Thesis statement for on the waterfront

This thesis is an examination of these two issues, design and context, as an expansion of social science’s critique of waterfront development. ith these issues in mind, we turn now to a review of proposed solutions for creating access to waterfronts, examining how this problem has been addressed in three types of relevant literature.

Hailed as ever ything from a “waterfront renaissance” to a “worldwide urban success stor y,” these effor ts have spurred great collective optimism (Breen and Rigby, 1996). However, beneath the veneer of enthusiasm and praise there exists a more problematic side to waterfront redevelopment.

Social scientists and others have noticed a number of negative trends made manifest in waterfront redevelopment, such as pronounced class and racial disparities, erasure of cer tain histories and cultural memories, and effective privatization of public space (Marshall, 2001).

Professional literature on waterfront planning and design has long observed a tension between private residential development on waterfronts and public access to waterfronts, in which nominally public waterfront spaces become cut off from the existing city, effectively privatized by the residential development around them.