Looking at the river. Transformations of contemporary waterfronts in two Latin American case studies: Barranquilla (Colombia) and Rosario (Argentina)

Abstract

Waterfronts are key components for cities located along watercourses, being structural axes of the cities. Especially, since the last decades of the 20th century, a large number of cities worldwide, mainly port cities or cities with diverse productive activities on their coasts, have faced the reconversion of their waterfronts through new urban renewal strategies, with creative solutions to respond to the existing disconnections between water and the surrounding urban fabric. Due to the presence of various activities and obsolete infrastructures located in strategic central areas, these urban regenerations are positioned as spaces of opportunity, for example, for public spaces, to develop interventions of patrimonial reconversions and to shape a new urban image. However, these transformations are also subject to diverse and often contradictory interests, due to the generation of capital gains linked to new uses and building indicators, as well as market speculation in relation to the reinsertion of these areas of great potential.

Although these processes are present on a global scale, waterfront regeneration in Latin America presents specific particularities that differ from other socio-political-economic contexts. In this sense, this paper aims to contribute to the field of contemporary waterfront redevelopment studies through a critical analysis of the urban renewal of the waterfronts of the cities of Barranquilla in Colombia and Rosario in Argentina. Both cities, with a strong port identity since their origins, have grown by occupying a large part of their waterfronts for productive activities, so that the population has developed an imaginary of the city "with its back to the river". However, since the end of the 20th century, Rosario and Barranquilla have established various planning policies that have made it possible to transform their riverfronts into new public spaces along the water, thus positioning themselves "facing to the river". These coastal reconversions have created new tourism possibilities and attracted visitors and international events.

Through an observational and empirical methodology of critical analysis of case studies, this paper investigates the transformations that have taken place on the central urban coast of the Magdalena and Paraná rivers (in Barranquilla and Rosario, respectively), through the study of three key axes: 1. The urban planning guidelines that make possible the desired riverside regeneration; 2. The development of new public spaces next to the water; and, 3. The new tourist role and attraction of events that both cities acquire around the river reconversions.

These case studies of waterfront redevelopment have established new relationships between the population and the river, bringing about a notable change in the physical environmental transformation of the river façade, as well as in the imaginaries of its inhabitants. Although both urban regenerations are considered successful experiences, being recognized through distinctions, awards and academic recognition, both cases still present pending challenges linked, for example, to a greater integration between different activities, actors and interests, as well as to greater articulation between the urban riverbanks and their surrounding deltas, of great wealth and biodiversity, which imply the development of new perspectives, studies, projects and transformation instruments that make possible more accessible, equitable and sustainable hydric-territories.