Removing the barriers to an ecosystem of city, port and territory
We blur the boundaries to consider the space that connects the port with the territory as a living, changing and permeable space that manages to create enriching situations in each of the sides.
The process of growth and heavy industrialisation in response to global trade networks has led to a disconnection between ports, cities and the areas in which they are located. Their development is no longer symbiotic and has led to an unsustainable situation where both parts seem to have nothing to do with each other and are no longer connected.
However, the weight of port infrastructure today exerts pressure and externalities on cities and their surroundings, and has an impact on the hinterland that stretches for miles from the coast. Therefore, restoring the relationship between the infrastructure and its surroundings is key to the sustainability of the infrastructure and the recognition of its responsibility for the environment.
The port is a place connected to the interests of other countries with which it trades. And so it's there and not there. The port attracts labor that may require new infrastructures in the center or periphery. Port logistics have also formatted all kinds of manufacturing and agricultural landscapes.
Keller Easterling
Designer, writer and professor at Yale
The main objective is to create a city-port ecosystem. This requires a comprehensive view of the strategy to reconcile economic, social and environmental values and redefine the reality of the relationship between city and port. It is based on restoring the services of the port infrastructure to the hinterland, as a gateway to the sea and a link to other areas. It is an infrastructure that must serve the industrial and productive ecosystem as an input and output node. In the case of ports located in dense urban environments, serving the area also requires a more complex response.
‘Path dependency’ says that certain basic infrastructures are so powerful that they give cities a very specific direction, and that it is very difficult to get rid of that direction later. [...] What do I see as the challenge for large infrastructures? On the one hand, it's exactly that –that they eat up other possible cities.
Gabriella Gómez-Mont
Founder, Experimentalista
The reality of the port must be more diverse and promote the city-port-territory ecosystem. In these cases, a key role is played by overlapping space as a space of connection and exchange, able to accommodate the diversity of realities (city, port and territory) of the ecosystem.
It is proposed to work with a diluted boundary that creates a wider and permeable environment where the relationship between both sides, as equals, takes place. This space of direct, physical relationship where the city-port ecosystem is territorialised is a space of mediation and recognition between the different interests and actors. A space to add functions and infrastructures which promotes cooperation between parties. A dynamic and complex system that is able to adapt and change according to the different situations and demands with which it interacts.
The city port of the 21st century is an organically interconnected port. It is so strongly integrated that the barrier is not perceptible from either the port or the city. [...] It should not be forgotten that the ports are a public asset, namely the coastal boundaries, which are fundamental for the development of cities. The coastal border is populated not only by port activity, but also by scientific activities, sports, leisure and cultural activities, fishing bays, fishing terminals…
Jorge Sharp
Mayor of Valparaíso
Key Actions
- Work in the areas of port-urban integration with a broader strategy beyond planning, integrating the principles and tools of inclusive development.
- Claim and use obsolete port areas and infrastructures as spaces of port-urban relationship.
- Facilitate the coexistence of port activities with urban and public uses in areas and times where this is possible.
- Consider the design of physical boundaries (e.g. walls or fences) that enable the visual relationship between the city and the port. Use materials and designs that are characteristic of the public space.
Experts
Gabriella Gómez-Mont
Founder, Experimentalista
Jorge Sharp
Mayor of Valparaíso
Keller Easterling
Designer, writer and professor at Yale