Heritage, History and Heartache in the Redevelopment of the Port Adelaide Waterfront, South Australia

15th INTERNATIONAL PLANNING HISTORY SOCIETY CONFERE N C E ‘OUR HARBOUR... THEIR DREAM’: HERITAGE, HISTORY AND HEARTACHE IN THE REDEVELOPMENT OF THE PORT ADELAIDE WATERFRONT, SOUTH AUSTRALIA. DR GERTRUDE E SZILI* DR MATTHEW W ROFE Address: *School of the Environment Flinders University GPO Box 2100, Adelaide 5001 South Australia Australia e-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT Following the demise of the industrial economy, many western cities and their industrial precincts have become synonymous with social, economic and environmental malaise. As a result, recent trends in urban policy have revealed an explicit emphasis on the redevelopment and revitalisation of these underutilised industrial landscapes. Indicative of these landscapes are ports and other neglected waterfront sites. The redevelopment of the Port Adelaide waterfront in South Australia serves as an exemplar of such a post-industrial transformation. Dominated by entrepreneurial governance arrangements, powerful public and private sectors have coalesced to reinvigorate the decaying landscape through physical restructuring and discursive tactics aligned with city marketing and place making campaigns (Szili & Rofe 2007; 2010; 2011;Rofe & Szili 2009). In doing so, images of growth and cosmopolitan vitality supplant the stigmatised images associated with deindustrialisation, portraying the region as once again economically vital and socially progressive. Central to this reimaging is an explicit recognition and engagement with the Port’s maritime history and heritage. Drawing on the successful post-industrial transformation of other waterfronts such as the Melbourne and London docklands (see for example Butler 2007; Dovey 2005; Marshall 2001), the incorporation of heritage-sensitive design in Port Adelaide was not dissimilar to other ports globally. Possessing a rich maritime and industrial history and heritage, the development consortium responsible for the Port’s revitalisation openly espoused the protection, preservation and celebration of the ‘maritime flavour’ of the Port. Indeed, discussions held with key stakeholder informants revealed the benefits of heritage-sensitive design as serving both the needs of city marketing strategies and the needs of existing residents in nurturing their ‘sense of place’. However, whilst the rhetoric of the public-private partnership ostensibly involved history and heritage, the reality for the local community was quite different. Foremost of these concerns were issues regarding the discordant scale and form of the new development within the existing heritage precinct (Szili 2011). Moreover, concessions in planning mechanisms and regulations appeared to favour commercial profitability over heritage-sensitive design. As such, significant community opposition arose, with many locals viewing the redevelopment as grossly insensitive to the history and heritage of the landscape and its people. Thus, through the Port Adelaide waterfront redevelopment experience, the following paper traces the inadequacies of such entrepreneurially driven revitalisation schemes in meeting local heritage concerns. In doing so, the authors highlight the tensions inherent in the transformation of redundant industrial waterfronts to post- industrial landscapes of cosmopolitanism and vitality. 1 Cities, nations and regions in planning history INTRODUCTION: THE EBB AND FLOW OF PORT GEOGRAPHIES After the global recession of the mid 1970s and the precipitant collapse ofindustrial economies, many western nations and their cities endured rapid deindustrialisation (Paddison 1993; Short et al . 1993). For traditional industrial areas that once embodied technological and economic progress, this resulted insignificant disinvestment and physical abandonment. Consequently, former industrial landscapes have come to communicate complex images of physical and senses of discursive decline. Physical decline manifests itself through “jungle[s] of rott[ing] [buildings] and abandoned warehouses” (Hula 1990, p.194), while discursively such areas convey more complex messages such as escalating unemployment, crime and a general social malaise (DeSousa 2005). In the wake of the post-industrial economy, many of these geographiesare now being reclaimed and revitalised through the processes of gentrification and urban regeneration policies that involve collaborations between the public and private sectors (McGuirk 2000; Rofe 2004; Tallon 2010). In an era where cities constantlyvie for investments at a global scale, it has become critical for urban localities toportray images of growth and cosmopolitan vitality and progress in order to remaincompetitive.Critical readings of landscapes in transition reveal that the post-industrial landscape proffers an “impression of improvement” (Dunn et al . 