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Purpose: Examining the transformative impact of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), this research investigates how CPEC fosters cross-border cooperation and regional development. The research focuses on transnational institution building and the creation of multi-scalar geographies involving diverse public and private agencies, reshaping regional, sub-regional, and local territories. Design/Methodology/Approach: Employing a case study approach, the research focuses on Gwadar, the pivotal node of CPEC where the economic belt meets the maritime silk road. It integrates a literature review, analysis of official documents, and empirical data, supplemented by insights from independent researchers and international organizations such as the World Bank and IMF. Findings: The designation of Gwadar as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) with a globally competitive deep-sea port has introduced significant economic opportunities. However, multi-scalar interactions have led to tensions between central and local authorities, reflecting conflicts between the Centre-led macroeconomic agenda and its socio-economic sustainability at the local level. Implications/Originality/Value: The research emphasizes the need to rescale political, economic, and social structures to establish sustainable institutions in cross-border regions. It provides policy recommendations for Gwadar's development, drawing lessons from global best practices such as Dubai, Shenzhen, and King Abdullah Economic City.

Purpose: Examining the transformative impact of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), this research investigates how CPEC fosters cross-border cooperation and regional development. The research focuses on transnational institution building and the creation of multi-scalar geographies involving diverse public and private agencies, reshaping regional, sub-regional, and local territories. Design/Methodology/Approach: Employing a case study approach, the research focuses on Gwadar, the pivotal node of CPEC where the economic belt meets the maritime silk road. It integrates a literature review, analysis of official documents, and empirical data, supplemented by insights from independent researchers and international organizations such as the World Bank and IMF. Findings: The designation of Gwadar as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) with a globally competitive deep-sea port has introduced significant economic opportunities. However, multi-scalar interactions have led to tensions between central and local authorities, reflecting conflicts between the Centre-led macroeconomic agenda and its socio-economic sustainability at the local level. Implications/Originality/Value: The research emphasizes the need to rescale political, economic, and social structures to establish sustainable institutions in cross-border regions. It provides policy recommendations for Gwadar's development, drawing lessons from global best practices such as Dubai, Shenzhen, and King Abdullah Economic City.

This article examines the increasingly conflictual relationship between ports and their surrounding communities at a time of wide-reaching infrastructural expansion. It highlights how the centralization of power and logistical gigantism produce deterritorializing frictions, decoupling inhabitants from their territories and creating the conditions for social contestation. It calls for a rethinking of the role of communities in contemporary port-city governance, with an emphasis on imaginaries of re-territorialization produced through social mobilization. I frame the increasing contestation in port cities through a critical approach to logistics, arguing that citizen engagement holds the potential to drastically readdress the port-city relationship. It examines the cases of Genoa and Venice using ethnographic methods and reconstructs a historically in-depth counter-narrative of interactions between port, city and citizen. I contextualize specific frictions between port and city through the rise in social mobilizations. The article shows how social mobilization challenges the status quo in different ways, producing changes and illuminating pathways toward more sustainable forms of coexistence between ports and cities., History, Form & Aesthetics

Port cities are places at the edge of sea and land, where flows of goods and people create unique spaces, institutions and cultures, often over long periods of time. History matters when it comes to understanding and designing the future of port cities such as the two ancient Mediterranean cities of Beirut and Naples, where institutions and spaces are the result of longue durée histories. Long-standing spatial and institutional frameworks in these cities have influenced recent plans. In the Italian city of Naples, historic spaces and practices have impeded transformation, because port and city authorities are pursuing divergent and historically established goals while many industrial sites, including areas used by oil industry, await redevelopment. In Beirut, reconstruction following the tragic explosion of 2020, which significantly damaged both port and city, shaping and perhaps limiting the present and future of the city. This article analyses the historic development and the opportunities for future planning of Naples and Beirut through the lens of the Adaptive Strategies course, a master-level course coordinated by Carola Hein and co-taught with Paolo De Martino and John Hanna at TU Delft in 2022. Students, through imaginative methods, rethought the relationship between land and water, port and city, questioning current planning models and imagining new resilient and adaptive processes.

The history of the Mediterranean region and its port cities is crucial in understanding the origin and development of many modern societies. These cities have always been characterized by their interdependent relationships, forming an essential part of a system of crucial regional and international routes, made possible and enriched by the sea. Simultaneously, these cities have been able to preserve their urban values while continuously adapting to new requirements and circumstances, making them ideal case studies of urban resilience. Despite their decisive role in the emergence of the global economic system, these cities have received little attention from the humanities and social sciences. This article aims to consider the Mediterranean port cities in relation to their historical context, their urban model, and their intrinsic and shared conditions. For this purpose, a narrative literature review is developed, with reference authors on this topic. Additionally, fiction resources are explored as a complementary research method based on the intersections between description and invention in three projects focused on the Mediterranean region and its port cities.

This article provides an overview of the Texas Gulf Coast as a port city region dedicated above all to oil and gas. By the late 1800s, the same trends in transportation and industry that encouraged ship channel construction around the world drew attention to schemes to transform the Gulf Coast’s shallow bays and estuaries into inland deep-water harbors. An added factor in Texas was the vulnerability of Galveston and other coastal locations to hurricanes. Between 1902, when construction began on the 52-mile Houston Ship Channel, and the 1950s–60s, when a deep-water channel opened at Matagorda Bay along the mid-Texas coast, various levels of government—local, state, and national—combined to engineer one of the world’s most elaborate navigation networks. Six deep-water channels were woven together by Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, which connected Texas to the Mississippi and beyond. During the years when these ports were taking shape, the Texas oil industry had begun to burgeon. In a reflection of the pre-Spindletop origins of Texas’s deep-water movement, policy and planning continued to assume, until oil’s dominance had become clear, that even the massive ship channels at Houston and Corpus Christi would serve mainly as outlets for agricultural commodities. It was the organizers of the state’s petroleum sector who came to understand the Texas ship channels as exemplary locations for aggregating their diverse operations. This interplay between civil engineering and the energy sector made coastal Texas into a dynamic urban port region. Petroleum and petrochemicals, however, so thoroughly imprinted themselves on the landscape, economy, and life of Texas’s oil port region that the region’s post-oil future remained difficult to envision., History, Form & Aesthetics

