Over time, a large number of stakeholders have affected the Italian port city of Naples. The millenary history of Naples reveals a port that has been strongly intertwined with the city. Yet, recent history shows a different story. The historical investigation analysed in this article points out a conflict between several different authorities that led the port. As these developed into separate entities they detached people from the water. This article offers an institutional history. Using the concept of path dependence it argues that a past system of decision-making concerning the development of the port city reinforced the separation of land from water in Naples. Path dependence is understood as a resistance by institutions (rules) and actors (decision makers) to changes in patterns of behaviour and a tendency to repeat previous decisions and practices. This article analyses a series of critical junctures so as to analyse the constellation of actors and decisions which have prevented the city from living with water. The article concludes by arguing that understanding the articulated system of past decision-making is a key to (re)conceptualizing the current state of the city and (re)imagining ways by which the city might be reunited with its waters.@en

Port and city authorities all over Europe and beyond are striving with finding solutions able to combine sustainability with economic growth. Several global urgencies in fact, such as climate change, energy transition, the exponential changes in the scale of ports and ships and last but not least the economic and health shock related to the coronavirus pandemic, are challenging the spaces where ports physically meet their cities, generating processes of caesura within the urban patterns with consequent impacts on the quality of life. In port cities, infrastructures and energy flows overlap with city flows and patterns that change with different rhythms and temporalities. This discrepancy creates abandonment and marginality between port and city. This today is no longer sustainable. New approaches and solutions that look at integration and circularity rather than separation are necessary. Circularity has been widely discussed in the literature. However, the concept still remains very controversial, especially when it comes to port cities where new definitions are needed in particular to better understand the spatial dimension of circularity. The Rotterdam therefore case study stands exemplary. Here, the concept of the circular economy refers mostly to the theme of obsolete industrial buildings and marginal that are reinserted again within the urban metabolism. The case of Rotterdam points out that the competition of the port today goes through the quality of its relationship spaces and the ability of the different actors involved in the planning process to hold together economic growth and environmental sustainability. The areas along the river are in fact the most fascinating places in the city and today they are ready for a different use. In order for the city to become an attractive place to live it is necessary to build new, innovative and sustainable spatial visions. This will lead to scenarios of sustainable coexistence between port and city. Therefore, these two agendas (sustainable port and city attractiveness) came together in the area known as Makers district (M4H) which, together with RDM campus, represents the Rotterdam testing ground for innovation. Therefore, this chapter, by arguing that ports will play a crucial role in the transition towards more circularity investigates how to make it happen and how to transform the challenges of the port into opportunities for a territorial regeneration towards new forms of integration. In order to answer the question, the case of Rotterdam is presented to analyse a model of urban regeneration where different planning agencies—mainly port authority, municipality, universities and private parties—work together at different scales to define a sustainable coexistence of interests. The research, which draws data on existing literature and policy documents analysis, firstly introduces the spatial and governance structures of the city of Rotterdam as part of a bigger metropolitan region. Secondly, it analyses the case of “Stadshavens strategy” as an emblematic example to overcome conflicts and path dependencies at the intersection of land and water. Finally, it concludes by highlighting some limitations and path dependencies that could make the transition to new forms of the circular economy very difficult in the future.@en

Since 2016, the reorganization of the Italian port legislation through the decree n.169 has introduced port systems, as a new institutional umbrella helping improving ports efficiency. However, this new entity challenges the goals and interests of local stakeholders, which have their own tradition and have independently developed spatial patterns and governance arrangements. The current separate development paths—or to use a term from the political sciences: path dependence—have cemented in physical spaces, such as infrastructures and buildings. The Naples case stands exemplary. The new Central Tyrrhenian Sea Port Authority—as an entity overseeing the ports of Naples, Castellammare di Stabia and Salerno—exemplifies how institutional change can create both new opportunities for cities and the region and be restrained by existing spatial and governance interests. This is evident in the decisions that today see the municipality and the port authority, among others, unable to identify a solution that holds together economic development and enjoyment of the coastal landscape. Therefore, the recent port reorganization requires a new conceptualization of the role that space can play in institutional realignment, a rethinking of existing patterns of behavior as well as of the longer-term plans of all actors in the region. The article therefore presents a spatial-institutional analysis of the Naples port city region asking to what extent the ports merging represents a tool to overcome institutional and spatial inertia. In doing so, it combine policy document analysis with the results of interviews conducted with planning authorities at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport in Rome, municipality and port authority of Naples.@en

