THE PORT – CITY RELATIONSHIP

The relationship between ports and cities is put into question, it is said to have disappeared. Especially technological and globalizing forces have changed the interaction between ports – cities. Ports tend to move downstream and away from cities, some even claiming to be able to function on Greenfield locations. Thereby, the links between the ports and cities are said to have been reduced to the bare minimum. What can be observed from looking at ports in this present day, is that despite the numerous negative aspects accompanying an urban character, most of the world’s leading ports are still located in and closely connected with their hosting urban environment. This research is aimed at getting a better understanding of the inner workings of the port – city relationship. The contradiction between the leitmotiv in the literature of a separating relationship and the main observations to be found when studying port locations today led to the following research question: Do both ports and cities still profit, after decades of major technological and globalization changes and the numerous bilateral negative externalities, from being in close proximity? Historically, ports were at the heart of the development of many cities, eventually to become among the largest metropolitan areas we know today. Having a port created the possibility to interact in international trade, allowing to trade over far greater distances than via traditional land transportation. The relationship between ports and cities was self-reinforcing, where growth in port activity led urban growth and vice versa. The last century the maritime port and shipping industry underwent some profound changes, especially technological and globalizing forces changed the relationship between ports and cities. First, industrialization and new container terminals led to great scale increases of the port cluster, resulting in conflicts with the urban environment. A second important change in the port and shipping industry was the internationalization and globalization of operations and actors. The internationalization had some serious impacts, where for example throughput experienced enormous growth or the displacement of local port operators by large international operators. These developments have considerably affected the port – city relationship and the interaction between ports and cities. The empirical research, studying 21 European port cities, created evidence to believe that ports and cities do still profit from being in close proximity. The city can profit from employment and value added creation in the port cluster. Where the port can profit predominantly from knowledge and business services that are concentrated within the city. The most striking result is to be found in the results on geographical separation. Where ports benefit from being in close proximity, for the urban environment it is more beneficial if the spatial separation is somewhat larger. To be explained by the negative externalities that will strike the city more when the port is directly located within the urban environment.