tices both along the shore and offshore. What has to be taken on board is that
water’s edge development of all kinds is both a major attraction and big business.
Developments here become urban centres in their own right. Smith (1992) picks
up on this in his eight-stage documentation of the evolution of an unplanned
water’s edge settlement, from ‘second home’ strip development, through to the
subsequent motels and hotels, to tourist domination, and urbanization, leading to
environmental degradation.
Sustainable urban planning at the water’s edge begs reversal
of the unfettered commodification practices of the past – the neo-
modern objective being to draw interested parties into benefiting
from joint venture partnerships between landowners, developers,
conservators and local authorities on an integrated win-win basis.
Joint ventures are hard work, but the rewards include conser-
vancywithdevelopment, improved public access, and an overall
harmonization of the interface between land and water.
There are other dimensions to a water’s edge urban strategy.
These include such tangibles as the retention of coastal and lake-
side biodiversity and richness; also the provision – sometimes
compulsory acquisition – of public access, reinforcement of the
waterline’s legibility and personality, and above all an enhance-
ment of the sociability of coastal and lakeland communities. Indi-
vidualization of landholding needs to give way to legal certainty
for public domains and public good. To elaborate on the joint venture suggestion
made earlier, a key strategy involves cooperation between central and local
government because this provides the springboard for government–developer
partnerships which are otherwise notoriously difficult to initiate.
ECO-village ideals
Planning literature is larded through with concepts for new urban outcomes, some
desirable, others highly speculative, few carried over to bricks and mortar.^42 There
iseithera lack of capability to set aside, out-purchase or override the profiteering
orthodoxy of freehold landowners and the lineal certitude of local bureaucracies,
and,or also, a lack of operational and political understanding, conviction and com-
mitment to the negotiating deal-cutting and equity-adjustment potentials in joint
actions and joint ventures.
In the essentially idealistic peri-urban category arises the eco-village, a new-
urbanist concept often too difficult to achieve, yet too good to pass over. This new
style of urbanism, known also as neotraditionalism, has been subjected to a lot of
criticism, summarized by Larry Ford (2000) as a mode lacking in distinctiveness
and authenticity, and exhibiting a marketing flirtation. The eco-village concept can
transcend Ford’s criticism, and is of course worthy, being ofthese technological
times (proven-science, bioharmonic materials and techno-gadgetry) and foreco-
logical balance and social harmony – albeit at a high unit cost. My preference
lies with the neomodern prototypes invented from the present, rather than
Urban Growth Management 223A serious social failing is
that the population of
over-wintering water’s
edge holiday settlements
can be as low as one-
sixth of the summer
holiday population. The
low-density wintering
population suffers from
being identified as a
remnant residual group
with isolation and
security fears along with
winter weather
desolation to contend
with.