Revitalizing Dockside and Riverside Hamburg: Facts, Plans and Visions

Abstract

Both the opportunities offered and the problems posed by any renovating of once dockland city areas are here held to be common to cities with ports. We are told that until recently, the infra-use and underexploitation of such areas has been considered in terms of architecture and city and territorial planning and very seldom has the economic background to the state of such areas been analyzed though this must be a necessary pre-condition for drawing up any kind of project aimed at redeeming such areas from a consideration of being un-productive this being dependant upon factors such as real estate holding, opportunity for initiatives or who can -or should- plan what.. The paper attempts a brief outline of the inter-relations as between technological change, globalized logistics and local city and territorial restructuring, the latter factor being focused on the case of dockland Hamburg, the author offering detailed projects and schemes for a partial territorial area here. The paper is rounded out by some of the author's thoughts as to the findings at present available and as to future projects considered within the scope of city and territorial development policy. Again, and to point up his arguments, the author offers the major lines of argument at a higher level as to the question of his Hamburg model, namely the conflict between the demands of a maximalized exploitation and investment as against the needs of a local sitting population. Within this exposition, he likewise underlines some of the structural contradictions existing between a sustained city development and renewal programme and policies bent upon remedying supposed material short falls and answering the urgent cries for a balanced budget while boasting of the success of short term re-housing schemes.