This week’s readings were quite humourous, and I don’t believe in a way that was initially intentioned until the authors’ found themselves writing about matters that simply were absurd. I read Vormann’s critique as a matter-of-fact academic paper that stated the reality of waterfront infrastructure and its glossed-over practicalities. Paired with both Metcalf’s recount of the twisted Mississipi River tales through his own twisted family histories, and with Kolbert’s light-hearted journalistic travel through the Chicago River problems, I found myself meeting Vormann’s points from the other way.

Vormann introduces a fascinating topic with great magnitude to ponder over: the global shipping industry. In particular, he reviews New York City’s intentional waterfront changes against manufactured perceptions of what a post-industrial city living is like, while simultaneously underlining the ignored statistic of how exponentially bigger the global shipping industry is now than ever before in history. As Vormann writes, “On a global scale, the movement of shipping containers more than tripled from 1970 to 2007, and in the two decades following 1990, world container throughout has increased sixfold” (Vormann 2015, 360). Essentially, whether we see it or not in the centres of the major cities in North America, trade and globalized shipping routes is a huge proponent of modern life where we can order anything online and have it delivered within a few days (if not, a same-day Prime delivery). Therefore, we might celebrate our society’s shared effort into creating beautiful, green spaces by the waterfront with shops, restaurants, and program in a place of rich maritime/industrial history, but it will always present a false assumption that, as a society, we have evolved from that archaic method of work and industry. In Vormann’s words: “These allusions to the past help us commemorate what seems to have been overcome” (358). Whereas in actuality, creating these spaces was only possible post-Fordism processes in industry and the push for neoliberalism in governmental policy changes that externalized costs in a way that made it “smarter” to ship Asian carp caught in Louisiana to be deboned in Ho Chi Minh City to be reshipped back here to sell as a method of regulating the invasive species’ population growth. Truly absurd processes that we take in desperation.

On the topic of absurdity, Kolbert recounts a list of solutions that the Army Corps of Engineers devised in dealing with the Asian Carp[ocalypse] trying to enter Chicago’s Sanitary and Ship Canal: “dosing the canal with poison, irradiating it with ultraviolet light, zapping it with ozone, using power-plant effluent to heat the water, and installing giant filters” (Kolbert 2021, 11-12). Their enacted solution of the “bubble barrier” cost $775 million (13). This method of attempting to control the problem that arose from attempting to control nature is one of extreme human assumption, desire for control, and the sheer confidence in engineering and technology that believes no cost is too high for its value, that I am beginning to doubt if any of the waterfront revitalization projects worked on by major firms in our discipline is actually of any monumental help. As Vormann relays, “important questions of legitimacy remain unasked if we focus on individual urban spaces” (Vormann 2015, 360). While I do fundamentally believe in the reuse of certain derelict spaces left to waste in densely-populated areas for matters of environmental and social leisure, enjoyment, and health, I do believe the creation of such waterfront projects can simply put an end to the conversation that still has much more to say. Perhaps this is what Vormann and Neil Smith’s caution against terms like “revitalization” and “regeneration” is targeting: the immediate closure of a topic for the “solution” created is simply a pretty compromise for the time being.

In light of these readings, how might we design a waterfront space if we were given such a project with aims to “revitalize” and “regenerate” the local area, environment, and economy? What are some immediate responses or questions that we, as designers, should raise that could either highlight the red-flags of our ways of thinking (ie. the never-ending climb towards progress!) or principles required for our global environmental changes?

Sources:

• Ben Metcalf, “American Heartworm” in The Baffler, 1998.
• Boris Vormann, “Toward an infrastructural critique of urban change: Obsolescence and changing perceptions of New York City’s waterfront” in City 19:2-3, (2015).
• Elizabeth Kolbert, “Down the river” in Under a white sky : the nature of the future, 2021.