As a result of the Airbnb eruption, not only has the character of the short-term rental market been completely transformed, but the decades long growth in tourism has also been further accelerated. Therefore, due to the new demands of the tourism economy, the major shift in the usage of historic city centers occurred–the process of ‘touristification’, that results in the emergence of its new, unsustainable form. Despite the significance of those circumstances, there is a lack of any broader quantitative research that would present the dynamic of the Airbnb phenomenon. Therefore, thanks to the recognition of AirDNA data, such statistical analysis has become possible. The goal of this paper is to investigate the Airbnb’s growth trajectories—data that bind together a market dimension of the growth in tourism and the community aspect of an urban change caused by its impact—from the perspective of its spatial distribution across Europe between 2014 and 2020. As a result, it was possible to follow the Airbnb phenomenon during its undisrupted period of growth—from its sudden eruption, further spread, and potential future after the COVID-19 outbreak—all together with its logarithmic character, concentration form, and momentum of already reached economic equilibrium.
The Gdańsk Shipyard—the birthplace of the Solidarity movement—is host to a unique example of a multi-layered brownfield redevelopment project, an area that is burdened by a complex history, overlapping heritage, and multiple memories. These circumstances require an integrated yet differentiated approach to the site’s heritage and make the creation of one homogeneous narration of its future impossible. At the same time, the size of the area, as well as its location within Gdańsk city centre, has meant that its future has been the subject of numerous discussions and speculations conducted over the last 20 years—starting from the creation of a large-scale open-air museum and continuing to the localization of the new Central Business District of the city. Consequently, that broad discussion carried out regarding the scope of redevelopment projects has been rooted in the possible introduction of diverse models of adaptive reuse. This variety of possible approaches also includes discussion on the mode of integrating heritage in the redevelopment processes. The goal of this paper—written just before the initiation of the final stage of the conceptual part of the project—is to present the complexity of approaches to issues related to redevelopment and heritage preservation.
By the end of the Second World War, many of the Polish cities—and especially their historic centres—were in ruins. This was caused by both bombings and sieges conducted by the Nazis and Soviets. The particular group of cities is associated with former German lands—now called the “Recovered Territories”—which were incorporated into the borders of Poland as compensation for its Eastern Borderlands lost to the Soviet Union. These cities started to be gradually rebuilt after the end of the war, although one can distinguish certain stages and types of interventions, varying from the restoration and idealisation of the pre-war townscapes (so-called “Polish School of Conservation,” which was developed along principles contradictory to the urban conservation theories of these times) to late modern as well as postmodern (called the “retroversion”) principles. This process is ongoing, meaning the reconstruction of the historic cities is not yet completed. At the same time, these processes were embedded within the changing political perspectives—varying from “restoration of destroyed heritage” through “providing modern living environments” up to the “theming urban spaces.” In some cities, various stages and approaches overlapped, creating unique palimpsests. The article focuses not only on the evolution of both politics and design paradigms but mostly on the interplay between them and, as a result, on the doctrine’s evolution. Consequently, these considerations allow presenting the similarities and differences in the evolution of the reconstruction of Polish cities to the cases known from Western Europe and provide the framework for understanding the contemporary urban design paradigms of Central and Eastern Europe.
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