
Maps Reveal the Difference in How Cities Are Perceived by Tourists and Locals - touristtam
https://www.archdaily.com/920002/a-series-of-maps-reveals-the-difference-in-how-cities-are-perceived-by-tourists-and-locals
======
anc84
Regurgitated content from more than half a decade ago. Here is the direct link
with all you need to know:
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/sets/721576242091586...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/sets/72157624209158632/detail/)

(Click "show more" for the description with is more verbose and honest than
the aggregator spam submission).

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welder
And the direct link to San Francsico:

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4671581511/in/album-...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4671581511/in/album-72157624209158632/)

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aylmao
I've lived in SF before— this is so accurate to my experience. Went to SoMa a
lot and actually never visited the Golden Gate bridge.

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wruza
Living in semi-touristic district, it’s funny to see how locals views differ
from tourists. We have a special term for it: local resident syndrome. It’s
when someone asks you if there is something interesting to look at here, but
you don’t know, despite living here since forever. Well, I can show you where
that expensive nightclub is on the map, does it count? I also see people
making selfies with decorative street elements (simple installations and/or
statues) that were installed, say, a year ago, and really mean nothing, but
are perceived as if they had _a history_. Accidentally hearing what tour
guides tell to groups about locals and their traditions is another story.

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iagovar
That happend to me too. They take photos of stuff that I didn't pay attention
to. Maybe I should take a tour guide of my own city, since there's a lot to
see apparently.

Anyway, those maps could also be that way because locals try to avoid
tourists. It's not a big deal where I currently live, but it is very annoying
in Barcelona, Madrid, etc, that kind of places. Not only because touristy
places become pricey or there's too many people, but because some tourists
are... special.

~~~
close04
Maintaining the same level of curiosity about your city that a tourist has is
a challenge. You "just" live and work there, it's hard to get excited about
your own city.

Some years ago I tried to be a tourist in my own city and basically treated my
weekends like going on a city break as a tourist (helped that it was a city of
several million inhabitants and some centuries of history, so it had some
potential). I discovered some really wonderful places, sometimes right next to
the streets I drove on every day for work. That made a difference for me in
how I looked at the city and made my life there just a bit more content.

~~~
darrenf
My gf and I started a project to spend a day in each borough of London, a
couple of years ago. Originally we were aiming to complete it in one or two
years, but life got in the way; it's paused at 16 out of 33 right now. I'm a
born and bred Londoner in my mid-40s, and in the course of this (despite only
being halfway through) have been to so many places I'd never visited - we
research interesting cultural, historical, and alcohol-vending places to visit
beforehand and it's ludicrous amounts of fun.

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throwwwawayyyy
As someone who lived in Paris for many years now, it's fascinating how the
city has sort of three identities:

1\. What outsiders think it's like

2\. What they see when they encounter the city as tourists

3\. What the city is like for a local

You'd say this is true for any city but Paris in particular has concentrated
so many stereotypes together that it's almost comical to see people's
attitudes yo-yo so dramatically in both directions.

~~~
blaser-waffle
I'm reminded of Paris Syndrome, which is phenomenon common with the Japanese,
where they assume Paris is something it is not, and get angry and frustrated
upon visiting.

[https://grapee.jp/en/99643](https://grapee.jp/en/99643)

I'd say similar things about Texas, DC, and NYC, for that matter.

~~~
partisan
It is a funny article, but this line puts things in perspective:

> Out of the million or so Japanese tourists that visit Paris each year, about
> 12 will fall prey to Paris syndrome.

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travisjungroth
“12 Japanese tourists let down by Paris visit each year” doesn’t quite have
the same oomph.

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mwilliaams
That’s .001%. Why is anyone even talking about it?

