From fantasy city to creative city

In his seminal article, ‘From Pilgrim to Tourist – or a Short History of Identity’, the eminent social philosopher Zygmunt Bauman (1996) detects a fundamental ambivalence in the tourist condition. The tourist, Bauman says, is the prototypical postmodern citizen, the successor to the vagabond and the flaneur of earlier periods of modernity. Tourists, he observes, periodically become restless – as the ‘joys of the familiar wear off and cease to allure’ (1996: 29). To cope, they become conscious and systematic seekers of new and different experiences. At the same time, the tourist is rarely willing to sever the umbilical cord to everyday life. Consequently, the touristic experience is characterized by ‘a profusion of safety cushions and wellmarked escape routes’. In a phrase, ‘shocks come in a package deal with safety’ (1996: 29-30).