterns over some
urban spaces (Serrano-Estrada, Nolasco-Cirugeda, & Martí, 2016).
Moreover, data from a variety of social networks such as Foursquare,
Twitter and Instagram are georeferenced (Beltrán López, 2012;
Noulas, Scellato, Mascolo, & Pontil, 2010), thus the traces of social activ-
ity happening in public spaces are, to some extent, measurable and can
be analyzed from the urban studies' perspective (Agryzkov et al., 2015;
Agryzkov et al., 2016; Cranshaw, Schwartz, Hong, & Sadeh, 2012, Shen &
Karimi, 2016). Previous studies have confirmed this and affirmed that
Location Based Social Networks are powerful tools to analyze human
behavior in space andtime (Roick & Heuser, 2013).Some of these stud-
ies have their primary focus on the visualization and representation of
bulk data in relation to social interaction in city spaces (Agryzkov,
Álvarez, Serrano-Estrada, Tortosa, & Vicent, 2015; Fujita, 2013). Other
focus on user personality (Chorley, Colombo, Allen, & Whitaker,
2013); perceptual information analysis where user visits and preference
patterns are analyzed (Cerrone, 2015; Chorley et al., 2013; Dunkel,
2015); and event detection using geo-referenced photos (Chen & Roy,
2009), among many others.
The approach taken by this study is the use of Foursquare to identify
user preferences of city public plazas in order to analyze their location
within the urban structure.
3. Social media users and Foursquare
The use of social networks by online adults has risen consistently in
the last decade. By November 2016, social networking sites areused by:
86% of adults aged 18–29 years; 80% of adults aged 30–49 years; 64% of
adults aged 50–64 years; and 34% of those aged over 65 years (Pew
Research Center, 2017). In Europe alone, during the period between
2006 and 2016, a 485.2% internet penetration growth rate has been
registered (Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2016) and an increasing
tendency is foreseen.
Spain has over 75% penetration rate of internet users (IAB Spain
Research, 2014; Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2016) and 81% of them
use social networks (IAB Spain Research, 2016).
Foursquare is a social networking service based on location sharing.
Users check in a venue to broadcast their presence, preference and/or
opinion of the place. All physical places that have a reference in Four-
square are called “venues”(Li, Steiner, Wang, Zhang, & Bao, 2013)and
each venue has associated information: geographical location, total
check-ins, total visitors, user-shared pictures, tips, and likes. In other
words, this social network consists of user-generated data comprising
georeferenced venues that include business and points of interest in a
city (Reed, 2011). The app turns anybody's phone into a scanner that
“senses the meaningful bits of urban life”in its surroundings
(Townsend, 2013,p.144).
67P. Martí et al. / Cities 64 (2017) 66–78
Throughout its existence, Foursquare has been considered as one of
the most popular LBSN —Location-based Social Networks (Agryzkov
et al., 2016; Noulas et al., 2010). From its launch date in 2009 until
December 2015, there are 55 million monthly active users registered
and 7 billion check-ins over more than 65 million Foursquare venues
worldwide (Digital Marketing Ramblings, 2016).
Foursquare launched Swarm in 2014 (Expanded Ramblings DMR,
2016; Foursquare, 2009). Swarm is the current location-based check-
in app portion of Foursquare that allows users to share their where-
abouts easily (Lee, 2014), in a more user-friendly gaming-like app inter-
face. Technically, Foursquare and Swarm workas one single provider of
open data.
In addition to the fact that Foursquare is a globally used platform,
there are also five reasons behind the use of Foursquare as aninforma-
tion source for this research.
Firstly, it is a socialnetwork from which it is easy to obtain a ranking
of places by popularity through different systems, one of them being the
cumulative number of check-ins and visitors (Milne, Thomas, & Paris,
2012; Serrano-Estrada, Serrano, & Álvarez, 2014). It provides informa-
tion about points of interest in a city rather than in larger regions
(Murdock, 2011).
Secondly, since Foursquare is a competitive social network where
people get rewarded by the number of check-ins per venue, it has a
cheat-proof system where it allows checking in venues only under spe-
cific circumstances. For instance, a person cannot check-in in a Four-
square venue unless he/she is physically there for a certain amount of
time, or at least, it is not possible to check-in outside the venue's sur-
roundings (Foursquare, 2015b). This fact is important since other social
networks allow people to check-in –Facebook –or tweet –Twitter –
from somewhere different than where they physically are. A check-in
can be made anywhere from any venue but it will only be counted if it
is made in close proximity to the actual venue location (via phone's
GPS). Foursquare is about actually being in places. Check-ins can only
be made once per Foursquare day —from 7 am EST to the following
7am.The“rapid fire”message shown in Foursquare when one is trying
to check-in, means that a person is checking in more often than what
may be estimated as reasonable by the Foursquare platform. Supposed-
ly, no drive-by or walk-by check-ins are allowed (Foursquare, 2015a). A
check-in is not considered genuine if the user is driving by or if thestay
in a venue is less than 10 min. For places of interest and landmarksthere
are certain rules. For instance, being at an observation point to view a
mountain or canyon would count as a check-in even if it is quite far
from the actual landmark being viewed (Sharif, 2012).
Thirdly, it offers quantitative and cumulative data about people's
presence in the venue. This could be compared to traditional people-
counting methodologies that involve people counting, interviews,
observation, etc. (Bosselmann, 2008; Gehl, Svarre, Press, & Steenhard,
2013; Whyte, 1980, 1988).