Producción Científica, This work interprets the path dependency of neoliberal policy responses and planning strategies used by the Spanish and Italian port cities of Bilbao and Genoa to revitalize their declining industrial waterfronts in the Post-Fordism. Bilbao and Genoa represent two of the most relevant cases of urban shrinkage in Spain and Italy that happened to have embarked on ambitious neoliberal paths for revitalization, whose expectations were to turn them into prosperous hubs of business, cultural and touristic economies. This work specifically focuses on the most emblematic revitalizing actions carried out so far in Bilbao’s Ria riverfront (the Abandoibarra’s abandoned shipyards) and Genoa’s seafront (the Ancient Port) to discuss the path dependency of these projects in two derelict areas severely hit by urban shrinkage that nowadays are facing regeneration: Bilbao’s Zorratzaurre and Genoa’s Eastern seafront., European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 813803

Dutch port records are a valuable source to study the development of shipping in the Indian Ocean in the eighteenth century, especially the important but elusive local short-sea trades. This article presents data from the Dutch port records of Cochin (Kochi) and Bimilipatnam (Bheemunipatnam).

Port and city authorities all over Europe and beyond are striving with finding solutions able to combine sustainability with economic growth. Several global urgencies in fact, such as climate change, energy transition, the exponential changes in the scale of ports and ships and last but not least the economic and health shock related to the coronavirus pandemic, are challenging the spaces where ports physically meet their cities, generating processes of caesura within the urban patterns with consequent impacts on the quality of life. In port cities, infrastructures and energy flows overlap with city flows and patterns that change with different rhythms and temporalities. This discrepancy creates abandonment and marginality between port and city. This today is no longer sustainable. New approaches and solutions that look at integration and circularity rather than separation are necessary. Circularity has been widely discussed in the literature. However, the concept still remains very controversial, especially when it comes to port cities where new definitions are needed in particular to better understand the spatial dimension of circularity. The Rotterdam therefore case study stands exemplary. Here, the concept of the circular economy refers mostly to the theme of obsolete industrial buildings and marginal that are reinserted again within the urban metabolism. The case of Rotterdam points out that the competition of the port today goes through the quality of its relationship spaces and the ability of the different actors involved in the planning process to hold together economic growth and environmental sustainability. The areas along the river are in fact the most fascinating places in the city and today they are ready for a different use. In order for the city to become an attractive place to live it is necessary to build new, innovative and sustainable spatial visions. This will lead to scenarios of sustainable coexistence between port and city. Therefore, thes, History & Complexity

Producción Científica, This work interprets the path dependency of neoliberal policy responses and planning strategies used by the Spanish and Italian port cities of Bilbao and Genoa to revitalize their declining industrial waterfronts in the Post-Fordism. Bilbao and Genoa represent two of the most relevant cases of urban shrinkage in Spain and Italy that happened to have embarked on ambitious neoliberal paths for revitalization, whose expectations were to turn them into prosperous hubs of business, cultural and touristic economies. This work specifically focuses on the most emblematic revitalizing actions carried out so far in Bilbao’s Ria riverfront (the Abandoibarra’s abandoned shipyards) and Genoa’s seafront (the Ancient Port) to discuss the path dependency of these projects in two derelict areas severely hit by urban shrinkage that nowadays are facing regeneration: Bilbao’s Zorratzaurre and Genoa’s Eastern seafront., European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 813803

Producción Científica, This work interprets the path dependency of neoliberal policy responses and planning strategies used by the Spanish and Italian port cities of Bilbao and Genoa to revitalize their declining industrial waterfronts in the Post-Fordism. Bilbao and Genoa represent two of the most relevant cases of urban shrinkage in Spain and Italy that happened to have embarked on ambitious neoliberal paths for revitalization, whose expectations were to turn them into prosperous hubs of business, cultural and touristic economies. This work specifically focuses on the most emblematic revitalizing actions carried out so far in Bilbao’s Ria riverfront (the Abandoibarra’s abandoned shipyards) and Genoa’s seafront (the Ancient Port) to discuss the path dependency of these projects in two derelict areas severely hit by urban shrinkage that nowadays are facing regeneration: Bilbao’s Zorratzaurre and Genoa’s Eastern seafront., European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 813803

Port cities involve socio-cultural environments with evident distinctiveness. One of the most meaningful attributes describing them are their linguistic ecosystems. The present work exposes a preliminary methodological approach to the characterization of the language universe of the European Atlantic ports during the early modern period, employing as a case study the town of Bilbao. Aiming at this goal, primary sources are proposed as a representation of the languages hosted by the town. Accordingly, languages within Bilbao are displayed and quantified, as well as the clear influence of the early modern trade causing the linguistic frame of such spaces, which acted as mercantile nodes., Las ciudades portuarias representan entornos socio-culturales con indudables singularidades. Entre los atributos culturales más significativos se encuentran los ecosistemas lingüísticos que las describen. El presente trabajo presenta una primera aproximación metodológica a la caracterización del universo lingüístico de los puertos atlánticos europeos durante la Edad Moderna, empleando como estudio de caso la villa de Bilbao. Para ello, se plantea el valor que pueden aportar las fuentes primarias como reflejo del uso de las lenguas en la ciudad. Así, se exponen y cuantifican los idiomas que habitaban la ciudad, y muestra la evidente influencia que el comercio moderno causó en la configuración lingüística –y, por lo tanto, cultural–, de tales espacios que funcionaban a modo de nodos mercantiles.

