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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.

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?

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.

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.

This article explores old and emerging socio-spatial imaginaries and uses of Rotterdam's Makers District. The district comprises two urban harbors--Merwe Vierhavens and Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij--historically in use as bustling trade, storage, and ship yarding nodes of the city's port activities. At the turn of the millennium, technological advancements made it possible to move many port-related activities out of the area and farther out of the city, gradually hollowing out these harbors' port-related economic foundations and opening opportunities for new uses and imaginaries. This article traces the transition by detailing how the boundary between the city and the port has become more porous in this district. It does so by offering original empirical evidence on the flows of users in and out of the area in recent years, based on location quotients, while also applying a content analysis of the profiles of companies and institutions currently inhabiting and working in these transformed port-city spaces. On the one hand, the results show how the ongoing port-city transition in Rotterdam's Makers District combines carefully curated interventions and infrastructure plans seeking to progressively adapt the area to new purposes, while maintaining some of its former functions. On the other hand, they highlight the pioneering role of more bottom-up initiatives and innovative urban concepts, springing from the creative industries and maker movement. The article offers insights into the emerging uses and imaginaries attached to the district, while also showing the resilience and adaptation of port legacies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biomass material volatility generates new opportunities for port-city relationships. Alternative energy markets require specialized port facilities to handle new bulk commodities like biomass. Wood pellets, a type of biomass, present warehousing challenges due to combustion danger. The industrial response to this risk has generated new storage forms for port regions. The return to bulk cargo reintroduces materiality as a focus for port city research, which had generally been regarded as a peripheral concern since the advent of the shipping container. The container had come to represent a borderless, 'fast capitalism' throughput model, but research on port 'accidents' has complicated this reductive globalization narrative. The programmatic dynamism of wood pellet dome structures suggests new spatially-porous possibilities for an interstitial border space at the port-city interface with material commonalities and hybrid potentials for resilient logistics and civic facilities. In contrast to container cargo unitization, the dome signifies the standardization of the coastal/riparian port environment. Dome structures can help ports plan for the complex challenges of cargo material behaviors and increasing extreme weather events. The article begins with wood pellet materiality to then explore programmatic possibilities that industrial construction technology generates. Conceptually, this joins the proposal of port as 'seam space' with port-city resilience planning and the porosity celebrated in recent urbanism literature. Scaling up from wood pellet materiality to an interstitial port-city district, the article contributes to calls for increased attention to materiality as a means to envision new urban agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The great number of actors in port city regions, such as port authorities, municipalities, national governments, private companies, societal groups, and flora and fauna, need to develop shared visions. Collaborative approaches that focus on combined values can help achieve long-term resilience and enable a sustainable and just coexistence of port and city actors within the same territory. However, the sheer focus on economic profit generated by port activities overshadows and ignores equally essential cultural, societal, and environmental values and needs. The lack of pluralities in planning and decision-making processes creates challenges for the cohabitation of the many actors and their interests within port-city regions. On the one hand, contemporary spaces in port cities cannot be classified and defined by traditional dichotomies anymore. On the other hand, the perception of spatial and institutional boundaries between port and city leads to a positivistic-driven definition of a rigid and inflexible, line-like interface physically and mentally separating the port from the urban activities and stakeholders, neglecting the inseparable character of many parts of our society. By investigating and re-imagining the future port-development plans within the historic mining town of Kirkenes, located around 400km above the Arctic Circle in Northern Norway, the aim of this article is to explore and combine the concepts of negative and positive porosity and liminality and arrive at a renewed perception of the port cityscape, which can function as dynamic threshold-s inbetween the multiple dualities and realities of various port and city actors. The article bridges the theoretical/ conceptual sphere of urban porosity and the practical approaches of liminal design. By using Design Fiction as a tool for creating new, innovative, and pluralistic port city narratives, the article contributes to contemporary research that aims for imaginary, value-based, and history-informed approaches to designing future-proof, resilient, just, and sustainable port cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, Shanghai often serves as a place to introduce and try out new ideas. This is certainly the case with experimental urban planning and design solutions and sustainability transitions. This