Ports have historically followed a linear model of growth. Formation, expansion, reallocation, abandonment, and redevelopments are just some of the steps that are followed over time by ports from all over the world. Circularity – a goal that both ports and cities hope to achieve in the near future – is not a new topic anymore. Although the global pressures to achieve this goal are immense, it can be stated that most port cities still have not yet made serious steps towards new circular models of growth. On the contrary, ports are still expanding, and they still generate serious amounts of waste, while also leaving networks of left-over territories that lay in states of wastefulness: port-city wastescapes. Two cases regarding these wastescapes are discussed. Naples, which is used to show land in limbo, while Rotterdam is used to show a port in transition. This article argues that a circular regeneration of these wastescapes can play a crucial role in re-imagining a new form of integration between the port, the city, and the metropolitan territory.@en

Historical paths matter in port-city regions. Here, spatial patterns and governance arrangements are path dependent to the point that once certain paths have been established, these become hard to change. This defines a condition of institutional inertia that plays a significant role in preventing any form of spatial change. Naples is an exemplar of how different actors have historically developed their own routines and planning tools, resulting in the spatial and governance separation still visible today. How do path dependencies influence the port–city (and regional) relationship we are experiencing today? Nowadays, ports operate in an increasingly changing environment where spatial and economic developments can be better understood as the results of actors’ interactions across different scales. In order to cope with global urgencies, such as energy, economic and societal transition, European infrastructure policies are driving many port authorities towards infrastructural integration and governance cooperation. This offers significant opportunities to improve relations among ports, but it mostly leaves out the interconnections with cities and larger regions. Moreover, it also challenges consolidated beliefs and planning cultures which have planned ports and cities as disconnected entities, at least since industrialization. In Naples, local and national authorities find it difficult to define a sustainable consistency of interests. Today, the Central Tyrrhenian seaport system is the new institutional umbrella overseeing the three main ports of the region: Naples, Castellammare di Stabia and Salerno. This paper investigates whether this new governance entity results in either an opportunity for change or a reinforcement of existing path dependencies.@en

The Italian coast has about 700 ports, which are different in typology, dimension, role, and ownership. Historically, this has led to the significant fragmentation of governance and space and a lack of cooperation that ports and cities still experience today. Among all ports, small and medium-sized ports (SMPs), such as marinas, small touristic harbors, and moorings, are the most affected. Unlike the main ports, where spatial and strategic regulation planning fall under the port authority’s responsibilities, SMPs are a combination of public and private management and are, therefore, excluded from national and regional planning and larger strategies. Improving SMPs’ cooperation at the regional level can drive more effective sustainable management among related activities (tourism and the fishing sector) and reduce pressures on the land–sea interaction (LSI). In filling the gaps, this article challenges the existing legal framework, planning tools, approaches, and initiatives and may pave the way to establishing a better-integrated national governance for SMPs. In conclusion, this paper identifies two main opportunities that can support the steady establishment of governance and the systematic harmonized development of these SMPs. The first one is offered by maritime spatial planning (MSP) as a strategic and legal tool whereby SMPs are recognized and, if financially supported, could find incentives and measures for their development. The second one is through European projects, programs, and initiatives such as Framesport as drivers in establishing a common ground among public and private interests and as a cooperation engine at a local scale.@en