Port and city authorities all over Europe and beyond are striving with finding solutions able to combine sustainability with economic growth. Several global urgencies in fact, such as climate change, energy transition, the exponential changes in the scale of ports and ships and last but not least the economic and health shock related to the coronavirus pandemic, are challenging the spaces where ports physically meet their cities, generating processes of caesura within the urban patterns with consequent impacts on the quality of life. In port cities, infrastructures and energy flows overlap with city flows and patterns that change with different rhythms and temporalities. This discrepancy creates abandonment and marginality between port and city. This today is no longer sustainable. New approaches and solutions that look at integration and circularity rather than separation are necessary. Circularity has been widely discussed in the literature. However, the concept still remains very controversial, especially when it comes to port cities where new definitions are needed in particular to better understand the spatial dimension of circularity. The Rotterdam therefore case study stands exemplary. Here, the concept of the circular economy refers mostly to the theme of obsolete industrial buildings and marginal that are reinserted again within the urban metabolism. The case of Rotterdam points out that the competition of the port today goes through the quality of its relationship spaces and the ability of the different actors involved in the planning process to hold together economic growth and environmental sustainability. The areas along the river are in fact the most fascinating places in the city and today they are ready for a different use. In order for the city to become an attractive place to live it is necessary to build new, innovative and sustainable spatial visions. This will lead to scenarios of sustainable coexistence between port and city. Therefore, thes, History, Form & Aesthetics

The integrated, cross-border, cross-territorial and macro-regional planning paradigm is recalibrating the world and planning practice all around the globe. The Baltic Sea Region (BSR) has become one of the exemplary models of macro-regional practice in the European Union (EU) context. It is recognized as a flexible entity due to its activities, actors and informal institutions (Purkarthofer et al., 2021). Since the first initiatives of the Helsinki Commission for integrated Baltic sea management around 1980, many strategies and organizations have been developed. Also, the spatial vision for the Baltic Sea Region is being updated. Indeed, the BSR has entered a new chapter of development with a new generation of Interreg projects. However, the planning of the BSR is pictured as the highest authority conformative planning. On the one hand, there is a struggle to integrate different stakeholders, planners, ministries and citizens, to name a few. On the other hand, the linkages between the strategic documents and their local implementation could be stronger and more visible in a surrounding environment. The project aims to carry out the planning framework for the BSR. The patterns for cooperative planning, design and principles inform what systemic solutions and actions are required to achieve the region’s performative, integrated, cross-scalar planning. The framework is applied in 4 scales: district, city, regional and macro-regional strategies and visions. The emphasis is given to the ports, cities and their regions as the main catalysts for cross-border cooperation. These units are crossed by sustainability, manufacturing and shipping lens. Here the macro-regional planning meets local target design and implementation. The framework of Meta-territory is introduced as a synthesis between theories of soft space and territoriality. Meanwhile, strategic-spatial planning frames the project, so these theories inform the cooperation framework, Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Urbanism

Centuries of trade have left their traces in the culture and society of port cities. This paper explores the usefulness of the concept “maritime mindset” to recognize these traces, and analyses it from different disciplinary perspectives. In the second part, it proposes the practice of “deep mapping” as a methodology of identifying and documenting expressions of maritime culture and trade in public space. In conclusion, it addresses some questions that are crucial when addressing a maritime mindset, such as whether it is a top-down or bottom-up mindset, which spatial scale it entails, and whose values and interests the mindset represents. Ultimately, we argue that (deep) mapping can play a role in producing a more layered spatial, social and cultural understanding of the complex nature of port cities., Vol. 4 No. 2 (2021): Port City Cultures, Values, or Maritime Mindsets, Part 2: Studying and Shaping Cultures in Port City Territories / Main Section, History & Complexity

Around the North Sea, how have port cities and cities in the hinterlands of port cities influenced one another in the past? What possible links are there between population trends in various urban areas and time periods? Is it possible to identify the origin of the urbanization patterns around the North Sea? To understand the current era of urbanization, we need to analyze historical trends and urbanization patterns in the long term. By mapping the population figures for eight moments in history and combining this with data on political boundaries and large infrastructures that facilitate flows of goods and people, this article aims to contribute to an improved understanding of contemporary and historical urbanization trends around the North Sea. It also presents the first spatial dataset on urban settlements around the North Sea by means of a series of demographic maps, from 1300 to 2015. It provides a detailed explanation of the method used for mapping and handling demographical data. Each map is accompanied by a brief explanation of the urbanization pattern, with special attention to identifying demographic and economic developments and possible clarifications for centers of gravity and shifts. The maps lay the foundation for further research on social patterns and spatial developments in urban (port) regions around the North Sea and for understanding urban culture through space and time. Port cities must be analyzed from the perspective of the sea, which requires a rethinking of data sets and data borders, to understand the ways in which these port cities have served as porous distribution hubs and as transit nodes for boundary-crossing flows., History & Complexity

The introduction to this thematic issue on port city porosity sets the stage for the study of port city territories as a particular type of space, located at the edge of land and sea, built, often over centuries, to facilitate the transfer of goods, people, and ideas. It argues that the concept of porosity can help conceptualize the ways in which the spaces and institutions of ports, cities, and neighboring areas intersect. It expands on the well‐established notion of the interface and more recent reflections on the port city threshold by arguing for a conceptualization of the port cityscape as a continuous network of port‐related spaces and practices. The introduction places this reflection in time, exploring the ways in which boundaries have shifted and opened up; it also provides a brief overview of the 14 contributions to the thematic issue. The contributions are organized in three groups: (1) exploring long‐term approaches to porosity in port city territories; (2) mapping and conceptualizing port city porosity on the sea side and on the land side; and (3) measuring, designing, and rethinking porosity in port city territories. The thematic issue opens questions for further research such as: Does the degree of porosity between port and city areas and the presence of maritime pockets in the city and the territory lead to greater resilience of port city activities? Does the existence of porous borders between port and city allow for easier transitions?, History & Complexity

Since the 1860s, petroleum companies, through their influence on local governments, port authorities, international actors and the general public gradually became more dominant in shaping the urban form of ports and cities. Under their development and pressure, the relationships between industrial and urban areas in port cities hosting oil facilities evolved in time. The borders limiting industrial and housing territories have continuously changed with industrial places moving progressively away from urban areas. Such a changing dynamic influenced the permeability of these borders. Port cities are nodes and logistic points where various flows of commodities, wealth, and knowledge gathered before further re‐distribution. These flows affected port cities by changing their spatial organization and the availabiity of space between borders. The main question here is: How did industrial and urban borders evolve through time in port cities? Through a historical analysis, the article explores the settlements of oil facilities and the influence of oil companies over local, regional, and national governments in creating borders and how it influenced the porosity of port cities. This article, through the petroleum narrative, illustrates the impacts of past borders on the contemporary urban form through the evolution of the French port city of Dunkirk, in the North of France. As a historical study, the article analyzes the changing relationships between petroleum industrial sites and housing areas in the city of Dunkirk, using aerial pictures, archival sources, and regulations of different periods. The importance of this analysis lies in knowing that former oil sites previously located on the periphery of Dunkirk, that were forgotten by the authorities are now located within the current urban tissue. This process demonstrates the importance of historical developments to understand current challenges in the urban planning of industrial port cities., History & Complexity

