Global Waterfront Revitalization: A Youth-Led Revolution from “Spatial Renewal” to “Content Empowerment”

Along the Suzhou Creek, century-old architecture echoes a dialogue between the river and the city’s future. On the afternoon of November 18, at the launch ceremony and Shanghai Forum session for the Shanghai stop of Flowing: Setting Out from Shanghai—A Global Dialogue on Urban Humanities (hereinafter Flowing) Season 2, a roundtable themed “Youthful Momentum and Open-Source Waterfront Vitality” brought together cross-disciplinary experts to explore how waterfront cities can move beyond “spatial renewal” toward deeper “content-driven empowerment.”

The roundtable was moderated by Zhao Bingbing, Chief Representative for Greater China of the World Cities Culture Forum and the London Development Promotion Agency. Participants included renowned writer and director Chen Danyan; Bertrand Régnier, recipient of the Magnolia Honor Award and Global Head of EY France; Qu Wei, Deputy General Manager of the Corporate Business Department (Green Finance Center) at Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPD Bank) headquarters; Chenghe Guan, Co-founder of the Shanghai Key Laboratory of Urban Design and Urban Science; and Zhou Yu, China Head and Senior Director of Savills International Real Estate. They discussed topics including youth-driven waterfront dynamism, strengthening “open-source” narratives along waterfronts, and sustaining urban vitality amid uncertainty.

“Open source” here refers not only to openness and sharing in the technology domain, but also serves as a metaphor for an urban governance philosophy: releasing cultural storytelling, commercial practice, and scientific innovation from relatively closed “professional black boxes,” and transforming them into public goods that governments, businesses, and communities can collectively co-create and iterate.

This article is a compilation of the roundtable discussion prepared by The Paper Research Institute for readers.

“All history is contemporary history”: the cultural vitality of waterfronts

From Suzhou Creek and the Huangpu River to the Thames, writer-director Chen Danyan is collaborating with The Paper on a documentary project titled Roses by the Water. It traces historical links between Chinese old roses and English roses, and between Shanghai and London—through twin-city connections, docks and ports, and shipping and trade.

Waterfront cities and docks have long been central subjects in Chen’s writing. She once tried to find the dockworkers’ work chants along the Thames in London, without success. The same was true in other port cities such as Liverpool, Antwerp, Hamburg, and New York. Such chants were products of an era when loading and unloading relied on manual labor. Because mechanization arrived relatively early in many ports, these chants were not fully preserved. Yet in 1950s Shanghai, the fieldwork of two 21-year-old conservatory students unexpectedly preserved this precious cultural legacy.

“The ones who most often gain an original and fresh understanding of history are precisely the younger generation, not the older,” Chen said. “What we call youthful momentum is actually renewable energy—life force. It is not only about age or year, but more about how we perceive things.” All history is contemporary history, and this is what sustains the ongoing cultural vitality of waterfronts.

Four core expressions of waterfront vitality

Zhou Yu of Savills has witnessed the “growth” of waterfront districts in both Shanghai and London. Drawing on the past 15 years of work and observation in China and the UK, he proposed four core expressions of a vibrant, multifaceted waterfront: functional mix (integrating commerce, offices, housing, entertainment, and leisure); all-day activation (expanding from an eight-hour workday to a 24-hour city); diversified user groups; and permeable form—shifting from turning away from the water to “bringing water into the city,” with waterfronts integrating more organically with ecology.

Cases such as London’s Tate galleries and the Battersea Power Station redevelopment, alongside Shanghai’s West Bund Museum cluster and the Fuxin Flour Mill creative park along Suzhou Creek, offer multiple pathways for rethinking and revitalizing waterfront vitality.

Waterfront renewal, Zhao Bingbing added, is an ongoing process. Howard Dawber, Deputy Mayor of London (Business and Growth) and Chair of the London Development Promotion Agency, visited Shanghai in March this year and took part in the June Flowing London session. Comparing the Shanghai and London waterfronts, Dawber noted that London’s Canary Wharf—developed 20 to 30 years ago—now requires “a second round of development.” Behind the issue of vacant buildings lies the need for more diverse business formats and a broader mix of people.

When “financial living water” meets “youthful momentum”

Behind urban renewal and waterfront revitalization runs a less visible thread: “financial living water.” In May 2025, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Advancing Urban Renewal Actions on an Ongoing Basis, further deepening the development logic and substantive meaning of urban renewal.

As a municipal state-owned enterprise, SPD Bank is a deep participant in projects that renew and energize the city, providing financial support to key initiatives across fields such as industrial cluster upgrading and integrated green-ecological development. As of the end of the third quarter of 2025, SPD Bank’s outstanding urban renewal loan balance exceeded RMB 160 billion, with more than 200 projects implemented.

