Assessing social impacts in urban waterfront regeneration

The target of this article is to identify the social impacts of urban waterfront regeneration. For this purpose, four different dimensions of social impacts in urban waterfront planning are presented: resources and identity, social status, access and activities and waterfront experience. The four social dimensions refer to the different ways of experiencing and using the edges of the sea, lake or river to make an understanding of their qualities to the community. The contents of this typology are illustrated by analysing some basic features of three different newly built waterfront areas in Helsinki. The article is based on post-evaluation.