This paper draws upon ongoing research that has investigated the redevelopment of the Port Adelaide waterfront in South Australia. Developing previous research (see Rofe & Szili 2009), the authors contend that place names such as Port Adelaide may be so infused with negativity that attempts to renegotiate its meaning through physical redevelopment and traditional place...

This paper provides a brief background to what drove renewal projects in the cities of Melbourne and Adelaide and their current status, the changing priorities of government, the shifting commercial environment and current challenges faced by those seeking to plan these new urban spaces.

Stigmatised as Port Misery for over 150 years, the name of Port Adelaide and its adjacent suburbs are still infused with the meanings of their derelict past. This paper investigates the method employed by the Newport Quays development consortium in the revitalisation of the Port Adelaide waterfront.

Through a discursive analysis of interview and document material, this paper explores the extent to which ‘community’ is both imagined and re-imagined as an outcome of these distinct new urban forms. This is considered using the Port Adelaide waterfront as a case study.

The impending waterfront redevelopment of Port Adelaide is a local manifestation of a global phenomenon. Through a carefully managed place marketing process, the Port’s industrial landscape is to be reconceptualized as a future landscape of cosmopolitan consumption and professional occupancy.