But in recent years something else has been attracting camera-toting travelers: dozens of street art murals that practically beg to become selfie backdrops on Instagram. The city of George Town, in the Malaysian state of Penang, has long drawn tourists to its streets. As de Lange points out, this opposes the values of urban theorists like Jane Jacobs, who believed that one of a city's greatest purposes was to bring diverse groups of strangers together. One such list in Hong Kong featured a public housing estate with bright colored towers and a cargo pier known as Instagram pier (#instagrampier, 9,500 + posts) for its photogenic sunsets. One such list in Hong Kong featured a public housing estate with bright colored towers and a cargo pier known as Instagram pier (#instagrampier, 9,500 + posts) for its photogenic sunsets. In an era where some say social media is killing traditional retail, they're doing what they can to harness its power by creating picture friendly spaces. Notably, these lists often include places well off the standard tourist track. Retail stores have the same incentives to get their spaces and products on social media. Penang is one of a number of cities capitalizing on the wild popularity of photo-based social media apps such as Instagram, which has 800 million users (more than a tenth of the world s population). So even if something isn't designed especially for social media I think there's always an emphasis on how does this render digitally? Instagram seems to be changing the aspects and elements of a city that travelers find worthwhile. One increasingly popular strategy is so-called pop-up urbanism, where a city turns empty lots into temporary beer gardens or makes a busy street into a pedestrian playground for a weekend. But in recent years something else has been attracting camera-toting travelers: dozens of street art murals that practically beg to become selfie backdrops on Instagram. The sherbet-colored shophouses, intricately tiled courtyards, and historic temples and mosques prove irresistible photo fodder. This phenomenon is subtly changing our visual landscapes on the streets, in restaurants, in stores, in museums and more.