High Tide: An Agenda for the Urban Coastal Zone

After much public discussion, legislative debate, and administrative deliberation, a framework for coastal zone management is now being established at the state and local levels of government. The new coastal management programs represent a significant achievement in the effort to maintain and enhance our valuable coastal resources. However, the issue of managing the diverse and distinctive waterfronts in our nation's cities remains to be addressed.

The task of managing urban coastal resources is inherently different from that of coastal management in rural or outland areas. Historically, American cities have maintained strong linkages to the coastal zone despite frequently changing patterns of urban shoreline use. In addition, the waterfront has played a vital role in the physical and economic structure of our cities. The waterfront has been the traditional site of the basic urban infrastructure - the highways, parks, sewage plants, power facilities, and marine terminals that dot the shoreline are essential to the functioning of the modern metropolis.

Changes in marine cargo technology and transportation have led to the decline of traditional port sites. However, they have simultaneously opened up the city's waterfront for new and economically productive urban uses. Although urban waterfront renewal has frequently been limited to upgrading small portions of the waterfront, bold and innovative efforts have been initiated in several cities, such as Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, and Seattle, to recapture the waterfront. Greater effort must be supported on a national basis toward generating a systematic consideration of the relationship of the entire city to its shoreline.

Two major factors have contributed to the relative neglect of the urban waterfront in coastal management programs. First, the physical development of the urban shoreline is characterized by a complex activity pattern that has been established over a long period of time. Traditionally, the central city waterfront has been the site for port and industrial facilities with residential neighborhoods and recreational areas located at the outer portions of the city shoreline. As the economic functions of the central city have changed, so have those of the waterfront. New commercial establishments are rapidly replacing older, marine-related industries, canneries have given way to restaurants, and industrial buildings have been converted into condominiums. The crucial issue that faces the central city today is how to recycle the waterfront without losing the cultural and historic character of the coastal zone.

Second, the institutional arrangements for governing the city waterfront are characterized by the presence of large governmental units, which have extensive fiscal resources and political power. In many communities, independent port authorities and commissions control the development and operation of marine terminals. Such agencies have a strong stake in fostering new port uses and perceive coastal management as merely another set of environmental constraints. Similarly, large central cities that seek to maintain and expand their economic viability are less than enthusiastic about sharing their authority to regulate the coastal zone with other governmental organizations.

The values and interests of large municipalities and independent port agencies are oriented toward encouraging development and redevelopment of the coastal zone. Nonetheless, economic development of coastal resources has often been considered to conflict with environmental protection on the coastal zone. Consequently, large cities and port districts often seek exclusion from the jurisdiction of coastal management programs that restrict or inhibit their capacity to undertake waterfront-renewal measures.

The structure of municipal government also poses problems for coastal zone management. Few cities have units specifically organized to plan and develop the city's coastal resources. Rather, numerous municipal departments and special districts have responsibility for managing the urban waterfront. Independent nonpartisan commissions, which have responsibility for parks or urban renewal, play a significant role in allocating coastal resources. However, they autonomous structure restricts public involvement in their decisional processes. In addition, such municipal functions as property management, planning and development, and land-use regulation, all of which are of critical importance to the coastal zone, are carried out by large bureaucratic departments that operate with little coordination of separate activities.

Moreover, few municipal departments or independent commissions see the coastal zone as a separate or distinct segment of the city as a whole. As a result, municipal regulatory mechanisms, such as zoning resolutions and building codes, often impede rather than encourage imaginative plans for coastal development. Seattle's master shoreline plan exemplifies one of the few efforts undertaken to develop municipal policies that relate specifically to the distinct character of the urban waterfront. Chicago has also designed a pioneering plan for regulating development on Lake Michigan.

The challenge for coastal management is to respond to the institutional structure and development needs of urban communities. Clearly, there is a need for programs to assist cities in formulating and carrying out coastal management efforts. Such programs should encourage cities to design an organizational structure for making efficient and effective use of the urban waterfront and provide incentives for new multi-use projects on the coastal zone as well. Given the intense demands for access to coastal resources, the development and redevelopment of the often unused city waterfront can serve as a means to accommodate the diverse pressures for coastal resources. It represents a positive management approach to reduce pressures on more environmentally sensitive portions of the coastal zone as well as contribute to the development of viable economic structures in out nation's cities.

 

Originally published in Coastal Zone Management Journal, 1977
Volume 3, Number 3
Crane, Russak & Company, Inc.