Port cities have long played a key role in the development, discovery, and fight against diseases. They have been laboratories for policies to address public health issues. Diseases reached port cities through maritime exchanges, and the bubonic plague is a key example. Port city residents’ close contact with water further increased the chance for diseases such as cholera. Analyzing three European port cities, this article first explores the relevance of water quality for public health through the lens of the Dutch city of Rotterdam. It then examines plans and projects for London that were shaped by social Darwinism and stressed the moral failings of slum dwellers as a major cause for their misery. It finally explores the case of Hamburg as the perfect example of a city that cultivated ideals of purity and cleanliness by addressing all issues at stake in public health. This article on urban hygiene in three port cities shows how remarkably rich this field of study is; it also demonstrates that the multifaceted aspects of public health in port cities require further attention., History & Complexity

The port cities of Costa Rica face strong challenges on their path to be sustainable, in addition to those common to all port cities in the world such as: climate change, demands derived from globalization, access to technology and adjustments to innovation. This article addresses specific governance situations, specifically the issue of autonomy in fundamental institutions for the development and sustainability of port cities: local governments, port authorities and state universities. Costa Rica is taking a political turn away from a long democratic tradition and respect for what is established in the political constitution. At this juncture it is essential to alert to citizens, so that they can defend some nation basic principles and to promote inherit a better future for the next generations.

The purpose of this paper is to problematize traditional views on Eastern Mediterranean port cities and their so-called liberal cosmopolitan nature during the long nineteenth century by focusing on the production and effects of an East-West dichotomy in the three port cities of Constantinople, Smyrna and Salonica under the administration of the Ottoman Empire. The main aim of this contribution is to elicit debate for further research about the systems within which port cities operated by emphasizing the obstacles this dichotomy brings in the field of the port city research, especially in the Mediterranean region.  In doing so, this paper will try to respond to the growing need for new perspectives on the cosmopolitanism of the present and the future by examining the nature of co-existence in the past.

Centuries of trade have left their traces in the culture and society of port cities. This paper explores the usefulness of the concept “maritime mindset” to recognize these traces, and analyses it from different disciplinary perspectives. In the second part, it proposes the practice of “deep mapping” as a methodology of identifying and documenting expressions of maritime culture and trade in public space. In conclusion, it addresses some questions that are crucial when addressing a maritime mindset, such as whether it is a top-down or bottom-up mindset, which spatial scale it entails, and whose values and interests the mindset represents. Ultimately, we argue that (deep) mapping can play a role in producing a more layered spatial, social and cultural understanding of the complex nature of port cities.

Rotterdam is not just a port city defined by its significance as a transit, petroleum or container port, but also by the heterogenic images and narratives that surround it. In this paper, we use images of the New Waterway – a nationally engineered infrastructure – to analyze its process becoming an icon of the globalized progress that made the port city of Rotterdam the leading port of the European continent at the beginning of the twentieth century. In order to better understand why and how the New Waterway was used as such an icon, we analyze the discourse that was represented in works of art during three phases: a monument for the Waterway’s instigator and engineer Caland in 1906, a diorama of the Waterway for the World Expo in 1931, and two theatrical plays during the Second World War and reconstruction of the port city (1941, 1947). We find that these iconic works appropriated the national plan of a new waterway between the North Sea and the hinterland, to an urban narrative that represented values of modern Rotterdam: resoluteness, progress, and resilience in times of hardship.

The mix of activities and the flexibility of uses in port spaces show the potential of port infrastructure as a collective space in the city, a real urban hub where flows and activities of diverse types converge. Although the functional requirements of con temporary ports tend towards specialization and spatial segregation, with obstacles that break the fluidity between city and port, this research aims to show how intense urban spaces are generated in some routes and spaces where a degree of programmatical superposition occurs. The spatial analysis of three city – port ecosystems at small scale in the western Mediterranean (Port - Vendres, Palamós and Port d’Alcúdia) illustrates the operational logics and distribution of various functional sectors in these ports and highlights spaces of a mixed nature in relation to the urban fabrics, where the type of city – port relations that we could call “salty urbanity” arise., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (published version)

Centuries of trade have left their traces in the culture and society of port cities. This paper explores the usefulness of the concept “maritime mindset” to recognize these traces, and analyses it from different disciplinary perspectives. In the second part, it proposes the practice of “deep mapping” as a methodology of identifying and documenting expressions of maritime culture and trade in public space. In conclusion, it addresses some questions that are crucial when addressing a maritime mindset, such as whether it is a top-down or bottom-up mindset, which spatial scale it entails, and whose values and interests the mindset represents. Ultimately, we argue that (deep) mapping can play a role in producing a more layered spatial, social and cultural understanding of the complex nature of port cities., Vol. 4 No. 2 (2021): Port City Cultures, Values, or Maritime Mindsets, Part 2: Studying and Shaping Cultures in Port City Territories / Main Section, History, Form & Aesthetics

The introduction to this thematic issue on port city porosity sets the stage for the study of port city territories as a particular type of space, located at the edge of land and sea, built, often over centuries, to facilitate the transfer of goods, people, and ideas. It argues that the concept of porosity can help conceptualize the ways in which the spaces and institutions of ports, cities, and neighboring areas intersect. It expands on the well‐established notion of the interface and more recent reflections on the port city threshold by arguing for a conceptualization of the port cityscape as a continuous network of port‐related spaces and practices. The introduction places this reflection in time, exploring the ways in which boundaries have shifted and opened up; it also provides a brief overview of the 14 contributions to the thematic issue. The contributions are organized in three groups: (1) exploring long‐term approaches to porosity in port city territories; (2) mapping and conceptualizing port city porosity on the sea side and on the land side; and (3) measuring, designing, and rethinking porosity in port city territories. The thematic issue opens questions for further research such as: Does the degree of porosity between port and city areas and the presence of maritime pockets in the city and the territory lead to greater resilience of port city activities? Does the existence of porous borders between port and city allow for easier transitions?, History, Form & Aesthetics

