Recreation tourist areas. An exam on Recreational Business Districts in Olbia (Sardinia)

Research concerned about cities paid a particular attention, particularly
in the past, related to the central places of a city, or the areas where central activities
characterizing cities are located. That led to the definition of the so called
Central Business District - also known as “Downtown” or “the City”. Some related
concepts have been also developed for addressing tourism and recreation.
That led to defining the Recreational Business District, a – not necessarily geographically
– central part of a city generally hosting free time and leisure, lived
by locals, visitors and tourists. Here a research is carried on, in order to evaluate
the ways in which recreational areas tend to distribute and concentrate on urban
environments. The analysis is carried on considering the municipality of Olbia in
Sardinia (Italy). The idea is that of comparing the spatial distribution and extent
of such Recreational areas in parts of a territory quite different in shapes, population
and, in general geographical characters. The analysis was also performed
over recreational activities considering their level of connectedness by means of
social networks ad media, examining the pattern they draw in a tourist area. Different
techniques are used, including a point pattern analysis based on Kernel
Density Estimation.