From Planning the Port/City to Planning the Port-City: Exploring the Economic Interface in European Port Cities

Abstract

In last three decades, planning agencies of most ports have institutionally evolved into a (semi-) independent port authority. The rationale behind this process is that port authorities are able to react more quickly to changing logistical and spatial preferences of maritime firms, hence increasing the competitiveness of ports. Although these dedicated port authorities have proven to be largely successful, new economic, social, and environmental challenges are quickly catching up on these port governance models, and particularly leads to (spatial) policy 'conflicts' between port and city. This chapter starts by assessing this conflict and argue that the conflict is partly a result of dominantoften also academic-spatial representations of the port city as two separate entities. To escape this divisive conception of contemporary port cities, this chapter presents a relational visualisation method that is able to analyse the economic interface between port and city. Based on our results, we reflect back on our proposition and argue that the core challenge today for researchers and policy makers is acknowledging the bias of port/city, being arguably a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hence, we turn the idea of (planning the) port/city conflicts into planning the port-city's strengths and weaknesses.

Tangible and Intangible Boundaries: The Case of Baoshan Port-City Interface in Shanghai

“…In planning documents, general guidelines lead the port development at times to a worsened or contradictory situation. For Wusong Harbour, 'Shanghai's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020 of International Shipping Centre' states that Wusong harbour would transform into an international cruise harbour by changing and upgrading the old industrial park (Shanghai Municipality, 2016a), while traditional port industries and low-capacity port-related industries such as steelmaking and logistics are required to move out of Baoshan in 'Baoshan Master Plan 2017-2035' (Shanghai Baoshan District People's Government & Shanghai Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, 2019. Moreover, 'Baoshan Master Plan 2017-2035' plans Wusong as a Shanghai-level sub-centre to focus on the real estate industry.…”

“…) states that "one special profession or group of advocates who are faced with the fragmented complexity of regions today are planners." Indeed, this fragmented complexity is what the port city planners are facing at the port-city interface, the redevelopment of which has been a prominent topic for decades (Hoyle, 2000) and continues attracting planners' attention (Hein, 2016;van den Berghe & Daamen, 2020). This article analyses the changing borders or boundarieswe use both words interchangeably-of the port-city interface and tries to understand how various stakeholders and planning institutions deal with the fragmented boundaries between the port and the city.…”

Making it Concrete: Analysing the Role of Concrete Plants’ Locations for Circular City Policy Goals

“…We end with a discussion and conclusion. Hobson and Lynch, 2016;Deutz et al, 2017;Haezendonck and Van den Berghe, 2020;Salomone et al, 2020;Van den Berghe and Daamen, 2020;Williams, 2021). Although obvious differences in analytical focus, subject and methodologies exist between these works, what they have in common is stressing out the challenge of taking into account the spatial systems boundaries when dealing with sustainable development, of which the CE is the most recent popular advocate (Köhler et al, 2019).…”