Some preliminary remarks on the Recreational Business District in the city of Sassari: A social network approach

Abstract

In geographical studies the Central Business District represents the 'central place' of the city, or its core, where the activities typical of a city, and different from those carried on in rural settlements, are carried on and realized. Several studies have been carried on in the past but a general characteristic is given by the concentration of the central activities in the city. Talking about specialized activities, authors, particularly studying tourism, identified the concept of Recreational Business District, as that part of a city mostly dedicated to free time and leisure, both frequented by locals and by pass-byers and tourists. Starting from previous experiences of research on Central Business District Activities, in this paper we present the first results of a research aimed at highlighting the Recreational Business District in urban areas, starting from the city of Sassari (Sardinia, Italy), with the aim of a first spatial delimitation of the district. Also, we analyzed the presence of recreational activities on the world of social networks ad media, in order to observe if and to what extent such 'virtual' connections hold a spatial component in tourist terms. Point pattern analysis is used for the analysis over the recreational activities and particularly a Kernel Density Estimation is performed over the different datasets. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.