WaRe. The Waterfront Regeneration Project

In many cases, the redeveloped waterfront acts as a driver for the re-launch of the entire economy of a city, often re-locating it in an international context. For this reason, many cities, even of a small and medium size, are adopting the recovery of their waterfront or of their former port areas in light of economical benefits and of a higher quality of life.
The process of waterfront areas transformation can be understood as a extraordinary laboratory for the analysis of the complexity in the relationship between built and natural environment, for comparing experiences in a context of complexity (aims and parties involved), of uncertainty (institutional and financial nature, involving activities and markets) and of importance of urban landscape.
International exchanges and comparisons are indispensable means of knowledge. Furthermore investigate the ‘state of the art’ in terms of identification of “best practices” at national, European and International levels, is strategic for proposing and promoting tools, methods and guidelines for dealing effectively in actual and future cases of waterfront area revitalization and for training the responsible bodies and decision makers on the choices to be made.
In this context and with these purposes has been developed the WaRe project - financed by the European Commission through the Lifelong Learning Programme 2007-2013, within the Grundtvig sectoral programme - of which the article briefly describes the results.