European Port Cities In Transition

Seaports, as part of urban centers, play a major role in the cultural, social and economic life of the cities in which they are located, and through the links they provide to the outside world. Port-cities in Europe have faced significant change, first with the loss of heavy industry, emergence of Eastern European democracies, and the widening of the European Community (now European Union) during the second half of the twentieth century, and more recently through drivers to change including the global Sustainable Development Agenda and the European Union Circular Economy Agenda. This book examines the role of modern seaports in Europe and consider how port-cities are responding to these major drivers for change. It discusses the broad issues facing European Sea Ports, including port life cycles, spatial planning, and societal integration. May 2019 saw the 200th anniversary of the first steam ship to cross the Atlantic between the US and England, and it is just over 60 years since the invention of the modern intermodal shipping container – both drivers of change in the maritime and ports industry. Increasing movements of people, e.g. through low cost cruises to port cities, can play a major role in changing the nature of such a city and impact on the lives of the people living there. This book brings together original research by both long-standing and younger scholars from multiple disciplines and builds upon the wider discourse about sea ports, port cities, and sustainability.

Culture- and event-led regeneration have been catalysts for the transformation of redundant urban port areas and for the reframing of the image of many port cities, which notably feature among mega-event bidding and host cities. However, there is little understanding of the impacts of these processes on port-city relationships, as well as of how port city cultures shape mega events and the related regeneration strategies. The book examines the underexplored mutual links between, on the one hand, urban and socio-economic regeneration driven by cultural and sporting mega events and, on the other hand, the spatial, political and symbolic ties between cities and their ports. By adopting a cross-national, comparative perspective, with in-depth case studies (Hull, Rotterdam, Genoa and Valencia) and examples from other port cities across the world where mega events were held, the book engages with issues such as the tension between port and cultural uses, reactions and opposition to mega events in port cities, clashing urban imaginaries drawing on port activity and culture, the role of port authorities and companies in the city’s cultural life, the spectacularisation and commodification of local maritime culture and heritage, processes of cultural demaritimisation and remaritimisation of port cities. The book is therefore a contribution towards the bridging of port city and mega-event studies, and it provides insights for port city policy makers and mega-event promoters, drawing from a range of international experiences. The book also shows how societal and political change in the current ‘ontologically-insecure’ times may undermine the very paradigm of culture- and event-led regeneration in the years to come.

Adopted as the official publication of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, it presents a systematic, analytical, research-based appraisal of the structure, operation and future of the great port cities in Europe. Studies modern alternatives to traditional functions, business adaptations of waterfront areas, environmental and economic issues.

Abstract :

Welke invloed hebben globalisering en de nieuwe technologie op de steden en hoe verloopt de confrontatie tussen de architectuur- en stedebouwkundige praktijk met de kritische theorievorming? Uitgebreide bespreking van het boek in Stedebouw en Ruimtelijke Ordening, 2001, nr. 5.

The history of Europe in the 20th century is closely tied to the history of urban planning. Social and economic progress but also the brute treatment of people and nature throughout Europe were possible due to the use of urban planning and the other levels of spatial planning. Thereby, planning has constituted itself in Europe as an international subject. Since its emergence, through intense exchange but also competition, despite country differences, planning has developed as a European field of practice and scientific discipline. Planning is here much more than the addition of individual histories; however, historiography has treated this history very selective regarding geography and content. This book searches for an understanding of the historiography of planning in a European dimension. Scholars from Eastern and Western, Southern and Northern Europe address the issues of the public led production of city and the social functions of urban planning in capitalist and state-socialist countries. The examined examples include Poland and USSR, Czech Republic and Slovakia, UK, Netherlands, Germany, France, Portugal and Spain, Italy, and Sweden. The book will be of interest to students and scholars for Urbanism, Urban/Town Planning, Spatial Planning, Spatial Politics, Urban Development, Urban Policies, Planning History and European History of the 20th Century. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This interdisciplinary book brings together eleven original contributions by scholars in the United Kingdom, continental Europe, America and Japan which represent innovative and important research on the relationship between cities and their hinterlands. They discuss the factors which determined the changing nature of port-hinterland relations in particular, and highlight the ways in which port-cities have interacted and intersected with their different hinterlands as a result of both in- and out-migration, cultural exchange and the wider flow of goods, services and information. Historically, maritime commerce was a powerful driving force behind urbanisation and by 1850 seaports accounted for a significant proportion of the world’s great cities. Ports acted as nodal points for the flow of population and the dissemination of goods and services, but their role as growth poles also affected the economic transformation of both their hinterlands and forelands. In fact, most ports, irrespective of their size, had a series of overlapping hinterlands whose shifting importance reflected changes in trading relations (political frameworks), migration patterns, family networks and cultural exchange. Urban historians have been criticised for being concerned primarily with self-contained processes which operate within the boundaries of individual towns and cities and as a result, the key relationships between cities and their hinterlands have often been neglected. The chapters in this work focus primarily on the determinants of port-hinterland linkages and analyse these as distinct, but interrelated, fields of interaction. Marking a significant contribution to the literature in this field, Port-Cities and their Hinterlands provides essential reading for students and scholars of the history of economics.