Around the North Sea, how have port cities and cities in the hinterlands of port cities influenced one another in the past? What possible links are there between population trends in various urban areas and time periods? Is it possible to identify the origin of the urbanization patterns around the North Sea? To understand the current era of urbanization, we need to analyze historical trends and urbanization patterns in the long term. By mapping the population figures for eight moments in history and combining this with data on political boundaries and large infrastructures that facilitate flows of goods and people, this article aims to contribute to an improved understanding of contemporary and historical urbanization trends around the North Sea. It also presents the first spatial dataset on urban settlements around the North Sea by means of a series of demographic maps, from 1300 to 2015. It provides a detailed explanation of the method used for mapping and handling demographical data. Each map is accompanied by a brief explanation of the urbanization pattern, with special attention to identifying demographic and economic developments and possible clarifications for centers of gravity and shifts. The maps lay the foundation for further research on social patterns and spatial developments in urban (port) regions around the North Sea and for understanding urban culture through space and time. Port cities must be analyzed from the perspective of the sea, which requires a rethinking of data sets and data borders, to understand the ways in which these port cities have served as porous distribution hubs and as transit nodes for boundary-crossing flows., History, Form & Aesthetics

Since the 1860s, petroleum companies, through their influence on local governments, port authorities, international actors and the general public gradually became more dominant in shaping the urban form of ports and cities. Under their development and pressure, the relationships between industrial and urban areas in port cities hosting oil facilities evolved in time. The borders limiting industrial and housing territories have continuously changed with industrial places moving progressively away from urban areas. Such a changing dynamic influenced the permeability of these borders. Port cities are nodes and logistic points where various flows of commodities, wealth, and knowledge gathered before further re‐distribution. These flows affected port cities by changing their spatial organization and the availabiity of space between borders. The main question here is: How did industrial and urban borders evolve through time in port cities? Through a historical analysis, the article explores the settlements of oil facilities and the influence of oil companies over local, regional, and national governments in creating borders and how it influenced the porosity of port cities. This article, through the petroleum narrative, illustrates the impacts of past borders on the contemporary urban form through the evolution of the French port city of Dunkirk, in the North of France. As a historical study, the article analyzes the changing relationships between petroleum industrial sites and housing areas in the city of Dunkirk, using aerial pictures, archival sources, and regulations of different periods. The importance of this analysis lies in knowing that former oil sites previously located on the periphery of Dunkirk, that were forgotten by the authorities are now located within the current urban tissue. This process demonstrates the importance of historical developments to understand current challenges in the urban planning of industrial port cities., History, Form & Aesthetics

Port cities have long played a key role in the development, discovery, and fight against diseases. They have been laboratories for policies to address public health issues. Diseases reached port cities through maritime exchanges, and the bubonic plague is a key example. Port city residents’ close contact with water further increased the chance for diseases such as cholera. Analyzing three European port cities, this article first explores the relevance of water quality for public health through the lens of the Dutch city of Rotterdam. It then examines plans and projects for London that were shaped by social Darwinism and stressed the moral failings of slum dwellers as a major cause for their misery. It finally explores the case of Hamburg as the perfect example of a city that cultivated ideals of purity and cleanliness by addressing all issues at stake in public health. This article on urban hygiene in three port cities shows how remarkably rich this field of study is; it also demonstrates that the multifaceted aspects of public health in port cities require further attention., History, Form & Aesthetics

"The book builds on discussions about nineteenth century port city society in late Ottoman urban and cultural history, but approaches them from a more European and Mediterranean perspective. Revisiting leisure practises, the formation of class, gender, and national identities, it also offers an alternative view on the relationship of the Islamic World to Europe. While the nineteenth century Eastern Mediterranean became a zone of influence for the Great Powers, port city residents seized on what they perceived to be the European Dream, hoping to integrate into a wider world and revolutionize urban culture. They adapted European forms, but modified them according to local needs, as was the case for the new quays, streets, and buildings. Entertainment became a marker of a Europeanized way of life. The opera was a possibility for participating in a global civilizing mission. Consuming beer celebrated innovation, cosmopolitanism, and mixed gender sociability. Much like elsewhere in Europe, port city inhabitants were men and women "without qualities" when it came to identity: the possibilities to style the self overburdened many of them. Moreover, the respective nationalist discourses of the era sought to rein in free development. In the years prior to World War I, the pro-European mood was eclipsed by a more xenophobic atmosphere", Includes bibliographical references and index., "The book builds on discussions about nineteenth century port city society in late Ottoman urban and cultural history, but approaches them from a more European and Mediterranean perspective. Revisiting leisure practises, the formation of class, gender, and national identities, it also offers an alternative view on the relationship of the Islamic World to Europe. While the nineteenth century Eastern Mediterranean became a zone of influence for the Great Powers, port city residents seized on what they perceived to be the European Dream, hoping to integrate into a wider world and revolutionize urban culture. They adapted European forms, but modified them according to local needs, as was the case for the new quays, streets, and buildings. Entertainment became a marker of a Europeanized way of life. The opera was a possibility for participating in a global civilizing mission. Consuming beer celebrated innovation, cosmopolitanism, and mixed gender sociability. Much like elsewhere in Europe, port city inhabitants were men and women "without qualities" when it came to identity: the possibilities to style the self overburdened many of them. Moreover, the respective nationalist discourses of the era sought to rein in free development. In the years prior to World War I, the pro-European mood was eclipsed by a more xenophobic atmosphere"

This article addresses the intertwined development of the port cities of Rotterdam and Antwerp into border zones that took place with the upswing of steam navigation in the upcoming age of high mobility. It focuses on administrative practice, namely local authorities' approaches to identifying and registering mobile people, to shed new light on the often-presumed shift in migration control in this period. Scrutiny of the paperwork used and produced by local authorities tasked with migration control suggests that administrative practice does not fit into coherent narratives of high modernity characterised by the increasing relevance of nationality, border control management, and a growing impact of the nation-state. Instead, this era is characterised by the layering of control practices: Resilient practices-some dating back to pre-modern times, some lacking coherence; the practices of individual police agents; and national policies.

