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September 14, 2004
Costa Iberica: Upbeat to the Leisure City
| Title | Costa Iberica: Upbeat to the Leisure City | |
| Author | MVRDV (Winy Maas and others) | |
| Publisher | Published by Actar, Barcelona, Spain | |
| Date | ||
| ISBN | 84-9527301905 | |
| Reviewed by | Jane Szita | |
| Leisure — formerly a status symbol, now a given and a goal in its own right — has an enormous, and increasing impact on our cities. Over the last few decases, a combination of sun, sea, and low prices has turned the Iberian coastline into the most densely-populated area of Europe — a long, stretched city, based almost entirely on tourism. It has a higher density than New York or Hong Kong, but without the usual urban amenities of schools, museums, industry, and so on. However, the growing accessibilty of tropical destinations like Thailand have meant a decline in Spaina and Portugal, not helped by insensitive development and environmental degradation. This book considers where Costa Iberica might go from here. Benidorm is the key resort, the Mediterranean’s most densely-occupied, and most enduringly successful. It is a city given over to tourism, rather than a tourist ghetto in the ‘suburban’ model. There is plenty of fascinating data here — who would have thought, for example, that elderly tourists in Benidorm walk an average of14 kilometres a day, as opposed to the four they manage at home? There are also interesting projections for the future — an assortment of scenarios building on the idea of "densification": turning Bernidorm into Spain’s sole tourist area. Developing the beach, creating artificial islands and other solutions are presented which could cope with the projected four per cent annual growth in tourist numbers over the next decade or so, and which could offer clues for the increasing leisurefication of our cities. | ||
Posted by Books Editor at September 14, 2004 09:33 PM