By Yvonne van Mil - TU Delft, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment
Port city territories are dynamic centres of commerce and culture, located at the intersection of land and water, and they are connected by complex water networks that often crosses political and administrative borders. Although port cities worldwide may share common spatial, economic, political, social, and cultural patterns, each has developed its own distinctive spatial strategies and stakeholder constellations over time, resulting in significant differences in their scale, form, and structures, as well as future challenges. Understanding these specific (historical) conditions and particularities that shape(d) each port city and their relationships with each other, is crucial for developing strategies that benefit citizens and address climate-related challenges such as climate crises, energy transitions, migration, and water-related emergencies.
Mapping can enhance this understanding of the diversity and challenges of contemporary European port city territories. The academic literature highlights the role of mapping in visualizing complex information and clarifying spatial flows and relationships, and increasingly, academics, planners, and policymakers are integrating maps and mapping into their research, using a variety of sources and techniques. However, much of this work is focused on specific temporal, spatial, or disciplinary perspectives or case studies, often limited by national contexts, languages, or disciplinary approaches (Hein & Van Mil, 2019). In line with the Port City Atlas (Hein, Van Mil & Ažman-Momirski, 2023), this contribution argues that we need a new methodological approach to help local and global stakeholders understand the spatial and social impacts of port activities, including shipping, logistics, and commodity flows, on nearby urban and rural areas. To address the contemporary global challenges and the complex socio-ecological systems in which port cities operate, we need mapping methods that transcend fixed, local scales and single disciplines. We need mapping methods that move beyond the monodisciplinary case study approach. This contribution discusses some of the challenges of developing a comparative mapping methodology to study European port city territories.
References
Hein, C. and Van Mil, Y. (2019). Towards a Comparative Spatial Analysis for Port City Regions Based on Historical Geo-spatial Mapping. PORTUSplus. 8.
Hein, C., Van Mil, Y. and Ažman Momirski, L. (2023) Port City Atlas: Mapping European port city territories: from understanding to design. Rotterdam: nai010 publishers.
About the speaker:
Yvonne van Mil is a researcher at the Department of Architecture at the Technical University of Delft and is a member of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus research center PortCityFutures. Her specialization is spatial history and planning, with a particular focus on mapping-based research for the comparative analysis of urban and rural landscapes in transition. She is (co-)author of several books, including Port City Atlas (2023), Driven by Steel (2018) and Atlas van het Westland (2016).
