New Urban Routes for Port Cities

Marta Moretti

Deputy Director, International Centre Cities on Water (IT)

In the history of cities, during its millenary evolutionary progress, the relationship between city and port has constantly been one of the main factors promoting growth, the formation and accumulation of wealth and the creation and promotion of the image of the port city.
In the past, the port/city union has constituted an inseparable combination, both in spatial organisation and in the running of activities.
In this authentic 'joint governance' between port and city lies the essence of an authentic 'winning strategy' for the entire port city that should be taken as a current model.
Over the past few years the presence of port functions in these urban organisms have undergone great changes that have profoundly modified their layout within urban areas and, consequently, their relationship with the physical fabric and set of activities of the host city.
The extent, nature and consequences of these changes constitute, nowadays, one of the most important and significant urban phenomena and, as such, one of the most deserving of further study and analysis.

From city with port to city-port
More than airports and railway stations, port areas have borne the full brunt of the consequences of the important 'globalised' and 'globalising'changesin the field of goods and human transportation.
Over the last 10-15 years, ports have profoundly changed. Their twentieth-century layout, which maintained much of the ancient and historical port structures, has been greatly modified and is moving towards a vastly renewed configuration. This is the well-known phenomenon of 'waterfront regeneration'.
The transformations that have taken, or are taking, place in seaside cities/cities with ports have given and are giving rise to novel 'types' of cities, known as 'port-cities'.
These new 'port-cities' have been transformed from an often limited maritime dock to an authentic 'portal' that has opened up to the entire world and, consequently, to global markets.
But the "construction" of a port city, under current conditions, implies an incredible effort because it goes well beyond the collaboration between municipal administrators and port authorities.
The relationship between city and port is a decisive test bench for the modernisation processes underway within a country; long-term processes in which the state must define the legal framework and the appropriate tools for this relationship.
To prove this issue, it is helpful to observe what is happening at an international level, identifying the best practices in this field.