The Hamburg’s policy, as part of the ‘Leap over the Elbe River’ strategy, is an example of the current direction of the city’s renewal, falling beyond classical revitalization. Improvement of quality and refinement of urban structures require an unconventional approach in the problem areas, both in the phase of setting the target standards and at the stage of solution implementation. The districts located in the fork of the Elbe river, Hamburg’s left-bank post-habor areas, were given the IBA (International Building Exhibition) Hamburg status in 2006-13. The area of Wilhelmsburg has become the place of implementing an innovative urban strategy, under the slogan of a renewable city, which has prepared the Island for a modern policy of compact city model development. The conclusions from the analysis of the renewal process that had been carried out within the framework of the IBA Hamburg, described in this article, have been summarized with regard to the Polish conditions represented by the example of the revitalization process in the Nowy Port district in Gdańsk.