ABSTRACT
Towns and cities hold a special fascination for the geographer, since their evolution as places where people live, work, shop and engage in leisure has resulted from the process of urbanisation (Johnston et al. 1994; Pacione 2001). Since classical times, towns and cities have performed tourism and leisure functions (Page 2011), and therefore such places have a long history as places where tourism and leisure experiences have been produced and consumed. In recreational terms, town and city dwellers traditionally consumed their leisure time in the areas where they lived, with the exception of the wealthy elites (Borsay 2012) who were able to afford properties in the country, and up to the mid-nineteenth century mass forms of urban leisure and recreation were undertaken in close proximity to the home, local family and kinship networks, and local pastimes and holidays. As Page and Connell (2010: 302) argue, ‘urban places are potentially the most significant environments in which to examine … leisure given the increasing urbanization of the world’. By 2020 there will be 16 world cities with a population of 20 million, while the regional focus of this growth in Asia and Latin America will create new conditions for urban leisure and tourism.
