Urban correspondences

Abstract

This afterword pays tribute to the long-standing relationship between nineteenth-century symbolism’s ways of sensing and perceiving the city and contemporary conceptualizations and approaches to the study of urban ambiances and spatial perception. Building upon the sensorial ecology advanced by CRESSON, this chapter reflects on the increasing commodification of urban environments for tourist consumption in touristified urban centres, and the consequences on the city’s everyday life. One of the most pernicious effects of these sanitized and commercialized atmospheres is the exclusion of all the ways of experiencing and appropriating the cities that are regarded as marginal. However, despite the efforts to transform cities into secured theatres for consumption, the question that this text raises is to what extent local institutions or private stakeholders can control the way we experience and feel the reverberance of urban ambiances.