Imagine: You are asked to draw a port city from memory. What would you put on paper? Do you think of harbours? Water, docks, cargo, moving loads, and ships? If your drawing shows these elements, don’t be surprised. Sixty-five graduate students also took on the challenge. In answering: “draw the port city of Rotterdam by mind”, the drawings of the participants (fig.1) displayed exactly the above features. Of course, this makes sense. A port just happens to be a place on the water in which ships shelter and dock to (un)load cargo and/or passengers. A harbour is a sheltered place too, and in its nautical meaning it is a near-synonym for sheltered water, in which ships may dock, especially again for (un)loading. So, all the above linguistic lemmas are there and all these are connected to imaginable objects., Urban Design

Port spaces, functions, and interests have shaped the growth and development of many cities around the world. At times, different stakeholders—private and public, local, regional, national and global—have collaborated to assure the continuity of port functions in old and new locations and, if the port relocates or if that effort fails, to redevelop former port spaces. Through the lens of port- and city-related urban developments in London, Hamburg, and Philadelphia, this article explores the multiple conditions that are part of port city resilience. It uses historical institutionalism as a theoretical framework for understanding these long-term changes, particularly in institutional and governance dynamics. It shows that the development paths of port and city spaces and the actors who shape them are not always aligned. Through the case of London, it shows a development path that is led by private investment building and relocating a world-class port and administrating it from the city center, while local and national institutions only intervene to balance spatial or social short-comings of the private actors. The case of the city-state Hamburg illustrates the development of shared port-city paths under long-term public leadership that has provided direction for the expanding port as well as for the growing city. In the case of Philadelphia, national interests, the Navy, and private investments played an important role in the creation of port infrastructure and, later, in the largely failed transformation of former port areas into public waterfronts. As shipping elites left the city and new land-based employers emerged, such as the University of Pennsylvania, the port-city path was partly discontinued. The article concludes by pointing to the expected capacity of each of these cities to address future challenges. Awareness of historical practices can help readers understand where current conditions may stand in the way of innovative solutions., History & Complexity

This paper assesses the potential of the circular economy (CE) policy ambitions of the port cities of Ghent (Belgium) and Amsterdam (The Netherlands). Both Ghent and Amsterdam are municipalities that potentially lend themselves ideally to set up a more local-oriented circular (re)production and (re)consumption system. Subsequently, both have the ambition that, in 2050, the CE will have become an achieved public value that influences all activities to be more circular in comparison with today. However, while having ambitious policies is important, we explain that a public value also requires alignment with the operational capacity used or needed to achieve this policy ambition. In this paper, we focus on the ‘negative’ CE operational capacity: landfills and incinerators. Our results show that the CE ambitions of Ghent are more realistic than Amsterdam. During the last few decades, Dutch waste management has been largely privatized. This led to a significant increase in incinerator capacity and a lowering of the incineration price. This differs from Flanders, which has a deliberate capping on the allowed incinerator capacity, keeping the price for incineration high. This increases the incentive for urban and maritime actors to climb the waste hierarchy, eventually thus making the port city (potentially) more circular as a whole., Urban Development Management

Resilience has become a buzzword used to describe the capacity of cities to bounce back after disasters. It carries the hope of a robust and more sustainable future. Disasters can strike any region, but port cities face complex and particular risks due to their location at the intersection of sea and land, and their role in an international maritime system. This introduction to the special section on resilience, disaster and rebuilding in modern port cities first examines resilience as a concept and course of action in a heterogenous theory landscape. It then explores different dimensions of resilience—environmental, economic, institutional, social and spatial—and their importance in port city historiography. The articles collected in this special section explore case studies from three continents. Together, they demonstrate that there is no such thing as the resilient (port) city. But, they also show that the combination of maritime and urban interests can lead to creative planning for resilience, particularly when port and city authorities pursue the same strategies. In view of contemporary challenges, this special section demonstrates the value of further research on port city resilience and vulnerability. The section raises an important question: Is it possible to balance the wide-ranging economic interests of port actors and their view of waters as sites for shipping with those of local actors concerned about water quality and ecosystems?, History & Complexity

Historical paths matter in port-city regions. Here, spatial patterns and governance arrangements are path dependent to the point that once certain paths have been established, these become hard to change. This defines a condition of institutional inertia that plays a significant role in preventing any form of spatial change. Naples is an exemplar of how different actors have historically developed their own routines and planning tools, resulting in the spatial and governance separation still visible today. How do path dependencies influence the port–city (and regional) relationship we are experiencing today? Nowadays, ports operate in an increasingly changing environment where spatial and economic developments can be better understood as the results of actors’ interactions across different scales. In order to cope with global urgencies, such as energy, economic and societal transition, European infrastructure policies are driving many port authorities towards infrastructural integration and governance cooperation. This offers significant opportunities to improve relations among ports, but it mostly leaves out the interconnections with cities and larger regions. Moreover, it also challenges consolidated beliefs and planning cultures which have planned ports and cities as disconnected entities, at least since industrialization. In Naples, local and national authorities find it difficult to define a sustainable consistency of interests. Today, the Central Tyrrhenian seaport system is the new institutional umbrella overseeing the three main ports of the region: Naples, Castellammare di Stabia and Salerno. This paper investigates whether this new governance entity results in either an opportunity for change or a reinforcement of existing path dependencies., History & Complexity

This article addresses the intertwined development of the port cities of Rotterdam and Antwerp into border zones that took place with the upswing of steam navigation in the upcoming age of high mobility. It focuses on administrative practice, namely local authorities' approaches to identifying and registering mobile people, to shed new light on the often-presumed shift in migration control in this period. Scrutiny of the paperwork used and produced by local authorities tasked with migration control suggests that administrative practice does not fit into coherent narratives of high modernity characterised by the increasing relevance of nationality, border control management, and a growing impact of the nation-state. Instead, this era is characterised by the layering of control practices: Resilient practices-some dating back to pre-modern times, some lacking coherence; the practices of individual police agents; and national policies.