Fourthly, while Foursquare's user profile may not be equivalent to a
full cross-section of the entire society, this social network provides an
opportunity to study voluntarily contributed human data (Roick &
Heuser, 2013). Moreover, this information is created and shared by a
growing and representative sample of the population.
Lastly, previous studies have proven that Foursquare's data can be
quite representative of citizen preferences over city spaces (Agryzkov
et al., 2015; Agryzkov et al., 2016; Serrano-Estrada, 2014). Moreover,
the venuesregistered in this social network are classified into categories
and sub-categories, being “plaza”one of the sub-categories found
within the “outdoors and recreation”category. This last consideration
allows a straightforward identification of open spaces as plazas.
Bearing in mind the aforementioned considerations, to the authors'
knowledge, there is no other existing social network able to offer the
five previously stated conditions. Thus, Foursquare is considered to be
a valid source of information for the purpose of this study.
Previous research recognizes two main limitations of using geo-
tagged data from location-based social networks related to the
assumption of consistency in people's activities (Murdock, 2011). First-
ly, when users check-in, they can select from pre-existing venues in
Foursquare which are close to their actual location or they can create a
new venue to broadcast their actual position. This choice could affect
the check-in figure of unlisted locations because small local businesses
have less chance to be recognized as places of interest. Discouraging
users to “name places their own way”reduces the number of possible
places of interest in a city (Murdock, 2011).
However, the advantage of suggesting predefined areas of interest is
also a benefit for the purposes of this study. Foursquare's data related to
venue identification can be considered reliable since most places have a
unique identifier name where data are associated to. This is different to
Twitter where users may refer to the same place using different names
or terms.
Foursquare's second limitation is that this social network may not be
used by and is not accessible to an entire age rangefor the following rea-
sons: the use of this location-based social network requires a mobile
phone with specific technical characteristics –GPS, for example –and
sufficient technical skills to use theapp appropriately; and Foursquare's
user demographics are distinct from those of other social networks
whose user activity is basically social interaction (Lindqvist, Cranshaw,
Wiese, Hong & Zimmerman, 2011). This could be regarded as a conse-
quence of Foursquare's “gamification”and consumption engagement
basis (Cramer, Rost, & Holmquist, 2011; Rost, Barkhuus, Cramer, &
Brown, 2013; Scellato, Noulas, Lambiotte, & Mascolo, 2011). “Every
check-in counts”towards getting discounts, deals, badges and loyalty
rewards at a given venue, strengthening the consumer-merchant expe-
rience (Reed, 2011). This kind of business model encourages consump-
tion to a certain extent, which is probably one of the reasons why the
predominant Foursquare user profile consists of young professionals
aged from 25 to 35 years (Cranshaw et al., 2012), followed by users
aged up to 54 years (Ignite Social Media, 2012).
Despite the above described limitations, user-generated data from
Foursquare has the potential to indicate the nature of human activity
in a city. Fine-grained readily available data (Sun, 2016) provide an
indication of places where people like dining, shopping and visiting.
In essence, this research has two objectives: (1) identify the most
socially relevant plazas in the province of Alicante and (2) evaluate
their position within the city's urban structure, namely, the historic
city center area and the main urban axes.
In order to address the scope of this work, a methodology is pro-
posed. It uses Foursquare for establishing which social spaces are pres-
ently active and other traditional sources such as urban history
bibliography and the cartography provided by the Land Cover and Use
Information System of Spain (SIOSE). The traditional sources are used
to identify the spatial relationship between the selected square and
both the historic city center area and the main urban axes.
4. Materials, methodology and data collection
The research methodology consisted of three main stages: the first
one being to select cities considered for an in-depth case study, identi-
fied as historic in the province of Alicante; the second stage involved
the identification of preferred public spaces –plazas –within each
selected city through the use of data retrieved from the social network
Foursquare; and, finally, each of the selected plaza locations are ana-
lyzed and compared in relation to the rest of the city structure.
4.1. Case study selection criteria
A criterion based on population growth was adopted to determine
which of the 141municipalities inthe province of Alicante could be con-
sidered both presently significant in size and historically relevant.
Comparingthe registered population figure available from the oldest
and most recent census of each municipality in Alicante province is a
good indicator of population growth over time - Figs. 1 & 2. Considering
68 P. Martí et al. / Cities 64 (2017) 66–78
the municipality rather than the urban nucleus gives rise to diverse
casuistry. For example, some cities accommodate most of the
municipality's population but others have a more disperse population
distribution across the municipality. However, when it comes to the
use of popular public spaces, it is not limited to the population of the
urban nucleus but includes also the broader area of influence - Fig. 3.
Two conditions had to be met for cities to be selected as case studies:
(1) cities with over 50,000 registered inhabitants in the latest census –
2011 –and (2) cities whose relevance in population terms goes back
to the oldest census records available –1842 –when 35 municipalities
were in the top 25% of the 141 municipalities that comprise the prov-
ince of Alicante. While the latter condition would guarantee, to some
extent, the historical character of the city, the former condition covers
the fact that Foursquare's impact is clearly greater in what are consid-
ered to be large cities —Fig. 1.
The population size threshold of over 50,000 was defined following
the criteria set by numerous studies which have considered “large
cities”or “main cities”to be those with a population of over 50,000
inhabitants (Gallo & Chasco,2008). Furthermore, the population thresh-
old of 50,000 (Urban Ecology Agency of Barcelona, 2012) has been
broadly used to define if, for example, a populated area can be consid-
ered urban or rural.
