Urban Blue Space and “The Project of the Century”: Doing Justice on the Seattle Waterfront and for Local Residents

Abstract

Urban blue space is increasingly embraced by cities as a specific and valuable genre of public space, valued for its economic, symbolic and experiential place attributes and essential to sustainable urban development. This article takes up the concept of urban blue space from a design perspective, extending and exploring it through a critical social science lens. Using the reconfiguration and redesign of the central Seattle waterfront as a case example, the idea of "doing justice" is enlisted to examine not just the design opportunities and formal characteristics of the site, but also the patterns of privilege, access and regional socio-ecological equity that are raised through its redesign. After situating the extraordinary design opportunity presented by this iconic urban blue space, and the imperative to do justice to the waterfront's physical situation, the article presents the site from four additional and discrete perspectives: economic justice, environmental justice, social justice and tribal justice. By thus foregrounding the urban political ecology of the waterfront, the article demonstrates that the most important challenge of the site's redevelopment is not technological, financial or administrative, although these are real, and significant challenges, but rather, the need to construct a place that works to counter established patterns of local and regional injustice. In Seattle as in other coastal port cities, urban blue space is a shared public and environmental good, with unique and demanding governance responsibilities for its conceptualization and sustainable development. Keywords: blue space; urban waterfronts; inclusive planning; sustainable urban development OPEN ACCESSBuildings 2014, 4 766 is meant to ameliorate the degenerative effects of unchecked market economies [9], protecting the human and non-human populations of urban social-ecological systems. Due to its significance to the economic, environmental, social and cultural patterns of urbanization, urban blue space is an ideal place to consider the pillars of sustainable urban development, in practice.There are distinct social and ecological dimensions of urban blue space [10]. It is a social space of gathering, labor, economic exchange, recreation, subsistence fishing, cultural tradition and journey-making, as well as an ecological space of watershed catchment, primary productivity, near-shore habitat, species migration and, often, environmental degradation. Urban blue space is a more complicated concept than "waterfront" and better captures the intersecting imperatives of sustainable urban development. While a waterfront suggests a firm boundary-literally, that which fronts the water, with connotations forged in the experience of late modern cities, namely trade, piers, industry, tourism and retail/leisure promenades-urban blue space is broader, more complex and more permeable. It is a kind of place that makes room for the ecological, in both a social and an environmental sense. In the same way that "green space" signals a civic and envi...

Port City Sustainability: A Review of Its Research Trends

“…The development of an integrated modelling-measurement system for the near-real-time assessment of port activities on air pollution could strengthen port pollution management and improve the air quality in port cities [90]. The use of the urban growth boundary (UGB) delimitation method [91], the implementation of integrated territorial investments (ITI) [92], the improvement of the utilization efficiency of urban land [93], and the designing of urban blue space [94] could promote the sustainability of the ecological environment of port cities. Using material flow analysis (MFA) to analyze the urban metabolism (UM) was conducive to resource management and supported the sustainable environmental planning of port cities [95].…”

Research on Color Space Perceptions and Restorative Effects of Blue Space Based on Color Psychology: Examination of the Yijie District of Dujiangyan City as an Example

“…Our research results show that socioeconomic status is one of the main factors that influences how often a resident visits blue space, and also determines how much benefit is gained from visiting blue space. Variation in socioeconomic status is associated with variation in binding forces, and as such, these waterfront areas may mitigate the health impacts of socioeconomic inequality [25]. It is worth noting that varying social and economic status brings about different social pressures.…”

Exploring the Relationship between Potential and Actual of Urban Waterfront Spaces in Wuhan Based on Social Networks

“…Urban environmental protection and renovation have resulted in progress. However, despite well-designed waterfront spaces, the public utilization rate is still low, resulting in a lack of urban vitality [18]. The waterfront infrastructure is far from meeting the needs of residents, and their development faces significant challenges [19].…”