Oil Spaces: The Global Petroleumscape in the Rotterdam/The Hague Area

Corporate and public actors have built the physical and financial flows of petroleum into the very landscape. This article identifies different layers of those flows— physical, represented, and everyday practices—that combine into a palimpsestic global petroleumscape. It posits that these layers historically became essential parts of modern...

The Separation of Ports from Cities: The Case of Rotterdam

Since industrialisation began in the 19th century, some ports have been moving away from the cities that once hosted them. That separation was only possible if land was available where new port basins, industries, and other infrastructure could be constructed and where port activities could prosper without being restricted by urban functions....

“The Hoist of the Yellow Flag”: Vulnerable Port Cities and Public Health

Port cities have long played a key role in the development, discovery, and fight against diseases. They have been laboratories for policies to address public health issues. Diseases reached port cities through maritime exchanges, and the bubonic plague is a key example. Port city residents’ close contact with water further increased the chance...

Straddling the Fence: Land Use Patterns in and around Ports as Hidden Designers

Ports are clearly demarcated structures on land and water. They are fenced in, easily recognizable on satellite and orthophoto images, and they have specific functions. This apparent clarity of ports, their function and outline, in relation to nearby urban and rural areas, becomes more complex when explored through the lens of land use, that is...