Quays to the City: Critical Analyses of Urban Waterfront Transformations

April 21, 2007

Today at the Association of American Geographers Meeting in San Francisco, three paper sessions are underway on transformations in urban waterfronts around the world.

During the last four decades, interacting local and global actors have transformed many of these waterfronts where shipping and industry dominated into spaces for residential and commercial and leisure activities. Shifting urban political economies, global mega-events, environmental issues and associated societal relationships with nature, the ambitions of local communities, and the ebbs and flows of civil society action have all played key roles in defining and producing these transformations. It is important for theoretical and empirical research to examine, explain, and inform waterfront transformations, including the ways in which these transformations articulate with the broader political economies and ecologies of cities and urban change.

Papers in these sessions are taking critical approaches to the historical and contemporary transformations of urban waterfronts. Paper topics are examining themes such as: nature-society relationships on the waterfront; new governance regimes and mechanisms in urban waterfront development; the politics and planning of urban waterfronts; historical and environmental geographies of urban waterfront development; transformations in labour practices and social inclusion/exclusion; the role of social movements in shaping and contesting waterfront configurations; regional economic impacts of waterfront transformations; and the broader political economy and cultural politics shaping the revitalization, regeneration, and reproduction of urban waterfronts.

More information about the sessions is available at www.aag.org