How provocative can visions about the future be? What is the role that education can play in helping (re)imagining port-city territories at a time of transition? In this contribution we will answer this question through the lens of master’s elective course ‘Adaptive Strategies’ for the 2020/2021 spring quarter run by Carola Hein, Professor History of Architecture and Urban Planning at the Department of Architecture of Delft University of Technology, and co-taught with Nadia Alaily-Mattar, John Hanna, and Paolo De Martino.@en

How provocative can visions about the future be? What is the role that education can play in helping (re)imagining port-city territories at a time of transition? In this contribution we will answer this question through the lens of master’s elective course ‘Adaptive Strategies’ for the 2020/2021 spring quarter run by Carola Hein, Professor History of Architecture and Urban Planning at the Department of Architecture of Delft University of Technology, and co-taught with Nadia Alaily-Mattar, John Hanna, and Paolo De Martino.@en

How provocative can visions about the future be? What is the role that education can play in helping (re)imagining port-city territories at a time of transition? In this contribution we will answer this question through the lens of master’s elective course ‘Adaptive Strategies’ for the 2020/2021 spring quarter run by Carola Hein, Professor History of Architecture and Urban Planning at the Department of Architecture of Delft University of Technology, and co-taught with Nadia Alaily-Mattar, John Hanna, and Paolo De Martino.@en

Port cities are places at the edge of sea and land, where flows of goods and people create unique spaces, institutions and cultures, often over long periods of time. History matters when it comes to understanding and designing the future of port cities such as the two ancient Mediterranean cities of Beirut and Naples, where institutions and spaces are the result of longue durée histories. Long-standing spatial and institutional frameworks in these cities have influenced recent plans. In the Italian city of Naples, historic spaces and practices have impeded transformation, because port and city authorities are pursuing divergent and historically established goals while many industrial sites, including areas used by oil industry, await redevelopment. In Beirut, reconstruction following the tragic explosion of 2020, which significantly damaged both port and city, shaping and perhaps limiting the present and future of the city. This article analyses the historic development and the opportunities for future planning of Naples and Beirut through the lens of the Adaptive Strategies course, a master-level course coordinated by Carola Hein and co-taught with Paolo De Martino and John Hanna at TU Delft in 2022. Students, through imaginative methods, rethought the relationship between land and water, port and city, questioning current planning models and imagining new resilient and adaptive processes.@en

A sunny Helsinki was the backdrop for the 13th biannual conference of the European Association for Urban History (EAUH). The EAUH was established in 1989 with the aim to create a common platform to historians, geographers, sociologists, planners, and other scholars working with a multidisciplinary approach on urban history in different time periods. The first EAUH conference took place in Amsterdam in 1992 and the next one will take place in Rome during 2018 (for further information about EAUH, please visit the website: http://www.eauh.eu/). The ambitious theme of the 13th conference was Reinterpreting Cities. For planning historians, this theme held ample promise on programmatic, methodological, and theoretical levels. With 592 participants, 44 main sessions, and 30 specialist sessions, we decided to look at the conference through a specific lens. Based on a selection of relevant panels, therefore, we formulated two questions: first, how can a reinterpretation of cities lead to new theories on the city and connect to existing theories in other disciplines? And second, how can a reinterpretation of urban history connect to the ‘real world’, for example, planning practices? This conference report explores the ways in which this conference actually reinterpreted the city, in particular, how it connected to the spatial dimension and planning history.@en

