Tourists, residents, and chickens in urban spaces: the case of Ybor City
Abstract
Visitors to the Ybor City neighborhood in Tampa, Florida—which is the city’s premier entertainment district—are likely to notice an abundance of free-ranging chickens. The feral chickens are not only tolerated but, de facto, actively encouraged by city ordinance, although residents and neighborhood organizations have divergent opinions about the existence of the birds. One leading reason for the pro-chicken perspective, however, is that it adds visual and aural quality to the visitor experience. Tourists frequently engage with the chickens in the streets and even when chickens are not directly visible, the crowing of roosters permeates the neighborhood’s soundscape. To explore this phenomenon, I mapped the geography of sights and sounds of chickens throughout Ybor City and interviewed multiple neighborhood stakeholders. I also conducted brief “flash interviews” with tourists to gauge how the presence of chickens affected their visitor experience. Chickens are unevenly distributed but concentrated in both residential and touristic parts of Ybor City. Visitors are fascinated and intrigued by the chickens but lack an understanding of how they came to be in Ybor City. Both the number of chickens and the use of chicken imagery in neighborhood branding have increased recently.
Keywords: Chickens, Ybor City, Tourism, Entertainment districts, Animal geographies