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sct202
For the actual direct link to the 100+ maps go to Flickr
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/sets/721576242091586...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/sets/72157624209158632/with/4671594023/)

~~~
tubbs
And to view an interactive map: [https://labs.mapbox.com/labs/twitter-
gnip/locals/#5/38.000/-...](https://labs.mapbox.com/labs/twitter-
gnip/locals/#5/38.000/-95.000)

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inlined
Am I the only one who felt like they were in the photo round of trivia night
looking at the unlabeled heat maps?

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klez
I was trying to guess which cities were in North America and which ones
weren't.

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ghaff
This was particularly cool when Eric Fischer first put these up on Flickr
because smartphones were fairly new and it was such a great example of teasing
interesting data/visualization from data that people were recording
essentially incidentally.

Google Flu Trends was also a hot topic around the same time although that
turned out to be a lot less effective than it initially appeared.

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jmkd
For London it's fascinating to see the highest density of local photography
mostly east, with a particular hotspot in Hackney. It seems to support the
stereotype of it being a more creative area.

I'm sure a dataset more recent than 2010 would amplify this further.

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llamathrowaway
I would not call it creative these days, because I don’t find those hipster
beards, soul-crushingly loud factory-feeling restaurants and bars, and new
shinny unaffordable residential developments designed by anti-natalists (hence
no space for families) creative at all.

It should be purple on the map if the data is more recent.

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eropple
"Anti-natalists"? That's a real weird flex. Surely it isn't that areas that
aim to bring in the young and the creative are taking into account that _kids
cost money nobody 's got_.

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agent008t
The issue is not the money, it's the 'stuff'. If they built decent residential
areas where families could live, family homes would be more affordable. If
they built more daycare facilities, daycare would be more affordable. Etc.
etc.

In London in particular, it is hard, if not impossible, to find a consistently
decent area that would appear safe to bring up kids in within cycling commute
of the City. There does not seem to be any objective reason for that, so it
seems to be a policy decision.

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eropple
If they built decent residential areas where families could live, DINKs and
other childless folks would move there first. Families are and are permanently
expensive in post-industrial society to the point where they're nearly a
luxury if you want to also live in an urban (read: trendy, young, _creative_ )
area because space, and therefore anything that depends on space, is at a
premium.

Make no mistake: this sucks. But it isn't "anti-natalism". It's om-nom-nom
capitalism. The fix is deeper than whether or not planners like families with
kids or not: it's a rethinking of how we allocate resources. And that's a hard
conversation to have.

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llamathrowaway
> If they built decent residential areas where families could live, DINKs and
> other childless folks would move there first

I am not sure. If I want to live without a child, I would probably not spend
money on a second bedroom. I would prefer the space below my building to be a
gym rather than a daycare. I will care more about good bars than good schools
and parks.

> Families are and are permanently expensive in post-industrial society

There is also a chicken and egg problem: the fact that new developments target
childless people is one of the reasons raising a child is expensive. It might
actually be one of the biggest reason in London considering how much people
are spending on housing.

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eropple
_> I am not sure. If I want to live without a child, I would probably not
spend money on a second bedroom._

I would. I've rented 2BRs my entire adult life. I needed an office--that
room's for work (even if that work is my side projects or whatever), the rest
of the house is for living. We bought a 3BR and collapsed a wall to make it a
2BR. One bedroom and one (very large) office.

 _> There is also a chicken and egg problem: the fact that new developments
target childless people is one of the reasons raising a child is expensive._

New developments mostly target people with disposable income. That rules out
most families.

I am, to be clear, in favor of subsidies and policies to encourage urban
families; I think having kids in neighborhoods is a good thing for the
neighborhood as a whole. But you're ascribing intent where none seems to
exist.

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hprotagonist
It’s always fun to quantify this.

I can say that for certain I avoid the tourist things in my home city and my
current adopted home city. I cannot remember the last time i was near them,
actually.

~~~
Angostura
But why? Tourist sights are tourist sites for a reason. The Tower of London is
swarming with tourist, but its still genuinely fascinating. If only for Henry
VIII's armoured codpiece.

~~~
chapium
Probably because tourists are generally awful to be around.

~~~
alistairSH
But as a local, you can visit off-season/off-hours and avoid the worst of it.

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simonebrunozzi
I grew up in Assisi, Italy, and lived there until ~2008.

Assisi was home to St.Francis, one of the most popular saints in Christianity,
and it's a tiny village (5,000 residents) with >1.3M people visiting it every
year, mostly for religious reasons.

