Waterfront Development within the Urban Design and Public Space Framework in Malaysia

Abstract

Historically, waterfronts developments have undergone various stages of development initiatives and become the most challenging tasks for planners and urban designers nowdays. It reflected a dynamic natural resources with special characteristics and regarded as the most important factors that influence the growth and image of the cities and had a significant impact on urbanization and modernization of the most cities in the near future, as experienced by most harbor cities in Europe, North America, Australasia, Japan and others. This paper attempts to understand the evolution of waterfront development within the framework of urban design and public spaces, as been practiced by Singapore and Turkey, and provided lesson to learn by taking Johor Bharu as a case. In future research, the urban studies on waterfronts will be important framework in cities development. The smart-partnership between local government and private should be more emphasized in order to achieve the world-class urban and cities development.

An Integrated Strategy for Waterfront Redevelopment Case Study: Alexandria, Egypt

“…Waterfront can be one of the central areas of the city with its diversity land use that makes waterfront the heart of the city's culture, social and civic life, and becomes a creative milieu based on diversity uses as in Baltimore's Inner Harbor project [20][21]. Malaysia waterfront which is designed for the public purposes by making mix used development with many housing and commercial projects [3].…”

“…[29] This is appeared in the waterfront trail of the Toronto with the spatial restructuring plan which included the relocating of the existing industry and offering the place for tertiary industry to improving the economic growth. As well as in Boston, considering the seaport area as a potential investment by replacement of the historic port to multifunction area with a complex of hotels, deluxe housing, parks and culture centers [3].…”

“…These gave Istanbul the national and international image with long term investments. [3] also, Toronto with a design of marginal industrial and port properties and designing green space offering a new work and living environment on 900 hectares for 100,000 people [21].…”

“…This appears obviously in Vancouver city and its slogan "living first", the city began the transformation of the waterfronts from industrial uses to be housing units. By the end of century, the main policy was creating places to live with regulations control building uses and mass, losing public access and maintains the waterfront edge for all public purposes [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21].…”

“…Because of the importance of the waterfront and its roles to enhance the city, many attempts appear by 1960 in North America for redevelopment the waterfront especially when the city transform from industrial to service. During fifties of the 20th and the cases such as Baltimore and Boston became models for the redevelopment a revitalization projects [3]. Later by 1970, the first water development movement was presented to transform the abandoned lands of the old ports and harbors to a social, residential, economical, and recreational hub.…”