The Role and Significance of the Recreational Reconquest of Port Spaces: Rouen (France) Reinvention at the Neck of the Estuary

Rouen offers a unique opportunity to study the evolution of large-scale port wastelands in a metropole located at the neck of an estuary, the most landlocked of the great European seaports. What is the role and significance of recreational conversion in public policies? The chapter puts the significance of this conversion and the role of these practices into perspective by situating them in the context of the central, network and nodal relations between the city and the port. A new urbanity centred on the port is being established, revealing different usages, publics and regions that give expression to physical and symbolic discontinuities that are reflected in original narratives.