Port spaces, functions, and interests have shaped the growth and development of many cities around the world. At times, different stakeholders—private and public, local, regional, national and global—have collaborated to assure the continuity of port functions in old and new locations and, if the port relocates or if that effort fails, to redevelop former port spaces. Through the lens of port- and city-related urban developments in London, Hamburg, and Philadelphia, this article explores the multiple conditions that are part of port city resilience. It uses historical institutionalism as a theoretical framework for understanding these long-term changes, particularly in institutional and governance dynamics. It shows that the development paths of port and city spaces and the actors who shape them are not always aligned. Through the case of London, it shows a development path that is led by private investment building and relocating a world-class port and administrating it from the city center, while local and national institutions only intervene to balance spatial or social short-comings of the private actors. The case of the city-state Hamburg illustrates the development of shared port-city paths under long-term public leadership that has provided direction for the expanding port as well as for the growing city. In the case of Philadelphia, national interests, the Navy, and private investments played an important role in the creation of port infrastructure and, later, in the largely failed transformation of former port areas into public waterfronts. As shipping elites left the city and new land-based employers emerged, such as the University of Pennsylvania, the port-city path was partly discontinued. The article concludes by pointing to the expected capacity of each of these cities to address future challenges. Awareness of historical practices can help readers understand where current conditions may stand in the way of innovative solutions., History, Form & Aesthetics

Imagine: You are asked to draw a port city from memory. What would you put on paper? Do you think of harbours? Water, docks, cargo, moving loads, and ships? If your drawing shows these elements, don’t be surprised. Sixty-five graduate students also took on the challenge. In answering: “draw the port city of Rotterdam by mind”, the drawings of the participants (fig.1) displayed exactly the above features. Of course, this makes sense. A port just happens to be a place on the water in which ships shelter and dock to (un)load cargo and/or passengers. A harbour is a sheltered place too, and in its nautical meaning it is a near-synonym for sheltered water, in which ships may dock, especially again for (un)loading. So, all the above linguistic lemmas are there and all these are connected to imaginable objects., Urban Design

This paper assesses the potential of the circular economy (CE) policy ambitions of the port cities of Ghent (Belgium) and Amsterdam (The Netherlands). Both Ghent and Amsterdam are municipalities that potentially lend themselves ideally to set up a more local-oriented circular (re)production and (re)consumption system. Subsequently, both have the ambition that, in 2050, the CE will have become an achieved public value that influences all activities to be more circular in comparison with today. However, while having ambitious policies is important, we explain that a public value also requires alignment with the operational capacity used or needed to achieve this policy ambition. In this paper, we focus on the ‘negative’ CE operational capacity: landfills and incinerators. Our results show that the CE ambitions of Ghent are more realistic than Amsterdam. During the last few decades, Dutch waste management has been largely privatized. This led to a significant increase in incinerator capacity and a lowering of the incineration price. This differs from Flanders, which has a deliberate capping on the allowed incinerator capacity, keeping the price for incineration high. This increases the incentive for urban and maritime actors to climb the waste hierarchy, eventually thus making the port city (potentially) more circular as a whole., Urban Development Management

Resilience has become a buzzword used to describe the capacity of cities to bounce back after disasters. It carries the hope of a robust and more sustainable future. Disasters can strike any region, but port cities face complex and particular risks due to their location at the intersection of sea and land, and their role in an international maritime system. This introduction to the special section on resilience, disaster and rebuilding in modern port cities first examines resilience as a concept and course of action in a heterogenous theory landscape. It then explores different dimensions of resilience—environmental, economic, institutional, social and spatial—and their importance in port city historiography. The articles collected in this special section explore case studies from three continents. Together, they demonstrate that there is no such thing as the resilient (port) city. But, they also show that the combination of maritime and urban interests can lead to creative planning for resilience, particularly when port and city authorities pursue the same strategies. In view of contemporary challenges, this special section demonstrates the value of further research on port city resilience and vulnerability. The section raises an important question: Is it possible to balance the wide-ranging economic interests of port actors and their view of waters as sites for shipping with those of local actors concerned about water quality and ecosystems?, History, Form & Aesthetics

Historical paths matter in port-city regions. Here, spatial patterns and governance arrangements are path dependent to the point that once certain paths have been established, these become hard to change. This defines a condition of institutional inertia that plays a significant role in preventing any form of spatial change. Naples is an exemplar of how different actors have historically developed their own routines and planning tools, resulting in the spatial and governance separation still visible today. How do path dependencies influence the port–city (and regional) relationship we are experiencing today? Nowadays, ports operate in an increasingly changing environment where spatial and economic developments can be better understood as the results of actors’ interactions across different scales. In order to cope with global urgencies, such as energy, economic and societal transition, European infrastructure policies are driving many port authorities towards infrastructural integration and governance cooperation. This offers significant opportunities to improve relations among ports, but it mostly leaves out the interconnections with cities and larger regions. Moreover, it also challenges consolidated beliefs and planning cultures which have planned ports and cities as disconnected entities, at least since industrialization. In Naples, local and national authorities find it difficult to define a sustainable consistency of interests. Today, the Central Tyrrhenian seaport system is the new institutional umbrella overseeing the three main ports of the region: Naples, Castellammare di Stabia and Salerno. This paper investigates whether this new governance entity results in either an opportunity for change or a reinforcement of existing path dependencies., History, Form & Aesthetics

[Resumen] Las ciudades-puerto se han visto afectadas por las fuertes transformaciones de las últimas décadas y han ido modificando sus características y funciones a medida que avanzan los procesos de integración económica. Están estrechamente determinadas tanto por sus propias limitaciones geográficas, morfológicas y vínculos espaciales como por los mercados económicos. Por tanto, se sitúan frente a una doble lógica: la de atracción y la de rechazo de los flujos físicos. Dualidad que se fundamenta en gran parte sobre los trabajos de la interface puerto-ciudad y sobre las opciones de re-desarrollo de los espa-cios en crisis. En esta aportación se tratará de discernir la formación de los nudos portuarios siguiendo la evolución de las ciudades, se mostrará la evolución de la disociación física entre puerto y ciudad para, finalmente, subrayar las particularidades de una serie de ciudades y puertos europeos en sus tareas de redefinir sus funciones portuarias y sus orientaciones en torno a las relaciones puerto-ciudad., [Abstract] The port cities have been affected by the strong transformations of the last decades and have been changing their characteristics and functions as economic integration processes advance. They are closely determined both by their own geographical, morphological and spatial linkages as well as by economic markets. Therefore, they are placed in front of a double logic: the one of attraction and the one of rejection of the physical flows. Duality that is largely based on the works of the port-city interface and on the options for redevelopment of spaces in crisis. In this contribution will try to discern the formation of port knots following the evolution of cities, will show the evolution of physical dissociation between port and city to finally highlight the particularities of a number of European cities and ports in their tasks to redefine its port functions and its orientations around port-city relation.

