Maps Reveal the Difference in How Cities Are Perceived by Tourists and Locals

Re:Maps Reveal the Difference in How Cities Are Perceived by... by mc32 on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @12:18PM (#20461122)

Those Seattle pig and San Francisco heart fiberglass art installations really messed things up touristicly. After that every city has to have some kind of pop symbol tourists could ID as of that city do they could take selfies with it.

That said, implicit in some of the commentary is that tourists miss the local aspect of s city they visit by remaining in tourist areas. My take is that is the whole point of most tourism. They don’t want to see the same humdrum stuff they have in their home cities, they don’t need to know about boring shitty areas or family residential areas. No, they want some foreign entertainment and feel. They want some levity and some pop on their holidays.

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Re:Maps Reveal the Difference in How Cities Are Perceived by... by cgriswald on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @12:39PM (#20461352)

I don’t know when it started but my not-at-all exhaustive list suggests your examples didn’t start it.

LOVE statue in Philadelphia, 1978.

Spoonbridge and Cherry in Minneapolis, 1985.

Pork ‘n’ Beans in Seattle 2001.

Peanuts statues in Minneapolis/St. Paul, 2003.

Chicago Bean, 2004.

SF Hearts, 2004.

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Re:Maps Reveal the Difference in How Cities Are Perceived by... by mc32 on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @12:44PM (#20461400)

Sure, there have been the Eiffel towers and statues of liberty and such, but the pigs and hearts took it to a pop art level (I do see a resemblance to the spoon cherry though) They could easily and cheaply advertise a city and in a manner tourists love. They’re approachable and everywhere.

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Re:Maps Reveal the Difference in How Cities Are Perceived by... by dwringer on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @04:20PM (#20463555)

These later exhibitions seem reminiscent of "CowParade" (established first as Zürich's "Land in Sicht" in 1998), which was ultimately developed into an exhibit not specific to one city, but appears to have inspired at least some similar city-specific exhibits including the Seattle Pigs (three years after the first "cow parade" debut, and entitled "Pigs on Parade" in the same fashion as a 1999 Chicago "Cows on Parade" exhibit). There's much more related information at the CowParade Wikipedia entry[1], with a long list of similar exhibits.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CowParade

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Re:Maps Reveal the Difference in How Cities Are Perceived by... by Izkata on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @02:07PM (#20462355)

> Chicago Bean, 2004

Lion statues at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1893

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Re:Maps Reveal the Difference in How Cities Are Perceived by... by baddox on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @03:39PM (#20463208)

What are the San Francisco heart fiberglass art installations? I've lived in SF since 2011 and have either never seen or never noticed them.

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Re:Maps Reveal the Difference in How Cities Are Perceived by... by mc32 on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @04:42PM (#20463767)

Here are some examples: https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=San%20Francisco%20heart%...

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