1995, p.149). Specifically, place making and city marketing campaigns are employed to recastredundant urban landscapes with more positive images aligned to the post-industrial rhetoric of consumption and leisure. This may involve a physical restructuring of the built environments, such as the construction of luxury apartments and shopping complexes. Alternatively, it may also involve the incorporation of highly selective imagery of social, economic and environmental vitality in marketing and media material. However, whilst a more “cosmopolitan and optimistic” city narrative may be beneficial in reversing social and economic malaise (Rofe 2004, p.193), it often conflicts with former identities and conceals many adverse impacts such ascommunity disruption and displacement (Dunn et al . 1995; Holcomb 2001; Jonas & McCarthy 2009; Howley et al . 2009; Watson 1991). For port geographies, the selective inclusion and consideration of history and heritage has long been one such area of conflict (Hoyle et al . 1988; Pinder 2003; Waitt & McGuirk 1997). Seaport development has undoubtedly contributed to the cultural heritage of coastal areas throughout the world (Hoyle 1996; Pinder 2003). Through the vagaries of economic activity, these landscapes have accumulated distinctive infrastructuresand are intricately tied to the sense of place of local communities (Hoyle 2000; Hoyle et al . 1988; Hurley 2006). For Pinder (2003, pp.36-37), a strong sense of place identity amongst local populations within port localities “has not simply been based on the… often overwhelming economic importance of… port[s]; [but] also fundamental to cultural heritagedevelopment has been civic pride…”. Even through waves of deindustrialisation and disinvestment, port geographies have remained physically and discursively alive in local vernacular. In support, Rofe & Oakley (2006, p.282) assert that while physical and external perceptions may render ailing ports as decrepit, ‘rust-bucket’ sites beyond salvation, local “discourse[s] of kinship and mateship”often prevail to form the foundation of “fiercely parochial communities”. These competing discourses thus become highly politicised in port revitalisation projects, where post-industrial prophecies of cosmopolitan vitality clash with locally mediated visions of the future. Specifically, the preservation and incorporation of built heritage and social memory can “all too easily be obliterated by the effects of a complex set of interrelated physical, planning,economic and community environments” – even in an era where 15th INTERNATIONAL PLANNING HISTORY SOCIETY CONFERE N C E “heritage has gained a high profile” in port redevelopments (Pinder 2003, p.37). Moreover, where heritage and history are integrated in such projects, criticisms still abound with the often selective inclusion of artefacts and social memory (Waitt & McGuirk 1997). For port regeneration, this discernment is not surprising given the socially and morally corrupt messages that port landscapes are said to imbue (Reiser & Crispin 2009; Rofe & Oakley 2006; Rofe & Szili 2009; Spector 2010; Szili & Rofe 2007). However, privileging sanitised and selective versions of the past to serve the needs of capital accumulation is problematic. For example Waitt & McGuirk (1997, p.350) argue that commodifying history results in, “prioritising ofofficial over vernacular histories, artefacts over mentifacts, first and oldest structures over all others, the elite over the proletariat, men over women, Anglo-Celtic over indigenous peoples, theglorious over the ignoble, colonisation over industrialisationand egalitarian ideology over extantsocial relationships”. As such, dominant social norms remain unchallenged and significant conflict may arise, jeopardising the successful transformation of these largely redundant landscapes. Notwithstanding the notion that landscapes embody multiple levels of meaning that are socially constructed and comprised of anamalgam of material and symbolic elements (Dunn et al . 1995), development consortia must demonstrate real consideration of the multivocal heritage and history of port waterfronts, if successful revitalisation is to be achieved. Marshall (2001) and Spector (2010, p.102) further support this notion claiming that the multivocality of ailing industrial waterfronts “yield important stories –good and bad” – that are integral to successful post-industrial transformation. The following paper thus traces the inadequacies of such entrepreneurially driven revitalisation schemes in meeting local heritage concerns. The discussion presented is derived from data obtained through a multi-methodological approach. Specifically, the paper presents data derived from landscape deconstruction of Port Adelaide

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