The Waterfront Development in Europe: Between Planning and Urban Design Sustainability

This paper analyzes the different possibilities of acting on natural infrastructures in order to guarantee a safe environment experience for citizens, especially in congested urban centers close to rivers. The paper identifies the urban policies and funding through which urban regeneration comes to life for waterfront development. In particular, different kinds of case studies are presented in two blocks. The first one acts on sustainable projects not linked by a general strategy, but which produce positive effects on the city in terms of safety. The second block collects experiences linked to general strategies that secure and encourage slow mobility, in order to regenerate the entire city network. The waterfront development can be implemented in several ways. Nevertheless, the collection of the case studies demonstrates that sustainable urban policies play a key role to regenerate, renew and innovate the natural infrastructures and that sustainable urban design has the tools to transform the routes in roots, turning the habit of passing through a city onto the practice of living through the city.