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In the majority of urban centres, the once common dockside factories and horse-drawn narrow boats carrying goods from workshop to workshop are long gone. Instead these once down at heel, solely industrial neighbourhoods have become some of the most desirable spaces in town. The decline of water-based industry in cities and the more recently discovered health benefits associated with urban waterbodies, as well as a number of other historical factors, has transformed the reputations of these areas and cemented access to Blue Space as one of the most important factors in building a healthy city.
Here at Walulel we understand the necessity of Blue Space access and have built our appreciation of it into our WaInsight platform, allowing anybody to discover their nearest waterbody and take full advantage of the benefits of this surprisingly underappreciated urban asset.
Since the dawn of urban civilisation, a waterside location has been a priority. The planet’s first cities, Uruk, Ur and Eridu, emerged around 3000BC in Sumer, part of the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia. They formed what is known as The Cradle of Civilisation, and sat between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, just north of the sea now known as the Persian Gulf.
But it wasn’t just the great views that encouraged their foundation and ensured their success. The blue they settled amongst provided drinking water and an abundant, renewable source of food. The fertile land that surrounded them was continuously irrigated, providing plentiful harvests and maintaining foliage which in turn helped absorb any potentially dangerous floods. These cities and many more like them thrived, and it is little surprise that many of the world’s oldest surviving cities including Baghdad, Athens and Beirut were established near a large river or the sea.
Water also provided a source of energy, as well as a convenient transport route that tended to be faster and smoother than taking horse-drawn carts along bumpy paths. Industry and trade therefore found its natural home next to the city’s waterbodies. However, they also acted as a means of “removing” the city’s industrial and human waste, which was often dumped straight into them. As populations expanded the rivers couldn’t withstand the strain and pollutants from industry and raw sewage became common in many urban rivers and streams, causing outbreaks of cholera as it contaminated drinking water supplies. Unsurprisingly inner-city waterways developed a notoriety for their stench and the diseases they carried.
As a result, the noise, pollution and smells associated with the riverbanks, ports, quays, wharfs and docks made them wholly undesirable living locations, often a permanent home only to the very poorest. The cheap land facilitated opium dens and brothels which would become home to many a city’s underbelly, and by the Victorian era ‘going down the docks’ was code for getting involved in some seedy business – hard to imagine when walking luxury flat-lined rivers today.
Thankfully this poor reputation was not to last though. Banks cleaned up as pollution legislation became widespread and sewer systems more robust. Factories moved inland and away from urban conurbations as the ability to transport goods across the country and abroad became easier, allowing working populations some respite from relentless smog. Such drastic changes made these vast areas of once industrial land irresistible to developers, and the waterfront building revolution was set to begin in the mid-20th century, with Chicago leading the way.
In 1951 the architect Mies can der Rohe designed the Lake Shore Drive apartments with an incredible view over the vast waters of Lake Michigan, the first waterside project of this scale and height. This was followed by the eye-catching towers of Marina City, which were designed by Bertrand Goldberg and erected alongside the then-filthy Chicago River in 1959. The river has since been cleaned up and the apartments are now hot property in downtown Chicago.
By the 80s London had taken on Chicago’s mantle, and alongside the property boom and the death of London’s port industry, the city’s watersides began blooming with residential and office towers. The Canary Wharf area of London is probably the most notable outcome of this urban transition as well as the countless former factories and warehouses that have been converted into apartments along the Thames from Woolwich to Wandsworth.
More recently, across Britain it’s been the extensive 6,500-mile network of canals that have taken centre stage after decades of volunteer work and billions in public funding to restore them to their pre-industrial, bucolic cleanliness. Urban renewal abounds with Middlewood Locks in Salford seeing a £700m canalside housing area, and there are plans for a 43-acre residential site in Port Loop, Birmingham, previously home to the city’s sawmills and glassworks. London’s once rickety Regent’s Canal is now home to the Granary Square and Coal Drops Yard developments on former industrial land that surrounded King’s Cross Station, and further north in Tottenham, Hale Wharf will soon see 500 new homes adorning the banks of the Lee navigation. There are many more examples too.
While not everyone will be able or choose to live in these new sites, and there are certainly debates over their exclusivity and the gentrification of waterside areas, they have helped in a number of ways to improve the quality of their locations and make them safer and more enjoyable than they might once have been. Cleaning and rewilding, the building and refurbishment of walkways, the provision of lighting and seating, the opening of waterside cafes and bars – all of these tactics work towards making urban Blue Space more accessible and enticing to the public, ensuring more and more people can appreciate its benefits.
But what are the benefits? Now that it serves little function to industry, why does water demand such a premium and appeal to so many, to the extent that many will volunteer to wade through the mud and algae in all seasons to pick out rusted shopping trolleys? We have covered similar questions in relation to Green Space, but it seems today that water has developed more of a draw and public will towards preservation than our parks and commons ever could.
As a recent field of research when it comes to the scientific benefits of Blue Space, there isn’t a huge body of work to go on as there is for parks, but from what is available it seems the simple answer is that existing close to water is just really good for your mental well-being!
It’s certainly intuitive that being nearby water often has a calming feeling – centuries of art and literature can attest to this. Sitting and strolling along the riverbank has long been popular in urban centres, but scientific study has recently given us specific reasons as to why, showing that psychological stress is lowered during a walk along a waterfront.
This could be for a number of reasons.
Heat is lowered by a close proximity to water in hotter climates meaning riverbanks and coastal areas reduce heat stress, and flowing water and fountains mitigate the sound of traffic and other city noises that can cause tension. Such effects have been shown to drastically alleviate some of the mentally distressing elements caused by the urban built environment. This relaxing quality is even seen with the installation of just a small fountain in a built-up area.
Nature plays a big role too in creating happy and healthy urban environments, as we have previously mentioned in relation to parks and open green space. Canals and waterways have, since their industrial decline and subsequent regeneration, become havens for wildlife, around which studies have found the human stress response is lowered and feelings of calm induced – the Biophilia hypothesis. Many waterbodies have even been turned into wildlife sanctuaries, such as the Woodbury Wetlands in Hackney. Researchers also believe that factors as subtle as the patterns of light that are reflected or are cast by water help humans recover from cognitive fatigue which is crucial to psychological restoration.
There is evidence as well that those who are closer to Blue Space engage more readily in exercise, and not just those specifically associated with water such as swimming or kayaking. This is perhaps due to reduced air pollution and heat in the vicinity of water, as well as a higher likelihood of clear pathways on which to exercise compared to roads and pavements further from it. They are also sociable places, with the general lack of vehicle traffic encouraging walking or outdoor seating, which can lead to enjoyable encounters with friends and other city dwellers.
While research is in its early stages and this article can only summarise a small handful of work, there seems enough to go on to suggest that Blue Space certainly produces a positive impact on mental and physical health in urban settings.
Therefore, at Walulel we believe it is incredibly important that all city dwellers know how to access this important asset that can often be forgotten or missed in the built-up hustle and bustle of the metropolis. As such we have developed a Blue Space metric that can pinpoint your location in relation to your nearest accessible bodies of water, or tell you the places that have the best access to them. We hope that this feature can be useful in helping urban dwellers find their perfect location in the city.