Reconnecting The City And The River

Originally published: Lake Claremont Press, 2000.

Fluid City traces the transformation of the urban waterfront of Melbourne, the re-vitalization of the Yarra River waterfront, Melbourne Docklands and Port Philip Bay. As the financial and industrial centre of Australia, in the late nineteenth century, Melbourne developed a new world exuberance. Yet the twentieth century saw Melbourne suffering from a declining industrial and economic base. The city in the 1980s was de-industrialising, and the re-facing of the city to the water was a key urban strategy of the 1980s and 90s and a catalyst for economic transformation. This book bridges significant gaps between different discourses about the city and to challenge singular ways of viewing the city.

This publication presents the results of more than five consecutive years of focused research initiatives and designs from The University of Virginia School of Architecture towards the revitalization of New Delhi, India’s water bodies. In collaboration with the Delhi Jal Board, The University of Virginia’s Yamuna River Project is an inter-disciplinary research program, proposing to revitalize the ecology of the Yamuna River in Delhi and creating vital urban links with the Yamuna River as it flows through India’s capital city. Through the research, methodologies, and designs contained within this publication, this project aims to serve as a catalyst for the urgent recovery of the Yamuna River and its tributaries, building a publically accessible body of information and expertise resulting in visions of what an alternative future would be. Only by addressing human equality and the complexity of Delhi’s urban phenomenon can the social and ecological crises manifested through these neglected water bodies be solved.

Built within an exceptional watershed, Montreal is intertwined with the waterways that ring its island and flow beneath it in underground networks. Montreal, City of Water focuses on water not only as a physical element – both shaping and shaped by urban development – but also as a sociocultural component of the life of the city. This unique study considers how water has produced and transformed urban space over two centuries. It traces the history of Montreal’s urbanization, shining a light on current concerns about water pollution, rehabilitation, and public access to the riverfront – and on the power relations involved in addressing them.

To assess the social processes of globalization that are changing the way in which we co-inhabit the world today, this book invites the reader to essay the diversity of worldviews, with the diversity of ways to sustainably co-inhabit the planet. With a biocultural perspective that highlights planetary ecological and cultural heterogeneity, this book examines three interrelated themes: (1) biocultural homogenization, a global, but little perceived, driver of biological and cultural diversity loss that frequently entail social and environmental injustices; (2) biocultural ethics that considers –ontologically and axiologically– the complex interrelationships between habits, habitats, and co-inhabitants that shape their identity and well-being; (3) biocultural conservation that seeks social and ecological well-being through the conservation of biological and cultural diversity and their interrelationships.

Historic Urban Landscape is a new approach to urban heritage management, promoted by UNESCO, and currently one of the most debated issues in the international preservation community. However, few conservation practitioners have a clear understanding of what it entails, and more importantly, what it can achieve. Examples drawn from urban heritage sites worldwide – from Timbuktu to Liverpool Richly illustrated with colour photographs Addresses key issues and best practice for urban conservation