Examination of Best Practices for Waterfront Regeneration

A lot of cities in the past few decades have used waterfront recreation policies as a solution for the revitalisation of abandoned and degraded urban areas. Moreover, the role of the waterfront has been enhanced by its position as an important node for the land and sea and an entrance through which the city develops relationships with other areas. The waterfront regeneration is connected to social, economic and environmental benefits when based on integrated management and planning. Examples of the past have resulted in the enhancement of the sense of community and quality of life and the attraction of economic resources. The interest for the regeneration of the urban waterfront began in 1963 with the recreation of Baltimore’s Inner Harbour, a project that transformed the degraded harbor zone to an urban leisure centre altering the economic and spatial dynamics of the area. Since then a number of successful and unsuccessful recreation projects has taken place in many cities. The increasing importance for quality of urban life and the emerging pollution problems in the urban coast have created a demand for public space that would replace the ‘heavy’ activities of the urban coastal zone. Although waterfronts are expected to act as opportunities for the revitalization of a coastal city, it is difficult to achieve a balance between the existing functions. This paper aims at exploring the basic strategies that have led to successful examples of waterfront recreation and at assessing the challenges and issues that coastal cities have to face