Abstract Summary
Citizens all over the world are reclaiming their urban waterways for the purpose of open-air swimming. Rising temperatures, pressure on green spaces, and leading examples in pioneering cities inspire communities to re-imagine their city waters as part of public space. They see urban swimming as a way to reclaim the rights to the city, critiquing the privatization and unsafety of urban waterways while advocating for better swimming facilities in and around city waters. But the route to swimmable cities is not a simple case of supply and demand. Initiatives are often met with resistance from local governments. Arguments point to the lack of finances to clean urban waterways, technical- and safety issues, and fears for increased nuisance around swimming facilities. On top of that, the complexity of water management and the many interests at play influence the pace in which cities respond to the need for more places to safely swim. Yet pioneering cities such as Copenhagen and Bern show that through sustained effort of both local government and citizen initiatives, high water quality and excellent swimming facilities can be achieved – initiating an urban bathing culture that creates a stronger sense of belonging and more interaction across citizens. The alluring images of the clean Copenhagen harbour encourage us to explore better swimming opportunities in our home cities Amsterdam and Ghent. Comparing them to leading examples, we want to examine what we need to make our cities more swimmable. Which barriers influence the current swimming environment in our cities now and how can they be overcome? Can we discover a ‘blueprint’ for more swimmable cities? To answer these questions, we aim to identify and analyse the key factors that contribute to creating a vibrant and accessible urban swimming environment while also addressing the challenges and obstacles that hinder the realisation of this vision. The objective of this paper is to develop an outset blueprint for fostering swimmable cities by drawing insights from case studies in Copenhagen and Bern (the good), Amsterdam (the bad) and Ghent (the ugly). We will also look into recent initiatives in Brussels (POOL is cool), Melbourne (Yarra Pools) and Berlin (Fluss Bad), to navigate best practices of community engagement in the urban swimming movement and apply them to the context of our case study cities, Amsterdam and Ghent. *Our intention is to use the gained insights to start our own citizen initiative that advocates for better swimming facilities in Amsterdam and Ghent. We believe the conference is a perfect moment to present our findings and discuss barriers and possibilities, re-inventing our urban waterways together. We are open to suggestions about the scope of our paper or adopting another form like a workshop.