To the authors' understanding, a significant amount of
representative Foursquare data were found in cities with over
50,000 inhabitants in Alicante province. Foursquare's penetration
above the 50,000 population threshold may be due to the
marketing strategies, such as discounts and incentives, used by
establishments to attract and retain customers. Predictably, there
is more competition in larger cities than in smaller ones: “the
bigger the city, the more the average citizen owns, produces and
consumes, whether goods, resources or ideas”(L. Bettencourt &
West, 2010)andthus,“the pace of social life in the city increases
with population size”(Bettencourt, Lobo, Helbing, Kühnert, &
West, 2007).
Fig. 1. Population evolution from the oldest to the latest publicly available records.
Source: Authors' own figure based on the Spanish municipal population records 1842–2011 (INE, 2015).
Fig. 2. Location of the selected municipalities within the province of Alicante.
Source: Authors' own figure.
69P. Martí et al. / Cities 64 (2017) 66–78
Therefore, eight cities in the province of Alicante, namely: Alicante,
Elche, Torrevieja, Orihuela, Alcoy, Benidorm, San Vicente del Raspeig
and Elda, met the aforementioned selection criteria.
4.2. Data collection from Foursquare
In previous studies, data from Foursquare are extracted via Twitter
as an alternative source (Cheng, Caverlee, Lee, & Sui, 2011; Noulas,
2013; Noulas et al., 2010). However, for the purpose of this research,
geo-located data were retrieved directly from Foursquare's API through
a desktop application developed by our research group.
This app allows single or recursive searches depending on the
amount of information required. The single search consists of one
georeferenced point and a search can be performed from that point at
any given radius. In this study, Foursquare data from the single search
option were retrieved taking the geographical coordinates of each city
(latitude and longitude) as given by GeoHack (Wikimedia Tool Labs,
2016), as the center point —Table 1, and a radius of 5 km from the des-
ignated point was used.
The reason why a single search was carried out rather than a recur-
sive search is because Foursquare already provides a ranking of the 50
most checked-in –visited –venues. A recursive search would have
only generated more data, which would have contributed negligibly to
the main objective of this study which is to find the most popular
plaza. In cases where more than 50 data points are required per search,
a recursive search is found to be more convenient (Serrano-Estrada,
Martí, Nolasco-Cirugeda, & Agryzkov, 2016).
Foursquare establishes a hierarchy of categories for classifying the
venues. The main categories are: “arts & entertainment”;“college & uni-
versity”;“events”;“food”;“nightlife spot”;“outdoors & recreation”;
“professional & other places”;“residence”;“shop & service”;and“travel
& transport”(Foursquare, 2014). Following a hierarchical order, sub-
categories and, in some cases, sub-sub-categories are assigned to each
venue. Data were retrieved performing a searchspecifically of the “out-
doors & recreation”category because it includes the majority of open
public spaces. There are 55 sub-categories within the “outdoors & recre-
ation”category which include: “city”,“plaza”,“pedestrian plaza”,
“park”, and “garden”, to name a few. Special attention was paid to the
sub-category “plaza”.
Each venue has information associated whichincludes: category and
sub-category, venue name, geographical location —latitude and longi-
tude, total check-ins, total visitors, user-shared pictures, tips and pic-
tures, etc.
It is important to distinguish between two concepts: check-ins and
visitors. Both numbers correspond to the cumulative figure from the
date the venue was created on Foursquare's platform until the date
data were retrieved (Cramer et al., 2011; Long, Jin, & Joshi, 2013).
Special attentionwas given to the number of visitors rather than the
check-in figure. The number of visitors isconsidered to be a better indi-
cator of the popularity of venues among Foursquare users given that
popularity is a function of the number of individuals visiting and not
the cumulative number of times each place has been visited. In this
sense, one could suggest that the visitors figure may be a kind of
people-counting method suggesting physical presence in a space.
Thus, this research takes the number of visitors as a preference indica-
tor, even though mostof the reviewed research corpus uses the number
of check-ins (Li et al., 2013; Long et al., 2013; Noulas et al., 2010).
A total of eight datasets were retrieved on 2 February 2016 compris-
ing a ranking of the top “outdoors & recreation”venues of each selected
city. Data were analyzed in order to identify the most popular plaza of
each city until the retrieval date.
Fig. 3. Foursquare data search area.
Source: Adapted from Google Earth imagery.
Table 1
Geographic coordinates of the center point of the data search.
Source: GeoHack.
Cities Geographic coordinates
Alicante 38.345278,−0.483056
Elche 38.266944,−0.698333
Benidorm 38.534167,−0.131389
Torrevieja 37.977778,−0.683333
Alcoy 38.698333,−0.473611
Orihuela 38.085556,−0.946944
Elda 38.478889,−0.796667
San Vicente del Raspeig 38.396389,−0.525278
70 P. Martí et al. / Cities 64 (2017) 66–78
Once all venues from the “outdoors & recreation”category were
obtained, they were closely analyzed taking two considerations into
account: whether they were associated to the “plaza”sub-category
and whether the venues' urban character was that of a plaza.The
resulting venues were selected and ranked by the amount of visitors
in descending order. Finally, the plaza with highest number of visitors
was considered as the most relevant public space.