article identifies and evaluates the role of pilot projects and demonstration zones along the Huangpu River. These clusters and zones are supposed to guide the urban regeneration of the former industrial waterfronts and to accelerate innovative development in Shanghai and the wider Yangtze Delta Region. The Huangpu River as a whole is considered an urban lab and a showcase of ecological civilisation policies, with a strong 'people oriented' focus on improving the overall quality and attractiveness of urban life. Following three decades of rapid urban expansion, Shanghai's urban development model is shifting toward one that emphasizes densification and the reuse of existing elements. The motto of Shanghai's latest master plan is "Striving for an Excellent Global City." One of the pathways to realize this expectation is the creation of thematic clusters for creative industries, financial institutes, AI, and technology, media and telecommunication industries. These clusters are high-density investment projects meant to support and accelerate the transformation of Shanghai into a service economy. There are important similarities between these projects in Shanghai and the role of urban labs in theories of sustainability transitions. Drawing on these theories and those of ecological civilization, this article examines how these so-called 'experimental' urban megaprojects along the river contribute to Shanghai's effort to take the lead in developing sustainable urban transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instead of stressing that port cities are characterised by institutional fragmentations with many resulting conflicts, we claim that port cities might be highly constructive in terms of changing tangible and intangible boundaries. To capture this quality, we use the concept of 'penumbral,' a combination of perceptional aspects as well as tangible and intangible spatial constellations. This perspective is applied in the case of the Shanghai Baoshan port-city interface through the investigation of the changing tangible and intangible boundaries, and how planning relates to boundary changes in a context of spatial, industrial, and institutional multi-layered structures. Tangible refers to physical boundaries between the port and urban structure or district, while intangible refers to immaterial boundaries created by actors' views on ports. Based on planning documents, direct observations, and 17 in-depth semi-structured interviews with local governments, port authority, planning departments, and companies, we find that one can indeed speak of penumbral boundaries, based on port-related values and ideas, and particularly on perceptions of the port and port businesses. Those perceptions are the initial power of changing and, following the idea of penumbral boundaries, blurring tangible and intangible boundaries. Finally, we suggest that, following the idea of penumbral boundaries, planning can play a stronger role in connecting the port and the city by first investigating how actors view the port and port businesses carefully, paying full attention to the specific relational context before formulating plans in the usual manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the centuries-long morphological development of Algiers' port-city interface across four historically relevant time periods that together span from the dawn of the 16th century up until today. Through a diachronic and geohistorical approach, we identify and analyse the origins of Algiers' persistent port-city divide. In doing so, the notion of the interface is interpreted as a spatial threshold between city and port, which nevertheless supports the material flows of both entities. As a multi-purpose area, the interface holds the potential to weave the disparate entities of a port city back together. To further complement this conceptual angle, we provide investigations of porosity that determine the differing degrees of connectivity between the city and port of Algiers. This is combined with a spatial-functional analysis of Algiers' current port-city interface, which is ultimately characterised as a non-homogeneous entity composed of four distinct sequences. These results contribute to a better orientation of imminent plans for waterfront revitalisations in Algiers. Whereas the interface was long considered as some kind of no man's land in the past, port and municipal authorities nowadays aim to turn the interface into a tool of reconciliation, and can do so by acting upon its potential porosity. Finally, this article's critical examination of the previously neglected case of Algiers can and should also be considered as an applicable model for the continuing study of southern Mediterranean and African port metropolises in general, which share a particular evolution in the relations between city and port. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationships Malaga has established with its port have changed over the centuries, conjuring up a variety of scenarios and circumstances. The past and present are closely linked phenomena in this case study where the porosity of the port-city fabric has marked the city's development and constitutes a key issue in the current and future challenges it faces. Malaga provides a particularly interesting example of a post-industrial city that has reopened its port to its inhabitants' acclaim while maintaining port activity. However, the growth tourism has seen in recent years has come to dominate the local economy. Cruise ships have taken on a significant role and have brought about important changes in the dynamics and flows between the port and the city, unsettling the balance between the two. This profile explores port-city development through the lens of boundaries and flows, demonstrating how their dynamics have determined Malaga's spatial, functional, and social development over time and how they continue to do so to this day. This article reviews the transformations the city has undergone and its future opportunities to achieve a balanced