Urban Entrepreneurialism and Green Renewal of Industrial Heritage: Mechanisms and Impacts — Implications and Reflections on Highline Park

The study of industrial heritage has gradually gone beyond the singular "architecture" perspective and evolved toward the multidisciplinary direction since it received widespread attention in the world in the 1960s. This research aims to advance this process and explore the path and impact of industrial heritage's landscape renewal and functional transformation against the backdrop of stock development from the perspective of urban cultural landscape and governance. Taking the Highline park as an example, it decodes how the growth coalition evolves and impacts urban development through the theory of urban entrepreneurialism. The research unfolds three stages in highline park renewal. In the initial dispute period, stakeholders bargain for demolition/retention of highline for their own interests, giving rise to the idea of “highline park” and growth coalition; the coalition is enlarged through capital bundling whereby the area of highline railway is reshaped; flexible alliance in post-construction further extends highline coalition and marks the park as a global cultural brand for investment attraction. Highline park typifies a green renewal of industrial heritage against the rise of environmentalism. Although it has remolded a new urban landscape and brought added value to surrounding real estate, local gentrification has unfortunately been accelerated, which generates significant insights into China’s green renewal of industrial heritage.