4.3. Comparison criteria
The final stage of the study analyzes the relationship between the
most successful plazas and two main components of the city structure:
the historic center and the main axes of the urban structure.
Defining the limits of the historic center of each city involvedconsid-
ering two sources of information. The sources are different but supple-
mentary: a) the cartography of the Land Cover and Use Information
System of Spain –SIOSE –and b) the studies on urban evolution
found in the specializedbibliography. The first source offers a strict mor-
phological approach while the second one takes into account the city's
cultural and historical features.
SIOSE, developed by the National Geographic Institute of Spain
(ING) (Valcarcel et al., 2008), establishes various land-use classes as
thematic legends. For this study, we considered two of these land-use
classes: casco histórico and ensanche. The one referred to the historic
center area: casco histórico (Hermosilla, Ruiz, Recio, & Cambra-López,
2012)isdefined by SIOSE as the land cover of consolidated and mixed
urban areas, characterized by irregular urban patterns with narrow
and deep parcels, narrow roads and limited amount of green areas;
whilst the ensanche is theurban land-cover areacharacterized by regu-
lar urban patterns with wide streets and avenues and larger amount of
green areas than in the historic center (Equipo Técnico Nacional SIOSE,
2012).
The scholarly literature related to the urban growth of the city con-
tributes to the definition of the area that is understood to be the historic
center. The studies on the urban evolution of the city offer additional
information about the boundaries of the historic center and allow iden-
tification of the main urban axes.
Once the historic center area and the main axes are recognized, the
location of each plaza is analyzed with respect to these and then
discussed.
5. Results
The retrieved data from the Foursquare search consisted of public
space related to venues that could be easily ranked by social relevance
using the cumulative visitors' figures - Table 2 -.
In all cases, except in the case of Alcoy, the results showed an impor-
tant difference between the plazas ranked #1 and #2. The most relevant
plaza in Foursquare of each city tends to have at least twice the number
of visitors than the subsequent one in the ranking. Benidorm is the
extreme example since its Plaza Triangular, ranked #1 in the amount
of visitors, has registered 181 times more visitors than the plaza ranked
#2: Plaza Santa Margarita. The opposite case was found in Alcoy, where
there were only 1,17 times more visitors registered in plaza ranked #1:
Plaza de Dins, than in plaza ranked #2: Plaza de España. These results
are further discussed in Section 5.
Table 3
The selectedcities of the province of Alicante and their most successful plaza according to
Foursquare.
Source: Author's own table.
Historic cities of
the province of
Alicante
Municipal
term
population
2011 (IVE)
Most socially relevant
plaza according to
Foursquare
Cumulative
Foursquare
visitors
up to 2 Feb 2016
Alicante 329.325 Plaza Luceros 1590
Elche 227.417 Plaza Glorieta 627
San Vicente del
Raspeig
54.781 Plaza de España 619
Benidorm 68.045 Plaza Triangular 362
Alcoy 60.716 Plaza de Dins 341
Torrevieja 90.097 Plaza de la Constitución 212
Elda 54.357 Plaza Mayor 183
Orihuela 79.889 Plaza Glorieta Gabriel
Miró
109
Table 2
The top ranked urban public spaces per city considering the number of Foursquare visitors.
Source: Authors' own table.
Venue name Check-ins Visitors Pictures Tips Likes Latitude Longitude Category Sub-category
Alicante
Plaza de Los Luceros 6375 1590 379 38 120 383459813 −049069405 Outdoors & recreation Plaza
Plaza del Ayuntamiento 1471 714 240 17 28 383450058 −048112878 Outdoors & recreation Plaza
Alcoy
Plaza de Dins 1013 341 56 12 14 38697963 −04737763 Outdoors & recreation Plaza
Plaza España 1170 292 88 9 24 386977694 −047318459 Outdoors & recreation Plaza
Parque La Rosaleda 1731 158 12 4 5 387024249 −0477283 Outdoors & recreation Plaza
Plaza Al-Azraq 453 56 3 2 0 387084696 −046782617 Outdoors & recreation Plaza
Benidorm
Plaza Triangular 816 362 49 6 14 385372691 −012707233 Outdoors & recreation Plaza
Santa Margarita 19 2 0 0 0 385363 −011506 Outdoors & recreation Plaza
Elda
Plaza Mayor 505 183 27 4 12 384783618 −079401514 Outdoors & recreation Plaza
Plaza Castelar 127 49 10 0 5 384787316 −079014034 Outdoors & recreation Plaza
Plaza Del Zapatero 105 45 1 3 2 384761255 −079417776 Outdoors & recreation Plaza
Elche
Plaza Glorieta 1983 627 127 10 32 382657225 −069651604 Outdoors & recreation Plaza
Plaza de Baix 537 185 63 1 3 38265272 −06987172 Outdoors & recreation Plaza
Orihuela
Glorieta Gabriel Miró 411 109 12 1 2 380822773 −094504759 Outdoors & recreation Plaza
Placeta de Europa 239 26 5 0 1 380846773 −094358794 Outdoors & recreation Plaza
San Vicente
Sant Vicent del Raspeig 3303 619 273 21 46 38396366 −052496195 Outdoors & recreation City
Parque Lo Torrent 815 256 85 8 20 383937489 −051302068 Outdoors & recreation Park
Torrevieja
Plaza de la Constitución 738 212 98 4 20 37977618 −068269997 Outdoors & recreation Garden
Plaza Maria Asunción 14 11 1 0 2 379807704 −06699553 Outdoors & recreation Plaza
71P. Martí et al. / Cities 64 (2017) 66–78
The plazas with the highest figure for cumulative number of visitors
from Foursquare's data and thus the best ranked public spaces of the
province of Alicante are presented in Table 3.
