Scholarly record

INSIGHTS ON THE RECONFIGURATION OF FRAGILE INDUSTRIAL WATERFRONTS THREATENED BY CLIMATE CHANGE AND ECONOMIC DECLINE: THE CASE OF CONEY ISLAND CREEK, NEW YORK

G. Schreurs, K. Scheerlinck

Abstract

Responding to the growing impact of changing environmental conditions and the requirement it generates for cities to respond in a resilient way, together with a changing economic climate on a global and local level [1], the research focuses on one particular aspect, aiming to gain critical insights on the reconfiguration of fragile industrial waterfronts. This research paper focuses on the reconfiguration of the Coney Island Creek in New York as an exemplary case of the needed transformation of fragile industrial waterfronts. The objective is to provide critical insights on the spatial, economic and environmental aspects of transformation of fragile industrial waterfronts. The projects want to study its transformation process through analyzing the property structure, the territorial configuration and appropriation of its collective spaces, the economic cycles of industrial production and contrast these with the growing environmental threats (storm surges, rising sea level) and a changing economic context (decreasing investments, rising unemployment etc). The research focuses on the constant reconfiguration of the waterfrontВ’s constituent collective spaces that are both strongly and simultaneously defined by natural and urban transformation processes. This research paper deals with the case study of the Coney Island Creek (New York, USA); part of an intriguing urban peninsula with a complex coexistence between industrial, recreational and residential waterfront conditions and the constant threat for urban floods by the Creek, compounded by political neglect. During the last decades, Coney Island has changed a lot by the aftermath of the financial crisis and its effect on investments and real estate projects in the area, the decrease of productivity, the changing immigration waves and new patterns of the way urban space is planned and consumed. The political abandonment and lack of individual capital of the small entrepreneurs leaves little space for alternative commercial and urban processes to assure the resilience of the industrial waterfront. Analysis shows that this case gathers what can be considered a most advanced repertoire for urban industrial transformations, and it exhibits how the dynamics, conditions and characteristics of the location causes its industrial areas to decline.

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