and sustainable port-city relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current waterfront studies focus mainly on a land-based perspective, failing to include the water side. Water is, however, not just a resource for port and industrial purposes and an edge to the waterfront; it is also a feature of the waterfront and the complex relation between water and city. Thus, the article suggests that water-land edges need to be re-contextualised, taking into consideration also their shape, functionality, and evolution over time. This article therefore introduces the concept of urban blue spaces, that is, spaces that include at least one land-water edge, such as a shoreline or river edge. The types and character of these edges define the porosity of urban blue spaces: Spaces with easy connections, such as boulevards or parks, are highly porous, while fenced areas have low porosity. The research first analyses the existing literature on the spatial and functional characteristics of the land-water edge in port cities, and explores existing typologies of urban blue spaces. The results of this investigation are used to examine the most iconic urban blue space of Gdańsk, the Motława river, over the last 1000 years. The case study shows that the porosity of the Gdańsk urban blue space has been increasing over time, in line with its spatial and functional development from an undeveloped riverbank to a 'gated' port and industry area, to urban living spaces today. The article thus presents the whole breadth of urban blue spaces through the case study of the Motława river urban blue space. The spatial evolution of the urban blue space is depicted through the transformation of its land-water edge--from a natural sloping edge to the dominance of vertical edged structures or ones overhanging the surface of the water, to the emergence of spatially 'blurred' sloping, slanted, terraced, and floating structures, partially independent of the riverbank. The transformation of the structure of the Motława urban blue space edges increased its complexity over time, from a single-edge structure to a double and multiple-edged one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constructed on its natural bay as a fortified Muslim town in the late 18th century, Haifa's port city transformed into a modern cosmopolitan port city in the second half of the 19th century. Significant technological, administrative, and social changes made Haifa into the transportation and economic hub of northern Palestine: Its harbor, the first in the region, became a gate to the east for commodities, pilgrimages, and ideas. British imperialism enlarged it with landfill areas and added an industrial function, constructing refineries and a connecting pipeline with Iraq. Haifa port served as the main entry port for immigration and goods for the newly founded Israeli state. Privatization and neo-liberalization transformed it from national port to international corporate hub, reshaping both port and city. Individual entrepreneurs, local governments, and imperial actions shaped and reshaped the landscape; perforating new access points, creating porous borders, and a new socioeconomic sphere. This process persisted through the Late Ottoman era, the British Mandate, and the Israeli state. From the first Ottoman landfills to the sizeable British harbor of 1933, the market economy led urban planning of Haifa's waterfront and its adjacent railroad to the current Chinese petrol-harbor project. What were the city's tangible and intangible borders? How did these changes, influenced by local and foreign agendas, unfold? Tapping into built-environment evidence; archival documents (architectural drawings, plans, maps, and photographs); and multidisciplinary academic literature to examine Haifa's urban landscape transformation, this article studies the history of Haifa's planned urban landscape--focusing on transformations to the port and waterfront to adjust to new technologies, capital markets, and political needs. We thus explore Haifa port history as a history of porosity and intangibility--rather than the accepted history of European modernization--building upon theoretical literature on global networks and urban form, regional dynamics of port cities, and tangible and intangible border landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Port cities located within various metropolitan or functional regions face very different development scenarios. This applies not only to entire municipalities but also to particular areas that play important roles in urban development--including ports as well as their specialized parts. This refers also to the various types of maritime industries, including the processing of goods, logistics operations, shipbuilding, or ship repairing, to name just a few. Since each of these activities is associated with a different location, any transformation process that creates changes in geographic borders or flows will dynamically affect the port cityscape. Municipalities may evolve in different directions, becoming 'major maritime hubs,' 'secondary service centers,' 'specialized waterfront cities,' or just distressed urban areas. Within each metropolitan area, one can find several cities evolving in one of the above-mentioned directions, which results in the creation of a specific regional mosaic of various types of port cities. These create specific 'port regions' with specific roles assigned to each of these and shape the new (regional) dimension of the geography of borders and flows. As a result, these port regions are created as porous structures where space is discontinuous. To further develop the issue of the creation and evolution of port regions, the authors present the case study of the Gdańsk Bay port region. This study in particular allowed for the development of both the theoretical background of this phenomenon and the presentation of a real-life example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 availability 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]