The next step consisted of identifying the position of each plaza
within the city structure, considering its spatial relationship to the his-
toric center and the main structural axes.
As two sources were used in order to define the historic city center's
morphological –SIOSE –and, historical and cultural approach –biblio-
graphic references (BR), three groupings were identified in terms of
the plaza location: a) plazas within the historic city center according to
both sources, b) plazas within the historic city center according to one
of the sources and c) plazas located outside the historic city center
according to both sources.
5.1. Case a.Plazas within the historic center according to both sources SIOSE
and BR
Case a indicates that the most relevant open spaces in Elche, Alcoy
and Sant Vicent del Rapeig are without any doubt located in the city
center. Originally these three plazas are associated to the existence of
a religious building. In the first two cities, Elche and Alcoy, the plazas'
space currently occupies ancient religious complexes. The site of La
Glorieta in Elche –as referred to by the citizens –had previously been
occupied by a Clarissa Convent founded in the sixteenth century and
demolished at the end of the nineteenth century to become a new
urban public space (Jaén i Urban, 1991,p.3;Ramos Fernández, 1989,
pp. 191, 211, 212). Since then, the character of the site as a public
space has remained although it has undergone major refurbishments.
La Glorieta is located in the north-eastern part of the historic center
of the city in close proximity to the most important political, religious
and commercial nodal points: the town hall, the Santa María church,
and the municipal market. It is adjacent to the first century ancient
walled city –villa –(Ramos Fernández, 1989,p.211)anditsproximity
to the intersection of the main axes and the most important eighteenth
century nodal points distinguishes this open space from other plazas of
the city.
Plaza de Dins in Alcoyalso occupies the former San Agustín convent
cloister, confiscated in 1837 and later destroyed (Dávila Linares, 1990,
pp. 218, 223, 228). Currently, the plaza is a confined interior porticated
space, accessed via walkways through surrounding buildings. The
central image of Fig. 5 shows in yellow the area defined as the historic
center dating back to the middle of the nineteenth century, according
to the bibliographic references. This area included both the old district
and the outlying areas beyond the historic city walls (Dávila Linares,
1989, 1990).
Plaza de España in San Vicente del Raspeig —Fig. 6, has an origin that
persists. It was, and continues to be, an open space in front of the church
San Vicente Ferrer. Since the mid-sixteenth century, when the church
was only a little chapel built over a higher topographic elevation area,
this space has represented the religious and political life of the city
(Canals Bevià, 2010). By 1774, the church site was taken as a reference
point from which the future urban layout would be developed (Canals
Bevià, 2010, pp. 30, 39, 136). Thus, the Plaza de España is still today
the nucleus of the city.
Considering the spatial relationship between the plaza and the struc-
turing urban axes of thecity, there are twoinstances in whichthe select-
ed open spaces are defined by primary roads. The first and most
representative case is San Vicente del Raspeig, characterized by being
a pre-urban landmark, thus a precedent for the urban structure of the
city. There are three important urban axes adjacent to this plaza:two
running in an east-west direction and one that crosses the entire city
from the north to the University of Alicante's campus in the south. The
central image of Fig. 6 shows the urban area extension up to the mid-
nineteenth century (Canals Bevià, 2010, p. 19), which remains today's
city center.
Elche is the second example in which the most relevant plaza is
delimited by a primary axis of the street network. The location of
Plaza La Glorieta, in the geometric center of the city, is represented in
Fig. 4 –left image –with respect to two principal axes of the city and
the boundaries of the urban network up to 1849 (Sevilla Jiménez,
1985, p. 151). The Corredora Street, which runs along the northern
side of the plaza, is an important road that crosses thehistoric city centre
from east to west. At its eastern end, this axis becomes the N-340
national road towards the city of Alicante; the capital of the province.
Filet de Fora Street is a structural axis that crosses the city in a north-
south direction. In the same Fig. 4, the area defined by SIOSE as casco
Fig. 6. Plaza de España, San Vicente del Raspeig.
Source: Adapted from: Bing —left; PNOA-IGN —center; PNOA-IGN and SIOSE —right.
Fig. 5. Plaza de Dins, Alcoy.
Source: Adapted from: Bing —left; PNOA-IGN —center; PNOA-IGN and SIOSE —right.
72 P. Martí et al. / Cities 64 (2017) 66–78
histórico is represented in relation to the location of the plaza and the
ensanche area.
By contrast, the Plaza de Dins in Alcoy is situated inside a block of
buildings. The roads nearby, running in a north-south and east-west
direction, connect the historic center to the rest of the city; specifically,
to the ensanche area accessed through the San Jorge and Maria Cristina
bridges respectively.
5.2. Case b. Plazas within the historic center according to one of the
sources —SIOSE or BR
Whether the plazas are located in the historic center according to
one source or the other is a matter of the definition and the defined
spatial boundaries of the historic city center area. Two plazas fall
within this grouping, Plaza Constitución in Torrevieja and Plaza
Mayor in Elda, depending on which criteria they fulfil: morphologi-
cal or historical.
