2021 Theses Master's

A Framework for Sustainability Assessment of Urban Regeneration: The Case of Battery Park City

Li, Caili (Lisa)

Sustainability has gained growing importance in today’s urban development. In a highly urbanized context, to meet growing population needs, development or equity goals, additional social, economic or environmental benefits are created through urban regeneration projects within a city. This paper explores the concept of urban regeneration and sustainable regeneration, and its assessment methods. A sustainability assessment framework integrating three pillars ⎯ social, environmental and economic aspects will be developed, and the assessment will be performed using the case of Battery Park City, an often-appraised waterfront urban regeneration project in New York City. The processes and results of the development are examined to provide insights on the critical factors and approach to deliver sustainable urban regeneration. In addition, this paper also seeks to contribute to sustainability assessment approaches. As sustainability assessments often focus on one aspect of the three pillars, the developed framework integrating all three pillars could be referenced for scholars that seeks to assess comprehensively.
The paper finds that Battery Park City has meaningfully achieved sustainability in terms of deriving social, economic and environmental benefits. Nevertheless, the assessment finds that the Battery Park City could have incorporated sustainability initiative in an earlier stage. It is revealed that tradeoffs between the three aspects and stakeholders are key characters in the result and development processes.