Relationship beetween city-port-waterfront: complexity and complications

• Main Author: Bianca Petrella
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Università di Napoli Federico II 2014-01-01
• Series: TRIA : Territorio della Ricerca su Insediamenti e Ambiente
• Subjects: City-port, homologation, rules, innovations
• Online Access: http://www.tria.unina.it/index.php/tria/article/view/2060
• ISSN: 1974-6849; 2281-4574

<p class="FreeForm">Water is the basis of human and urban civilization; transport is the basis of trade and therefore of social progress. For many centuries water was by far the most important mode of transport, this is the principle reason why cities with rivers or seaports were predominant over cities without such features.</p><p class="FreeForm">Initially, industrialization, the construction of the railways, the advent of the car and the beginning of air transport challenged the hegemonic role of the cities-port. However, since the introduction of containers in the mid-1950‘s and shortly after the construction of inter-ports the role of water transport has been revitalized.</p><p class="FreeForm">The containers and the enormous ships carrying them need great surface areas and long piers, so ports were moved outside of cities and, thus, the historical relationship between city and port was definitively broken.</p><p class="FreeForm">The decline of large parts of the urban water front triggered redevelopment initiatives, which over time changed their use from industrial to leisure. These initiatives were often given names such as ‘urban recovery’, ‘renewal’, ‘regeneration’, ‘redevelopment’, and so forth.</p><p class="FreeForm">Enormous leisure areas were the common denominator and often the buildings had an exclusive and, for this reason, homologated architecture designed by “archi-star” (famous architects). The new built-up areas were out of the local character and out of the historical city-port relationship.</p><p class="FreeForm">Almost always liberated port spaces remain the property of the Port Authority and for this reason the way of making decisions is difficult. Italian law provides for a set of governing bodies to decide how to plan the interventions in the port areas. However, the law does not impose a co-ordination of the border area between city and port. Thus, the good governance of this area is left to chance and the hope that the various bodies can find mutually satisfying agreements.</p><p class="FreeForm">Some good and bad practices in various cities around the world and in Italy show how the old inner city ports and the relationship between city, port and waterfront have changed.</p>