Rethinking Urban Waterfront Change
Sessions - Calls for Participants
Rethinking urban waterfront change
Session organizer: Annika Airas, Simon Fraser University
Urban waterfronts are changing, and formerly industrial waterfronts in diverse locations are being rapidly redeveloped into strikingly similar recreational and residential sites. Such waterfront changes are driven by a variety of motivations and interests (Brownill 2013), and they affect social, economic, ecological, and material environments, not only in local neighbourhoods, but in cities and urban regions more broadly (see Laidley 2007). Changes since the late 20th century, as a result of economic restructuring and technological innovation, have influenced various planning and policy initiatives globally (cities such as Boston or Baltimore provide famous examples, see Bunce and Desfor 2007). More recent waterfront redevelopment processes have extended to changes beyond major seaport cities into lake- and riverfronts in smaller cities and suburban areas (see Wakefield 2007). However, the waterfront’s rediscovery for recreational and residential purposes is a fairly recent phenomenon (Hall 2012: 224), especially in Canada, considering the many thousands of years of Indigenous occupation on these lands, which then became desirable for settlers in the colonial establishment of waterfront cities and associated industries.
Within the Canadian context, scholarship on waterfront redevelopments is diverse, with various empirical cases and theoretical perspectives. Scholars have traced how global and iconic waterfront city ideals are being understood and implemented across scales, with social, economic, and environmental implications. Importantly, this scholarship has signposted some new avenues of inquiry. Questions can be asked around the ways in which an increased desire for waterfront residential properties feeds into the creation of new types of waterfront landscapes on previously marginal lands. Further explorations might also be undertaken around the land ownership conflicts that could arise in waterfront redevelopments. Intriguing, too, are the emerging relationships between waterfront developments and planning and policy directions that distribute political and economic risks and rewards among diverse private and public actors. Finally, there are the ways that new waterfront developments influence dimensions of social and environmental justice. Are the uses and users of the waterfronts becoming more restricted in processes of redevelopment? Are such developments jeopardizing cultural heritage and local identities? This session welcomes papers that engage with these questions and issues, among others, across a variety of geographical locations and temporal periods.
In particular, this session seeks, but is not limited to, papers engaging with themes of:
- gentrification and urban branding
- imperialism, colonisation, and Indigenous land claims
- urban political ecologies
- comparative urbanism and policy mobilities
- public and private space
- public health and environmental justice
- port logistics, manufacturing, and economic activity
- social sustainability and eco-urbanism
- the built environment and social memory
Please e-mail paper titles and abstracts (250 words) to Annika Airas (aairas@sfu.ca) by March 12th, 2019.
Works cited:
Brownill, S. (2013). Just add water: waterfront regeneration as a global phenomenon. In The Routledge Companion to Urban Regeneration (pp. 65-75). Routledge.
Bunce, S. & Desfor, G. (2007). Introduction to “Political ecologies of urban waterfront transformations”. Cities, 24(4), 251-258.
Hall, P. V. (2012). Connecting, disconnecting and reconnecting: port logistics and Vancouver's Fraser River. L’Espace géographique, 41(3), 223-235.
Laidley, J. (2007). The ecosystem approach and the global imperative on Toronto’s Central Waterfront. Cities, 24(4), 259-272.
Wakefield, S. (2007). Great expectations: waterfront redevelopment and the Hamilton Harbour Waterfront Trail. Cities, 24(4), 298-310.
Related works:
Atkinson, D. (2007). Kitsch geographies and the everyday spaces of social memory. Environment and Planning A, 39(3), 521-540.
Bjerkeset, S. & Aspen, J. (2017). Private-public space in a Nordic context: the Tjuvholmen waterfront development in Oslo. Journal of Urban Design, 22(1), 116-132.
Bunce, S. (2009). Developing sustainability: sustainability policy and gentrification on Toronto's waterfront. Local Environment, 14(7), 651-667.
Curran, W. (2010). In defense of old industrial spaces: Manufacturing, creativity and innovation in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34(4), 871-885.
Cook, I. R. & Ward, K. (2012). Relational comparisons: The assembling of Cleveland's waterfront plan. Urban Geography, 33(6), 774-795.
Hagerman, C. (2007). Shaping neighborhoods and nature: Urban political ecologies of urban waterfront transformations in Portland, Oregon. Cities, 24(4), 285-297.
Hall, P. V. & Stern, P. R. (2014). Implicating waterfronts in regional sustainability. Local Environment, 19(6), 591-604.
Holden, M., Li, C., & Molina, A. (2015). The emergence and spread of ecourban neighbourhoods around the world. Sustainability, 7(9), 11418-11437.
Lehrer, U., & Laidley, J. (2008). Old mega‐projects newly packaged? Waterfront redevelopment in Toronto. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 32(4), 786-803.
Neumann, T. (2018). Reforging the Steel City: Symbolism and Space in Postindustrial Pittsburgh. Journal of Urban History, 1-21.
Oakley, S. & Johnson, L. (2013). Place-taking and place-making in waterfront renewal, Australia. Urban Studies, 50(2), 341-355.
Wolch, J. R., Byrne, J. & Newell, J. P. (2014). Urban green space, public health, and environmental justice: The challenge of making cities ‘just green enough’. Landscape and Urban Planning, 125, 234-244