The urban waterfront has gained prominence in the last few decades when issues of their sustainable development became an intense debate both at local and global arena. This is more pertinent to the historic waterfronts built during the water transportation era and where major cities around the world today can traces its beginnings.

Urban design is about the art of building cities that exudes a sense of place. The emerging trend of copying templates of successful waterfront in other parts of the world into the local setting can erode the sense of place, thereby threatening local identities of Malaysian waterfront cities and thus threatening our local identities.

Efforts such as this urban design compendium for historic waterfront regeneration in Malaysian cities should be commended and applauded as there is a transfer of knowledge from university researchers to urban design practitioners and other professionals.