Identifying habitation patterns in world heritage areas through social media and open datasets

ABSTRACT Although cities with World Heritage (WH) areas worldwide are socially active, specific social and cultural complexities are associated primarily with the abandonment and decay of districts. Contemporary habitation patterns in historic districts require technology to understand parallel realities in protected areas. This stakeholders-based approach benefits significantly from cross-referencing locative social media and open data sources. Therefore, the concepts put forward in this paper use evidence from an empirical case of WH areas in selected Spanish urban sites. The cartographic correlation of data identifies hotspots of activities and coldspots around services within each site. The results present two significant findings. The first confirms the successful implementation of a digital method to support current transitions for the historic city. The second demonstrates that social networks and open datasets can mirror contemporary social interaction in historic cities. Finally, the study calls on further investigating Artificial Intelligence-based assessments for the future of WH areas.