Three U.S. Cities Reinventing the Modern Waterfront
Projects such as the High Line in New York City and Discovery Green in Houston have upped the ante for cities, showcasing landscape architecture as a powerful tool for urban change and raising public awareness of the multifaceted value of well-designed public spaces.
These projects—and many more like them—are a far cry from the pastoral, largely unprogrammed spaces championed in the last century by visionaries like Olmsted, Burnham, L’Enfant, Kessler, and Cleveland. Today’s urban parks, instead, face intense pressure to provide “something to do” for an increasingly wide array of users—and are often, by necessity, thrust into new management and operational structures (think: conservancy or public/private partnership models). For the first time in history, the majority of the world’s population lives in urban areas. Since the average city apartment’s footprint is significantly smaller than that found in suburbia, urban public spaces increasingly serve as an expansion of one’s apartment. The city, in essence, becomes one giant shared frontyard.
As public space is embraced as a source of civic pride, the expectations placed upon the stewards of these spaces rise. Parks departments are increasingly expected to provide not just the vision and capital to improve or create public spaces, but also active programming. At the same time, many city agencies are already making do with decreased or stagnant budgets. In an ideal world, our collective priorities would align and we would fund our park systems consistent with the value they bring to our lives and robustly enough to enable vibrant programming and sustainable maintenance—but that is not the reality we have today.
Cities are evolving with these developments. We explore here how three American cities—Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati—have made significant investments in one particular facet of public realm improvement: their riverfronts. In many Midwest and Rust Belt cities of the United States, the pressure to attract and retain workers and create a better quality of life coupled with the declining use of waterways for industrial purposes has made riverfront revitalization a somewhat common strategy. Each of the following case studies, however, offers a unique and innovative approach to both the funding of capital improvements and the long-term value-capture associated with such riverfront investments, providing an array of models for other cities.
Capitalizing on Revenue—Generation Potential: The Chicago Riverwalk
The desire to have a continuous Riverwalk along the Main Branch of the Chicago River has been a decades-long planning and design effort. In the 1990s, Chicago’s Department of Transportation created plans for a new continuous walkway—one that would require a 25-foot (7.6 m) extension of new land into the river and a series of “under-bridge” connections. In the early 2000s, the city implemented initial segments—first from the lakefront to just east of Michigan Avenue, then continuing to State Street. The final and most recent phases—Phases II and III—realize the vision of a continuous pedestrian connection along the Main Branches system, now 1.25 miles (2 km) long, ending at Lake Street.
Envisioned as a mix of recreational, entertainment, food and beverage, and retail facilities, the Riverwalk is a vibrant area enjoyed by residents, tourists, and visitors alike. Each new block provides a different kind of programmatic experience. The Marina Plaza, for instance, combines a dining terrace, custom seating, and boating infrastructure. The Cove creates a place for human-powered craft to launch or dock, and for its users to grab an ice cream cone or take a leisurely break. The Jetty creates places for fish, while the Water Plaza is a space of interactive water fun. These new blocks—six in total—opened to much warmth from both the public and critics. Of the new spaces, the Chicago Tribune’s famed architectural critic Blair Kamin said, “The latest stretch of the Riverwalk marks a significant step forward in achieving a showcase public space that creates the equivalent of a second lakefront. Here, in bold strokes worthy of Daniel Burnham, Chicago is confirming and renewing its identity as a civilized metropolis.”