Qu Wei noted that urban renewal is no longer merely about reinforced concrete. Financial institutions’ involvement has shifted from traditional real estate financing to participation in holistic operations and the provision of comprehensive services. Examples include protecting historical character in the Jiading Ximen Historic and Cultural District renovation; addressing livelihood needs while preserving the everyday vibrancy of Shanghai’s old alleyways in projects such as Hongkou Ruikangli; upgrading both city functions and industrial functions; integrating green ecology through the Yangtze River Delta Eco-Integration Demonstration Zone’s Qingpu “Water-Town Living Room” urban renewal; and leading projects such as the Sanlin wedge-shaped green space—bringing finance closer to the public and serving the public.

A common challenge for financial institutions is balancing social benefits with commercial sustainability. A familiar paradox is that when public space quality improves and residents’ sense of gain is strongest, the commercial return model is often difficult to quantify directly. This calls for innovation in diversified financing mechanisms. Qu explained that this includes recognizing intangible assets—such as data assets—on balance sheets; innovative use of tools such as PPP, operating-period loans, and M&A loans; and leveraging models such as infrastructure public REITs and asset securitization to convert long-term returns into near-term financing capacity.

“Innovation in finance and support for youthful momentum are inseparable,” Qu said. “Recognizing ‘youthful momentum’ means recognizing the implicit cash flow of future assets—this is the asset value banks are willing to support.”

Zhao Bingbing also spoke of “patient capital.” In some European urban renewal projects, investment payback horizons extend to 30–50 years. Appropriately lengthening evaluation cycles can help ease the tension between short-term profitability pressures and long-term social value.

Shanghai’s waterfront competitiveness in an international perspective

Bertrand Régnier, a French national who has lived in Shanghai for 17 years and serves as Global Head of EY France, shared observations and professional research on waterfronts from a comparative international perspective.

After governance efforts and improved connectivity, today’s waterfront has regained vitality. “Shanghai is very proud of ‘one river and one creek’—you could say people have regained Suzhou Creek,” Régnier said. Beyond local residents, the river and creek corridors are becoming new tourism attractions. In the past, visitors were concentrated in traditional landmarks such as the Bund; now, as waterfront activities diversify, more tourists are moving deeper into the city’s river hinterlands to explore waterfront areas with stronger local character.

Régnier argued that urban vitality has four dimensions: scale, change, speed, and long-term orientation—the last being especially important. “Today’s malls and office buildings are not built only for the present, but for the future. We need to evaluate today’s construction projects and infrastructure from a future-facing perspective.”

EY is advancing a research project on global business districts. Many business districts face similar challenges: how to better attract talent, sustain innovation, improve community integration and inclusiveness, and enhance “user experience” through new digital and intelligent infrastructure.

Zhao added that the World Cities Culture Forum (WCCF)—which connects more than 40 cities in a global creative-city network—also released its fifth edition of global cultural cases this year, likewise emphasizing community inclusiveness and the “revitalization” of heritage through digital technologies.

“Urban lightweighting” and future vitality

How do we assess a city’s degree of “youthfulness”? Different disciplines and schools of thought apply different criteria.

Functionalism holds that a youthful city should operate like an efficient machine—maximizing efficiency across transportation, capital, and the entire system. The metabolism school considers which stage a city such as Shanghai is in: birth, rapid growth, stability, decline, or regeneration.

Chenghe Guan suggested newer perspectives, such as “urban lightweighting” or the “urbanization of robotics.”

He argued that measuring a city like Shanghai is not only about the “weight” of its physical space, but also the “weight” of the digital assets and innovative energy it carries. Looking ahead to an era of digital twins and artificial intelligence, urban sensing technologies may enable personalized, “thousand people, thousand experiences” interactions. “When technology allows the same waterfront space to offer distinct perception and interaction to different people, true urban youthfulness and vitality can be realized—perhaps a future symphony of carbon-based life and silicon-based intelligence along the water.”

“‘Rivers converge, yet they do not run dry.’ We hope youthful waterfront momentum will keep flowing through openness and inclusiveness, allowing cities to truly ‘come alive by water,’” Zhao concluded. The open-source path to waterfront vitality requires multidimensional synergy among cultural narrative, urban planning, financial support, and technological empowerment—alongside international collaboration and cross-sector cooperation among government, business, and the cultural community.

The Shanghai stop of Flowing Season 2 was guided by the Information Office of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government; jointly organized by Shanghai United Media Group and the Shanghai Association for International Cultural Exchange; and hosted by The Paper and the Suhewan Group. Season 2 also received support from the Office of the Shanghai Municipal Financial Commission (Office for Advancing Shanghai as an International Financial Center), the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (Office of the “One River, One Creek” Leading Group), the Shanghai Local Chronicles Office, and the Jing’an District People’s Government. Special thanks go to the British Consulate-General Shanghai, the London Development Promotion Agency, China Eastern Airlines, and the Shanghai Bulgari Hotel. EY (China) and Bloomberg provided special corporate support, with SPD Bank serving as a special cooperation partner.