Waterfront revitalization projects: a comparative study of London Docklands and Yokohama Minato Mirai 21

This paper focuses on two specific waterfront revitalization projects: The Docklands (London, Great Britain) and Minato Mirai 21 (Yokohama, Japan). The paper examines the projects from two vantage points: (1) the contributions and achievements of the private sector towards waterfront revitalization projects, and (2) public participation in the development of the new waterfront plans. The schema of the paper is developed according to a ‘sand-glass’ structure. First, we broadly analyze the two aspects of public participation and private sector involvement in the urban planning process. From this analysis, by way of an inference argument, we have concentrated upon the specific cases of The Docklands and Minato Mirai 2 1. The study of these two examples of waterfront revitalization has next allowed us to develop the third part, where we have described a possible policy approach towards waterfront projects.