Heritage is a social construct: it is the way contemporary society relates to its past, and transforms the past for current experiences. Heritage is the product of contemporary political, social and economic requirements from different stakeholders. Similar to Western countries, Chinese heritage thinking and practice has seen a move away from restrictive preservation to more dynamic management, from opposition to development, from adjustment to adaptive reuse, and from an expert-based ‘authorized heritage discourse’ to a more community-led process. This thesis focuses on Chinese port cities with a colonial past: Hong Kong, Macao, Qingdao and Taipei. It explores the present dynamics of heritage conservation, management and interpretation in these post-colonials, but otherwise culturally Chinese, cities. The primary purpose of this study is to gain insight in heritage interpretations and potential dissonance among stakeholders in these post-colonial cities. Colonial pasts can be contested – especially when used as heritage for contemporary purposes. Comparing experiences from four cities that have various colonial experiences and function in different current political, economic and social situations, sheds light on the role of the local context in heritage issues. This dissertation starts off by exploring the (changing) interaction between Chinese and Western notions of heritage conservation in China. It then presents a model for urban morphology of colonial port cities and applies this model to the spatial development of the four case study cities. Chapters 4 – 7 discuss the place of colonial heritage in Chinese colonial port cities from political and economic perspectives, whereas Chapters 8 and 9 focus on the (potential of) public participation in heritage issues.

The study investigated the relationship between the variables that make up public spending and the economic growth of Brazilian port cities. The research strategy used to meet the established objective was analysis of secondary data. Regarding the problem approach, this was quantitative, in which the research sample was intentional and not probabilistic, comprising 32 brazilian port cities. The time dimension applied to the research was in a transversal cut, comprising the per capita Public Expenses of 2013 and the per capita GDP of 2015. In order to analyze the regression, Gretl statistical software was used, and from the evaluated aspects, it was verified health and investment expenditures are directly related to the per capita GDP of the port cities. Thus, it can be concluded that the costs observed in the study influenced the economic growth, analyzed by the GDP per capita variable of the port cities listed for the present study. Finally, in observing the results of the analyzed model, it was concluded that public spending has a high explanatory power, since 76.8% of the GDP per capita of the port cities is explained by public expenditure., O estudo investigou a relação existente entre as variáveis que compõem os gastos públicos e o crescimento econômico das cidades portuárias brasileiras. A estratégia de pesquisa usada para atender ao objetivo estabelecido foi a análise de dados secundários. Quanto à abordagem do problema, a pesquisa se enquadrou como quantitativa, em que a amostra foi intencional e não probabilística, compreendendo 32 cidades portuárias brasileiras. A dimensão temporal aplicada à pesquisa foi em um recorte transversal, compreendendo os Gastos Públicos per capita de 2013 e o Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) per capita de 2015. Com a finalidade de analisar a regressão, foi utilizado o software estatístico Gretl, e a partir dos aspectos avaliados, constatou-se que os gastos com saúde e investimentos possuem relação direta com o PIB per capita das cidades portuárias. Dessa forma, conclui-se que os gastos observados no estudo influenciaram o crescimento econômico, analisados por meio da variável PIB per capita das cidades portuárias elencadas para o presente trabalho. Por fim, em observação aos resultados do modelo analisado, concluiu-se que os gastos públicos possuem um alto poder de explicação, haja vista que 76,8% do PIB per capita das cidades portuárias é explicado pelas variáveis dos gastos públicos investigados.

The study investigated the relationship between the variables that make up public spending and the economic growth of Brazilian port cities. The research strategy used to meet the established objective was analysis of secondary data. Regarding the problem approach, this was quantitative, in which the research sample was intentional and not probabilistic, comprising 32 brazilian port cities. The time dimension applied to the research was in a transversal cut, comprising the per capita Public Expenses of 2013 and the per capita GDP of 2015. In order to analyze the regression, Gretl statistical software was used, and from the evaluated aspects, it was verified health and investment expenditures are directly related to the per capita GDP of the port cities. Thus, it can be concluded that the costs observed in the study influenced the economic growth, analyzed by the GDP per capita variable of the port cities listed for the present study. Finally, in observing the results of the analyzed model, it was concluded that public spending has a high explanatory power, since 76.8% of the GDP per capita of the port cities is explained by public expenditure., O estudo investigou a relação existente entre as variáveis que compõem os gastos públicos e o crescimento econômico das cidades portuárias brasileiras. A estratégia de pesquisa usada para atender ao objetivo estabelecido foi a análise de dados secundários. Quanto à abordagem do problema, a pesquisa se enquadrou como quantitativa, em que a amostra foi intencional e não probabilística, compreendendo 32 cidades portuárias brasileiras. A dimensão temporal aplicada à pesquisa foi em um recorte transversal, compreendendo os Gastos Públicos per capita de 2013 e o Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) per capita de 2015. Com a finalidade de analisar a regressão, foi utilizado o software estatístico Gretl, e a partir dos aspectos avaliados, constatou-se que os gastos com saúde e investimentos possuem relação direta com o PIB per capita das cidades portuárias. Dessa forma, conclui-se que os gastos observados no estudo influenciaram o crescimento econômico, analisados por meio da variável PIB per capita das cidades portuárias elencadas para o presente trabalho. Por fim, em observação aos resultados do modelo analisado, concluiu-se que os gastos públicos possuem um alto poder de explicação, haja vista que 76,8% do PIB per capita das cidades portuárias é explicado pelas variáveis dos gastos públicos investigados.