Generations of waterfront regenerations: The Hamburg case

The design crisis, specifically in the drawing of urban planning, coincided with Port cities’ experiences of dismissing of historical and modern port due to changes in capitalist production models and, since ‘80s, have been facing the challenge of waterfront regeneration. Several earliest generations port regenerations have in turn landed in new places of tourist and cultural specialization while the challenge of the third generation plans deals with regional issues and is now called upon to consider, in addition to disused constructions and infrastructure, citizens’ and operators’ local interest along with global challenges of economy and climate change. Within a process of more than 30 years redevelopment plans tend to abandon the project-led and short-term approach in order to integrate waterfront redesign in a city and regional perspective. The port cities and their transformations are observed through the changing relationship between the two components of the city-port: evolutionary models underlines common features of port wasted areas while the Hamburg case describes the evolution of urban and territorial planning processes from a project-oriented approach to an adaptive and territorial vision making strategic, shared and long term planning the institutional framework and planning in which to rethink contemporary port city development and regeneration complex actions.