Temporal and Spatial Dynamics of the New Residential Areas around Tallinn

New housing construction is the most visible manifestation of the rapid suburbanization process taking place in the former centrally planned countries of Central Eastern Europe. This paper analyses residential housing construction around Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia, in the period 1991–2005. Our data comes from the New Residential Area Survey that was carried out in 2006. The main results of the study reveal that housing construction was modest in the 1990s, but grew rapidly in the 2000s. In comparison with the Soviet period, private interest led new housing construction to take place in areas closer to Tallinn that were earlier reserved for other functions; that is former agricultural and coastal (often military) areas. Instead of the sprawl of detached housing further away from the capital city seen over time, we find increasing in-fills and multifamily housing construction in the 2000s around Tallinn. This leads to changes both in the internal structure (small but merging settlements close to Tallinn are different from the Soviet time compact settlements located all over the rural areas) and functioning (increase in daily commuting) of the metropolitan area. We argue that the transition period ends in the housing market when a new and better balance between public and private interests emerges in Estonia like in Western Europe.     

The use of tracking technologies in tourism research: the first decade

The past decade has witnessed dramatic growth in the implementation of various tracking technologies in tourism studies. A thorough review of literature reveals that 45 papers were published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, comprising 40 percent of the papers published in the three leading journals on tourism scholarship. The rate of papers published annually has grown in recent years and it is clear that this novel field is further expanding. The majority of studies analyzed employed GPS, mobile positioning, Bluetooth tracking, geocoded social media, and photo databases. The studies ranged in geographical scope from individual attractions to global capacity. Based on our review, tourism research that uses tracking data can be divided into three categories: the first generation of studies focused on methodological dimensions and the potential of tracking data. The second generation made use of spatially and temporally rich data and uncovered new aspects of tourism. The third generation made use of the new data sources to challenge fundamental questions on tourism and consumer behavior. Digital tracking data have clear advantages – data are spatially and temporally precise, geographic and temporal coverage of datasets is broad, and tracking data can be supplemented using questionnaires, sensors, and other sources.     

ETHNIC SEGREGATION DURING PUBLIC AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS: A STUDY USING MOBILE PHONE DATA

This paper contains an analysis of ethnic differences in activity locations during public and national holidays. Holidays relate to identity, and the celebration of holidays can be a very important part of acculturation processes and are therefore relevant to ethnic integration policies. We study the out‐of‐home nonemployment activity locations of 12,500 respondents in Estonia, using mobile phone positioning data. The results show that during holidays, ethnic segregation, measured using an index of dissimilarity, is significantly higher than it is on regular days, especially outside the capital city. The type of holiday, such as whether it is a national or international holiday, has a particular effect on people's spatial behaviour. On Estonian public holidays, Estonians are more likely to leave Tallinn than Russian speakers. There are 77 per cent more Estonians and 33 per cent more Russian speakers outside the capital than on non‐holidays. The paper depicts different temporal layers of segregation, which also indicates different integration potential in leisure spaces under various time frames.