Both examples are rather different. In the case of Torrevieja, due to
the regular grid on which the Plaza Constitución is located, the area is
not recognized by SIOSE as an historic center. However, the plaza
occupies a central location within the city center as defined by the bib-
liographic references. In the case of Elda, the Plaza Mayor falls inside the
area defined as historic city center by SIOSE but outside the area defined
as historic center by the bibliographic references.
Torrevieja is a singular case since it was rebuilt after the 1829 earth-
quake (Canales Martínez & Crespo Rodríguez, 1997, p.74). As in the case
of other cities of the Vega Baja del Segura region, José Agustín de
Larramendi designed a new city in which the urban pattern was the
Hippodamian grid. The project included the provision of three main
public spaces: a large central area and twosmaller nearby public spaces
on either side of the central one (Calvo García-Tornel & Canales
Martínez, 2009). In this respect, the results indicate that the central
plaza continues to be the most socially relevant one in Torrevieja. Its
location falls within the area originally considered as the city center in
the nineteenth century and, despite the SIOSE database not acknowl-
edging the existence of a historic center, because of its different mor-
phology, this area of the city is where the urban structure originated.
The central image on Fig. 7 indicates —in red —where the plaza is
located in relation to the nineteenth century city center area according
to the bibliographic references. The right-hand image of the same figure
indicates the ensanche area of the city according to SIOSE's database.
In line withA. Larramendi's project, the plaza is located at the inter-
section of two main axes runningperpendicular from a north-south and
east-west direction. Additionally, these urban axes, defined by the orig-
inal project, support Torrevieja's subsequenturban networkextensions
(Domínguez, Martí & Nolasco-Cirugeda, 2016), with the plaza always
maintaining its central position.
By contrast, Elda's Plaza Mayor falls within the irregular grid pattern
of the historic center area as defined by SIOSE. However, according to
the revised bibliography the origin of this area is not considered as the
historic urban nucleus.
In fact, the historic city center of Elda is situated around the castle
and its surroundings(Poveda Navarro, 1986,p.81).Themostrenowned
plaza in Elda by Foursquare users is located at the outer edge of the his-
toric city center. The space occupies the first blocks of the regular grid
towards the southern and eastern city extension (Ponce Herrero,
2006), developed in the mid-twentieth century —Fig. 8.
Although the urban fabric in which the plaza is located was
developed between the nineteenth and twentieth century (Ponce
Herrero, 2006, p. 248), this open space is rather new. It was in
1994, after the demolition of the two old cinemas that were occupy-
ing this space —Coliseo y Alcázar, when Plaza Mayor opened and
became the relevant open space that it is today (Elda, 2013). The
plaza was initially conceived as a mixed-use project, introducing res-
idential, leisure and commercial activities (Cutillas Orguilés, 2006,
p. 263). Undoubtedly, data from Foursquare corroborate the success
of the project.
With respect to the spatial relationship between the location of
the two above described plazas and the structural urban axes of the
city, they present the same conditions found and explained in the
previous section —Case a. In Torrevieja, Plaza Constitución is
located at the junction of two relevant roads of the orthogonal
grid that define the entire city layout; whereas Plaza Mayor of
Elda, immersed in the interior of a building block, presents a
similar situation as the example of Alcoy: a structural axis
surrounds the block in which the plaza is situated.
Fig. 7. Plaza de la Constitución, Torrevieja.
Source: Adapted from: Bing —left; PNOA-IGN —center; PNOA-IGN and SIOSE —right.
Fig. 4. Plaza Glorieta, Elche.
Source: Adapted from: Bing —left; PNOA-IGN —center; PNOA-IGN and SIOSE —right.
73P. Martí et al. / Cities 64 (2017) 66–78
5.3. Case c. Plazas outside the historic center according to both sources
SIOSE and BR
The last group includes those cities where the selected plaza falls
outside the historic center as per both sources of information, name-
ly SIOSE and BR. The three plazas identified in this group are: Plaza
Luceros in Alicante, Plaza Glorieta Gabriel Miró in Orihuela and
Plaza Triangular –officially named as Plaza de la Hispanidad –in
Benidorm.
The center image of Fig. 9 shows the location of Plaza Luceros –in
red –in relation to the compact urban fabric of the historic walled
city –in yellow, as from 1808 to 1820 (Ramos Hidalgo, 1983:542).
Theimageontherightofthesamefigure indicates the SIOSE
definition of casco histórico and ensanche in dark and light orange
respectively.
In the three examples, both morphological and historical studies
clearly situate the selected plaza outside the historic city center.
However, the role that the plaza plays in the urban ensemble is
determined by its connection to the historic center. In the case of
Plaza Luceros, the square belongs to the organizing structure of the
new urban extension, at some distance from the historic center. By con-
trast, Plaza Glorieta Garbriel Miró and Plaza Triangular are located
between the historic center and the urban extension, thereby becoming
an urban linkbetween both parts.
The urban role of Plaza Luceros stems from the fact that it has been
considered the focal point of Alicante'surban transformations. This pub-
lic space was designed by the end of the nineteenth century, following
the extension project —ensanche. Plaza Luceros is a singular open
space located at the intersection of the two most important axes of
Alicante that run parallel and perpendicular to the coast line
respectively, with an approximate north-south and east-west direction.
Moreover, these structural roads were crucial in the urban evolution of
the city since, in line with the ensanche project, the plaza occupies the
central area from which the future radial urban expansion took place
(Ramos Hidalgo, 1983,p.617–623).
