High-rise, high-density urban waterfront redevelopment: A metropolitan policy panacea or placebo in recreating sustainable 21st century cities?

Abstract

Waterfront redevelopments have the potential to provide residential opportunities for thousands of Australians in what could be described as a novel urban experiment - high rise, near city living with governance and planning arrangements unlike Master Planned Estates (MPEs). For the Federal Government, newly concerned with issues of sustainability, liveability and quality of life, these sites assume importance because of their scale, while for State governments waterfront developments is a centre piece of metropolitan promotion and part of an overall densification agenda. Waterfront redevelopment is a social and spatial experiment. In the 21st century these projects have taken on a new urgency and their development has increasingly become politically, socially and economically significant as urban populations have burgeoned, and governments have sought ways to house, employ and ensure a quality environment in already congested inner-middle urban areas, some of which are experiencing increasing land costs and housing market stress. As waterfront redevelopments are promoted as supporting large urban populations this paper examines the capacity of these projects to provide planning processes that can deliver equitable distributional outcomes in terms of environmentally and socially sustainable spaces of mixed housing tenure, amenity and quality urban design. Drawing on the Port Adelaide waterfront as a case study this paper provides a critical evaluation of the costs and benefits in terms of its integration into the planning and development strategy for metropolitan Adelaide.