Historic waterfront and the sense of place: the case of two unesco world heritage sites of Malaysia

Abstract

Urban waterfronts are unique cultural resources which has great potential to improve economic development, public enjoyment and civic identity. The waterfront area in the historic parts of a city presents an opportunity to revitalise declining urban areas as well as giving the city its sense of place. This issue is more predominant in the historic areas where the waterfront that was once active with port activities, cease to function in its traditional capacity. George Town and Penang were both jointly awarded the UNESCO world heritage site in 2008 because of the similarity in issues an d the functions they served in the past. The waterfronts of the cities were included in the heritage sites boundaries and their approaches to the waterfront development have important influence in the attempts to retain their sense of place. This paper is based on a research on waterfront regeneration of Malaysian cities funded by the government of Malaysia. It examines the approach to waterfront regeneration in the major cities of Malaysia including the two historic cities. A mixed method approach was adopted for the research using field observations, morphological study, in depth interview, questionnaire survey and content analysis of policies in government documents to collect data for the analysis. The research attempts to compare the differences in approaches between the two heritage cities and their effects to the sense of place. The research discovers that the level of contextual integration is an important consideration for successful waterfront regeneration for historic cities as to retain their sense of place.