Understanding the planning and practice of redeveloping disused docklands using critical urban assemblage as a lens: a case study of Port Adelaide, Australia

Abstract

The Port Adelaide inner harbour, like other waterfront developments nationally and internationally, reflects the bringing together of a range of elements—ideas, policies, people, capital and strategies—in reconfiguring the built form. This preliminary study investigates the utility of applying a concept of critical urban assemblage to understand the planning, processes and delivery of this Australian waterfront redevelopment. The aim is to go beyond situating the redevelopment as a ‘model’ of success or failure, or the sole result of a neo-liberalized urban regeneration paradigm.