The center image of Fig. 9 shows the location of Plaza Luceros –in
red –in relation to the compact urban fabric of the historic walled city
in 1820 –in yellow (Ramos Hidalgo, 1983: 542). The image on the
right of Fig. 9 indicates the SIOSE definition of casco and ensanche in
dark and light orange respectively.
The two remaining examples, PlazaGlorieta Gabriel Miróin Orihuela
and Plaza Triangular in Benidorm are situated outside and next to the
historic city center limits, in the first block of the ensanche area towards
the city extension.
Orihuela is well known as the monumental city of Alicante prov-
ince. La Plaza Glorieta Gabriel Miró is the largest and greenest of all
plazas studied. It was built at the end of nineteenth century and is
positioned between the historic city center and the grid-like pat-
terned extension. The urban reforms developed at the time were
designed to connect the railway to the city and, by doing so, la
Plaza Glorieta Gabriel Miró became an important link between the
historic center and the newly developed city area –ensanche
(Canales Martínez, Crespo Rodríguez, & Salazar Vives, 1991;
Canales Martínez, Salazar Vives, & Crespo Rodríguez, 1992;
PATECO, 2009)–Fig. 10.
Benidorm is the city in Alicante province whose growth is due to
the evolution of its touristic importance. Two ensanche projects were
developed in the General Urban Plan –P.G.O.U. in Spanish –of 1956
and in its subsequent amendments, the General Urban Plan of 1974
(Benidorm, 2007, p. 95), in which Benidorm's city center extends
from the historic area up to the Plaza Triangular (Soldevila, 1996,
p. 6, 8). This urban transformation meant that the plaza would
become located between the historic center and the Levante
ensanche —Fig. 11.
In relation to the plaza's role within the main urban axes, all plazas in
this group are characterized by being situated either along or
demarcated by the main city axes and, in the case of Alicante, the
plaza is situated on a landmark road intersection. Plaza Luceros is the
space at the junction of the two mayor axis of the ensanche. While the
plazas Glorieta Gabriel Miró and Triangular are both flanked by two
urban axes along which the ensanche project was developed.
In addition to the location of the selected plazas in relation to the
historic center and the structural urban axes, a summary of other
characteristics found are presented in Table 4.
Fig. 9. Plaza Luceros, Alicante.
Source: Adapted from: Bing —left; PNOA-IGN —center; PNOA-IGN and SIOSE —right.
Fig. 8. Plaza Mayor, Elda.
Source: Adapted from: Bing —left; PNOA-IGN —center; PNOA-IGN and SIOSE —right.
74 P. Martí et al. / Cities 64 (2017) 66–78
6. Discussion
The most successful public plazas across the province of Alicante
were identified through the use of Foursquare data. The results indicat-
ed –to some extent –the users' perception of these plazas from which
the ranking was derived. Furthermore, their location was analyzed in
relation to the city structure using BR and SIOSE sources.
In line with the first objective of the research, establishing a ranking
for the most successful plazas in the province of Alicante, there are sev-
eral issues that must be highlighted considering that Foursquare data
shed light on users' perception.
Firstly, the proposed method to identify the most successful plazas
worked effectively for six out of the eight cities since the plazas were
included in Foursquare's specific sub-category “plaza”, within the gen-
eral category “outdoors and recreation”. Therefore, the two exceptions
(San Vicente and Torrevieja) required further study.
In the case ofSan Vicente del Raspeig, where no plazas were found in
the sub-category “plaza”, it was necessary to carefully revise each of the
other venues from the category “outdoors and recreation”.Onlyfourof
them could be considered as urban public plazas: two subcategorized as
“city”and two as “garden”. These venues were considered plazas,
ranked according to the criteria established in Section 4.2.
In the case of Torrevieja, only one plaza was found in the Foursquare
sub-category “plaza”. However, another urban space with the charac-
teristics of an urban plaza was found in the category “outdoors and
recreation”: Plaza de la Constitución —garden sub-category.
Secondly, once the most successful plazas were selected, they were
ranked adopting the visitors' figure rather than the check-ins figure.
This classification has provided clarification on the amount of people
that have visited each venue, at least once. In seven out of the eight
selected plazas, the Foursquare visitors' figure could be considered a
reliable indication for the selectionof the most successful plaza. The dif-
ference in terms of the number of visitors between those plazas ranked
#1 and #2 was significant enough to make the plaza selection
unambiguous.
The exception is the city of Alcoy where the difference in terms of
the number of visitors between the plazas ranked #1 and #2 was not
significant. Furthermore, even though there were slightly more visitors
registered in Plaza de Dins, there were also slightly more check-ins in
Plaza de España. It is important to note that both plazas are adjacent
to each other but separated by a building block with an archway
connecting them. Therefore, arguably, even though the plazas are sepa-
rately named, in essence they occupy the same public urban space.
The eight selected plazas are also relevant and significant public
spaces according to the specific bibliographical references that have
cited them as a key urban landmark in their city's urban development.
In line with the second objective, analyzing theselected plaza's posi-
tion within the city's urban structure, the results initiate the following
threefold discussion: the use of different sources to approach city struc-
ture; the present relevance of the historic city center in Mediterranean
cities; and the spatial relationship between socially relevant open
spaces and the city's main urban axes.
