Here we take a look at news covering how municipalities around the nation handle waterfront development. How do you balance the public interest, and their right to access the water, with the economic interest? It nearly always leads to some sort of controversy, and there are some who handle it better than others. There are the city planners who seem to have a fluid vision for how waterfront should be developed--one that blends open space with retail stores and residences that exclude no one. While others go about it in a piecemeal fashion in such a way that the public is left behind. Please e-mail any stories I may have missed.

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SPOTLIGHT: On the Water...Literally

Oceanworks plan to build San Diego Airport on Pacific Ocean (CleanTechnica.com, Oct. 22, 2009)
A group of 40 architects and planners has come up with a pretty wild and grandiose (or brilliant and visionary) solution to San Diego’s siting problems for its much needed new airport. Float the entire thing off-shore. How serious are they? In a legally unprecedented move, OceanWorks CEO Adam Englund has booked the 40,000 square mile space on the Pacific with this claim holding “airport rights.”

In the News: Week of Oct. 25, 2009

Renewal of Boston Seaport still just a blueprint (WBUR, Oct. 28, 2009)
In the Boston Seaport area, there are some shining examples of how the Seaport District is turning into the next hot spot. One of them is the Sportello in the Fort Point area. “It’s an upscale restaurant that used to be a warehouse,” said Vivian Lee, of the Boston Harbor Association.


Week of Oct. 4, 2009

Scituate Maritime Center opens Oct. 15 (Scituate Mariner, Oct. 7, 2009)
This is Scituate's newly constructed maritime center on Edward Foster Road. The center is a community-driven harbor project, which preserves the town's final working boat yard.

The maritime center will also save the waterfront from development, explains Murphy. But the project is more than an attempt to prevent modern development, and more than the preservation of a shipyard. Rather, it is an example of stimulation in the face of an adverse economic climate. Put simply, “An economic stimulus,” says Kreutzberg.