This research focuses on the intermediate city, composed of urban areas located right outside the city center typically maintaining an in-between urban/suburban character. It aims to explore the degree to which this segment of the city exhibits urban activity and social life through the identification of activity areas in the so-called Third Places. Four intermediate city neighborhoods in Gothenburg, Sweden are adopted as case areas and are analyzed using a twofold approach. First, socio-economic statistics provide a quantitative understanding of the case areas and, second, geolocated Social Media Data (SMD) from Foursquare, Google Places and Twitter makes it possible to identify the intermediate city’s urban activity areas and socially preferred urban spaces. The findings suggest that a) the four analyzed intermediate city areas of Gothenburg all have a degree of social activity, especially where economic activities are clustered together; b) Third Places in more affluent areas tend to be linked to commodified consumption of urban space while neighborhoods with lower income levels and higher ethnic diversity seem to emphasize open public space as Third Places; and c) nowadays the typology of Third Places has evolved from the types identified in previous decades to include additional types of places, such as those you pass on the way to something else (e.g. gas and bus stations). The study has verified the value of SMD for studies of urban social life but also identified a number of topics for further research. Additional sources of SMD should be identified to secure a just representation of Third Places across diverse social groups. Furthermore, new methods for effective cross validation of SMD with other types of data are crucial, including e.g. statistics, on-site observations and surveys/interviews, not least to identify Third Places that are not frequently present (or are misrepresented) in SMD.

中文翻译：

---

哥德堡中间城市的社交活动：通过社交媒体数据绘制第三名

这项研究的重点是中间城市，该城市由位于市中心以外的市区组成，通常保持介于城市/郊区之间的特征。它旨在通过识别所谓的“第三地点”中的活动区域，探索该城市部分展示城市活动和社会生活的程度。瑞典哥德堡的四个中间城市社区被选为案例区域，并采用双重方法进行了分析。首先，社会经济统计数据可对案例区域进行定量了解，其次，来自Foursquare，Google Places和Twitter的地理位置社交媒体数据（SMD）可以确定中间城市的城市活动区域和社会偏爱的城市空间。研究结果表明：a）哥德堡四个被分析的中间城市地区都具有一定程度的社会活动，特别是在经济活动聚集在一起的地方；b）较富裕地区的第三名往往与城市空间的消费化联系在一起，而收入水平较低和种族多样性较高的社区似乎则强调开放的公共空间，因为第三名; c）如今，“第三名”的类型已从前几十年中确定的类型演变为包括其他类型的名胜，例如您在前往其他地方（例如加油站和汽车站）的那些类型。该研究证明了SMD在研究城市社会生活中的价值，但也确定了许多需要进一步研究的主题。应该确定SMD的其他来源，以确保在不同社会群体中公正地代表第三名。此外，有效的SMD与其他类型数据交叉验证的新方法至关重要，这些方法包括例如统计数据，现场观察和调查/访谈，尤其是要确定第三名 在SMD中不经常出现（或被歪曲）的内容。