Growing up there was really a unique experience in that regard, especially
when tourism is such an important share of the local economy.

I met so many people from abroad, and befriended so many, over the years, and
at the same time I almost took it for granted.

I think my mind benefited from this great influx of foreigners.

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egypturnash
I am looking at the version of this that has an interactive map of the US
([https://labs.mapbox.com/labs/twitter-
gnip/locals/](https://labs.mapbox.com/labs/twitter-gnip/locals/)) and zooming
in to my current location of New Orleans:
[https://labs.mapbox.com/labs/twitter-
gnip/locals/#13/29.9802...](https://labs.mapbox.com/labs/twitter-
gnip/locals/#13/29.9802/-90.0676)

And holy shit I really _did_ do a favor for my friend when I went down to the
French Quarter, met up with her, and took her to City Park instead of another
day of scheduled tourist activities; there are _no_ red dots up there.

~~~
selimthegrim
Sculpture Garden ftw, also CDM took over the morning call stand for now so you
don’t even have to leave there for beignets

~~~
egypturnash
It’s not you couldn’t get beignets when it was Morning Call!

But yeah the sculpture garden is awesome, I love going there and sitting in
the quiet little grove around *A Battle: For The Resistance Fighters”. Or
chilling on a shady bench with the laptop getting shit done. You could
probably see it on a modern version of this map.

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hyldmo
I feel like this is applicable on a smaller scale than tourist/locals as well.
I have lived in the same place in the same city for 7 years now and I have
almost never been to any of the good bars/restaurants close to me. I'm always
surprised when friends who live other places in the city recommend me places
that I've walked past a hundred times in my neighborhood but never went into,
and vice versa. I wonder why it is like that. I don't have a good answer
myself.

~~~
dfxm12
When you're at home, do you go out to eat often? If so, how do you choose
where to go? I'm sure the answer lies in one of these questions.

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ma2rten
I lived in Amsterdam for 5 years but I never saw the Anne Frank House, because
I thought I could always go there later.

~~~
bb101
I lived across the street from the Charles Dickens Museum in London for years.
Never once went as "it'll always be there later". Still haven't been.

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nofinator
Any theory about why there is a local photo for every street in College Point,
Queens? It's about 3 o'clock in the NY map here:
[https://flic.kr/p/87P99x](https://flic.kr/p/87P99x).

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mannykannot
There are a couple of places here that I know as more than a visitor, and in
those cases, the residents' maps are quite interesting - for example, what is
it about College Point, New York, that makes it stand out?

~~~
smogcutter
As far as I know as an NYC native... nothing? I was wondering about that too,
must be some kind of sampling artifact. Maybe there's something we don't know
about, but the neighborhood has more coverage than the whole rest of Queens
(besides Shea). It's probably data from one guy who lives in College Point and
happens to post a ton of pictures.

~~~
mannykannot
Good point - maybe the amateur neighborhood historian, or possibly a group who
are documenting the state of things as part of a dispute with City Hall?

+1 for calling it Shea, not Citi Field.

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JJMcJ
Local resident: the library, the MacDonalds with the fastest drive through,
the nice park with the ducks, except the sidewalk by the trees is always slimy
with duck poop.

Of course in suburban areas that's about it 99% of the time.

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newsreview1
High time locals started to know their city better than tourists.

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codedrome
It says "The red dots indicate photographs taken by tourists, while the blue
dots show images taken by local residents" but what is the orange?

~~~
ghaff
Yellow is can't be determined (because they haven't taken a picture anywhere
for over a month).

[https://www.cnet.com/news/the-rise-of-the-accidental-
sensor/](https://www.cnet.com/news/the-rise-of-the-accidental-sensor/)

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geuis
Terrible site UI. It hijacks the back/forward buttons to navigate through
other content you haven't visited on that site.

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incanus77
If you are ever in SF and visit the Exploratorium, Eric’s work on these maps
is shown there as well.

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jonbronson
This post is a cautionary tale of why Legends are important.

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danmg
Philadelphia Resident: The art museum.

Philadelphia Tourist: The Rocky steps.

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homonculus1
Well, photographed. Perception is a cognitive function that's not so easily
measured as this...