The use of different sources favors a broader understanding of cer-
tain areas in the city and several advantages have been recognized
when using the adopted approach to identify each historic center. To
define the limits of the historic center, the analysis of both sources of
information –the SIOSE cartographic information and the bibliographic
references –is crucial since the use of only one sourcewould have com-
promised the results. Moreover, the strict morphological approach of
the SIOSE database proved to be unreliable for the identification of the
historic center. For instance, Torrevieja's historic city center was not rec-
ognized as such because its pattern does not conform to SIOSE's casco
definition. According to SIOSE there is no historic center in Torrevieja
because the urban pattern responds to the regular grid planned for
reconstruction of the entire city after the 1829 earthquake.
Concerning the plaza location, seven out of eight plazas are strongly
connected to the historic center, either becausethey are inside or adja-
cent and connected to this area. The four plazas located within the his-
toric center include Elche, Alcoy, San Vicente del Raspeig and the
singular case of Torrevieja. The other three plazas are located within
close proximity of either side of the boundaries of the historic center:
Elda —inside; Orihuela —just outside; and Benidorm —outside at a
short distance.
The only plaza that is not directly connected to the historic center
is Plaza Luceros in Alicante which is a circular square designed
around the intersection of two crossing avenues that structure the
Fig. 11. Plaza Triangular, Benidorm.
Source: Adapted from: Bing —left; PNOA-IGN —center; PNOA-IGN and SIOSE —right.
Fig. 10. PlazaGlorietaGabrielMiró,Orihuela.
Source: Adapted from: Bing —left; PNOA-IGN —center; PNOA-IGN and SIOSE —right.
75P. Martí et al. / Cities 64 (2017) 66–78
nineteenth-century extension of Alicante, namely ensanche.However,it
is interesting to note that the second plaza in the Alicante ranking is
Plaza del Ayuntamiento, an urban space in the middle of the historic
center of the city and flankedbytheoldtownhall.
Thus, the central location of thestudied cases reinforces the fact that,
nowadays, the historic center of cities remains significant and socially
active.
Furthermore, the spatial relationship between the selected plazas
and the urban axes that structure the city has been demonstrated in
this study. All plazas are situated within or right next to the intersection
of the main axes of the city. These urban axes define, cross or surround
the selected plazas in all cases regardlessof whether the plazas are locat-
ed within, near or outside the historic center. Therefore, it can be con-
cluded that the success of public spaces in the context of the Province
of Alicante has a lot to do with the accessibility offered by their location.
7. Conclusions
The conclusions drawn from this study can be expressed in terms of
the methodological insights as well as the actual results derived from
this comprehensive approach.
The methodology consisted of using and combiningthree sources of
information: social media networks; specific cartographies; and special-
ized bibliographic references.
The use of Foursquare social media provided a useful method to
identify user preferences for public spaces. Even though data retrieved
from Foursquare had to be analyzed and interpreted carefully, the pro-
posed method was rather straightforward and avoided the time con-
suming task of developing a ranking of successful public spaces by
means of traditional field studies. Moreover, these data are currently
open and available to urban scholars and professionals as a virtual
layer of information about a physical space.
The identification of the boundaries of each city's historic center by
combining and integrating two approaches –morphological and histor-
ical –offered a more accurate picture. This twofold methodology was
fundamental because the multiple transformations of the mature
urban fabric may have blurred the boundaries of the historic center,
thereby complicating its demarcation when relying exclusively on one
source. Indeed, the original urban pattern has evolved to adapt to new
social, economic, and mobility-related needs or urban policies.
The results present three relevant findings. Firstly, social networks
are capable of mirroring the social interaction happening in urban pub-
lic spaces and establishing user preferences for some public spaces over
others in a city. Specifically, an identification of plazas and their ranking
according to user preferences is not only possible but was found to be
quite reliable. This was evidenced by the fact that the selected plazas
were relevant in terms of their specific bibliographical references as
well as their urban location.
Secondly, the most successful plazas were delimited by or connected
to one of the main city-center axes. Also, the plazas were found to be
strongly linked to the historic center of each city despite the recent
growth in the peripheral areas of Spanish Mediterranean cities. This
confirms that the mature urban patterns in these cities remain relevant
and as socially active as ever.
And thirdly, all selected plazas have a commercial, administrative,
religious or recreational role which is the core characteristic of these
Mediterranean public spaces, as cited in the introductory definition. In
fact, the respective plazas' surrounding buildings are relevant land-
marks, such as churches, administrative offices, town halls, retailers
and restaurants.
Finally, these findings indicate that new areas related to urban
research could be developed from the retrieved data which also provide
information associated to social network users' preferences —such as
tips, pictures and likes. Therefore, future research could involve the pro-
cessing and analyzing of these data to investigate citizen perception of
urban spaces.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the University of Alicante. Project:
Representation and interpretation of urban dynamics through LBSN
data. MAPPINGAME. No. GRE15-14 2015.
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Table 4
Common characteristics found among the eight studied plazas.
Characteristic buildings (religious,
administrative, etc.)
Commercial uses and restaurant
services
Green isles and/or
flowerbeds
Monuments and/or sculptural
elements
Plaza Glorieta, Elche ••••
Plaza de Dins, Alcoy ••––
Plaza España, San Vicente del Raspeig ••–•
Plaza Constitución, Torrevieja ••••
Plaza Triangular, Benidorm –•••
Plaza Mayor, Elda –•–•
Plaza Luceros, Alicante –•••
Plaza Glorieta Gabriel Miró, Orihuela ••••
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