Urbanization and Tourism in Coastal Territory: An Analysis in La Serena-Coquimbo (Chile), and Itajaí-Balneário Camboriú (Brazil)

Abstract

Tourist urbanization is an important urban expression of contemporaneity, primarily in tropical coastal areas. Based on this reality, we propose a spatiotemporal analysis in two medium-sized coastal conurbations in Latin America: La Serena-Coquimbo (Chile) and Itajaí-Balneário Camboriú (Brazil), which involve urban expansion driven by tourism. The proposed analysis considers the respective building typologies generated by these conurbations and the effects they’ve had on the urban environment. We conducted a spatial recognition of urbanization between the 1950s and 2020s, identifying both non-tourist and tourist areas. In this perspective, those coastal urban spaces that emerged in the second half of the 20th century and that have a high proportion of occasional housing are considered tourist areas. The results indicate that tourist urbanization tends to intensify fragmentation, gentrification, and the loss of natural landscapes, as it adopts construction and occupation forms that are dissonant with the place, its landscape, and its social reality.