RC21 CONFERENCE 2013
Resourceful cities
Berlin (Germany), 29-31 August 2013
Humboldt-University Berlin, Institute for Social Science, Dept. for Urban and Regional Sociology
Big ships on the horizon and social and spatial fragmentation at home – port cities as emblematic places of urban transformation
In the past two decades port cities have undergone profound transformation. Their transition process is emblematic for urban change in general. This session argues that port cities are privileged places for the analysis of:
- Flows of migrants, ideas, and goods and their urban manifestation in global circuits.
- Multiscalar forms of European urban governance, planning, and urban restructuring and particularly more transitional forms of urbanity.
- Dimensions of social and spatial exclusion, as marginalization and diversity feature prominently in port cities and neglected spaces and non-spaces are part of the city structure
- Increased globalization has been a driver for global restructuring, and has furthered the integration of port cities into global networks involving flows of capital, goods, ideas and persons. With a deep industrial history at stake, port cities were among the first cities that had to reinvent their socio-economic fabric and undergo structural change. Containerization, --and the processing of goods through the city, rather than in the city –has led to a strong dependency on emerging logistical reconfiguration, with little direct advantages for the city itself. Strong migrant in- and outflows--such as of transnational migrants and transient migrants--have long been characteristic for port cities, but through the 2000s transnational and diasporic forms of migration have shifted, to include upscale workers as well as students and tourists.
- Ports continue to be major economic factors in urban economies and city development, but they are often privatized and don’t contribute as obviously to the urban form and function of the city as they used to do before containerization. At the same time, old harbor areas have been dedicated to new leisure and consumption functions, attracting new groups of people and contributing to urban life and form in novel ways. The changing spatial organization of port cities has led to a re-writing of the city’s iconography, and its physical spaces (notably on the waterfront).Select experts and architects, often non-local ones, have implemented these changes in the built environment. Their projects regularly refer to common models, and apply specific modes of planning. They tend to-favor privatized action and competition-oriented programs, and may use European funding or incentives. Events such as the European Capital of Cultures program—have helped to turn vision into reality. Often, these new urban forms refer to historically cosmopolitan imaginary of port cities.
- The rescaling of local policies has led to a neglect of certain areas in the town that has gone along with the marginalization of large parts of the population “at home”. In many port cities urban planning had focused on a segment of the town and has turned a blind eye to social problems throughout the city, particularly those resulting from the social heritage of the past industrial society. Politicians and planner’s action remain focuses on revitalization, central urban spaces and new kinds of users and visitors, and often do not include a reflection on social polarization at the periphery.
Focusing on three dimension of urban change as apparent particularly in port cities, we invite papers that highlight 1) new global flows and the shifting roles of port cities within them, 2) that examine the impact of global circuits on the transfer of architectonical concepts and new instruments of planning into select port cities, 3) that examine internal social and spatial change in port cities
Session Organizers
Prof. Carola Hein, Bryn Mawr College, 101 N. Merion Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010, T: 610-526-5984, F: 610-526-5076, E: chein@brynmawr.edu
Prof. Felicitas Hillmann, Institut für Geographische Wissenschaften, Freie Universität Berlin Malteserstr. 74 – 100, 12249 Berlin, T: +49 (0)30-83870249, E: hillmann@zedat.fu-berlin.de
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