Since the seventies urban waterfront revitalisation has become a world-wide process involving first the United States and then Japan, Europe and developing countries, and acquiring special importance in some cityports of South-East Asia. In the meantime coastal area management has made progress in many parts of the world to the point of being regarded as the management of the entirety of resource uses and environmental enhancement in a belt extending seawards to the outer edge of the Exclusive Economic Zone. Hence the need to consider both present and expected interaction between waterfront objectives and coastal zone management. Analysis considers the initial inputs to revitalize urban waterfronts, especially the need to change port and industrial organisation, the rise of culturally-sound goals, such as the preservation of archaeological sites, the prospect of orienting waterfront changes also to environmental protection and preservation, the evolution in the perception of the waterfront role for the cityport and coastal region and the prospect of becoming the core of integrated coastal area management.