A river revitalization: Seen through the lens of local community members

Abstract

This article provides insight into a revitalization project of a river near Basle in Switzerland. The authors conducted an evaluation study to investigate the river revitalization from a social point of view. How do people, who spend their spare time there or who live near by, perceive and evaluate the changes? What does the revitalization mean to them? Do they support the nature‐preserving intentions? Might the ecological ambitions oppose behavioral habits and social life at the riverside? The research project included a visual part: visitors were first asked to take Polaroid photographs of what they liked and what they disliked about the locality. In a second step, they explained their pictures and their reasons for taking them. The article presents and analyses the visual and the verbal data. A nature‐oriented and ecological perspective emerges as but one of many ways visitors experience the area. Social and aesthetic arguments are prominent in the photographs and in the verbal evaluation of the revitalization project.