Cities and landscapes around the world are the result of many centuries of human interventions. They are a spatial palimpsest of events and processes that have modified the formation of landscapes and cities and, in some cases, even erased what others had previously done (Corboz, 1998). The insertion of spaces of oil into the existing territory used existing patterns and created new ones, giving rise to a palimpsestic global petroleumscape that links production and management of industrial flows through a particular configuration of space (C. Hein, 2013, 2018). Throughout the twentieth century, as oil became a key player in the transformation of space, it helped the emergence of diverse spaces, ranging from industrial sites to headquarters and cultural facilities. In the network of oil spaces, port cities have taken on a particular role. The petroleum industry used the ports to access the hinterland. They built oil related structures, such as oil tanks, pipelines and industrial and sometimes administrative buildings nearby, often in the vicinity of dense urban environments (C. Hein, 2013). These landscapes are characterized by fragmentation, a term proposed by the urbanist Bernardo Secchi (B. Secchi, 2000) to describe a spatial condition that belongs to the contemporary cities. Here, left-over of contaminated industrial landscapes form a set of fragments with a high potential for change. In this situation, utopian scenarios designed to present possibilities of change can help envisioning a reality better than the current one (B. Secchi & Viganò, 2009). Previous design experiences have been carried out for the cities of Rotterdam and Dunkirk (C. Hein, 2017, 2019; C. Hein & De Martino, 2018). In 2018, the studio built upon an ongoing collaboration with Michelangelo Russo from the Department of Architecture of Federico II in Naples. The students from TU Delft took their analysis notably to the eastern part of Naples. Historical choices, urban activities and socio-economic relationships characterize a strategic area in Eastern Naples, where the city becomes landscape (Russo, 2014, 2016). In this area, the port faces a problem of relationship with the city, resulting in discontinuity and fragmentation for the waterfront areas. East Naples, and specifically the area of oil storage of Q8 called “Ambito 13”, is a critical area as it covers a huge space in between the city and the peripheral residential areas of Ponticelli and Barra (previous image). The oil refinery and oil tanks in this area separate the city center from the rest of the Eastern city. Here, commercial and oil flows intertwine with heavily urbanized areas. However, this mosaic of different landscapes and relations also has great potentiality for redevelopment (next image). Both the Naples Municipality and the Central Tyrrhenian Sea Port System [1] are vying for this site. Their competing interests present an opportunity to rethink the port-city relationship, to redevelop the abandoned oil-related industrial areas, and to re-launch East Naples as a new place for urban living. The studio therefore asked the following question: How can port and city use the container port extension – beyond the presence of the oil sites – as an opportunity for an era beyond oil? @en

Cities and landscapes around the world are the result of many centuries of human interventions. They are a spatial palimpsest of events and processes that have modified the formation of landscapes and cities and, in some cases, even erased what others had previously done (Corboz, 1998). The insertion of spaces of oil into the existing territory used existing patterns and created new ones, giving rise to a palimpsestic global petroleumscape that links production and management of industrial flows through a particular configuration of space (C. Hein, 2013, 2018). Throughout the twentieth century, as oil became a key player in the transformation of space, it helped the emergence of diverse spaces, ranging from industrial sites to headquarters and cultural facilities. In the network of oil spaces, port cities have taken on a particular role. The petroleum industry used the ports to access the hinterland. They built oil related structures, such as oil tanks, pipelines and industrial and sometimes administrative buildings nearby, often in the vicinity of dense urban environments (C. Hein, 2013). These landscapes are characterized by fragmentation, a term proposed by the urbanist Bernardo Secchi (B. Secchi, 2000) to describe a spatial condition that belongs to the contemporary cities. Here, left-over of contaminated industrial landscapes form a set of fragments with a high potential for change. In this situation, utopian scenarios designed to present possibilities of change can help envisioning a reality better than the current one (B. Secchi & Viganò, 2009). Previous design experiences have been carried out for the cities of Rotterdam and Dunkirk (C. Hein, 2017, 2019; C. Hein & De Martino, 2018). In 2018, the studio built upon an ongoing collaboration with Michelangelo Russo from the Department of Architecture of Federico II in Naples. The students from TU Delft took their analysis notably to the eastern part of Naples. Historical choices, urban activities and socio-economic relationships characterize a strategic area in Eastern Naples, where the city becomes landscape (Russo, 2014, 2016). In this area, the port faces a problem of relationship with the city, resulting in discontinuity and fragmentation for the waterfront areas. East Naples, and specifically the area of oil storage of Q8 called “Ambito 13”, is a critical area as it covers a huge space in between the city and the peripheral residential areas of Ponticelli and Barra (previous image). The oil refinery and oil tanks in this area separate the city center from the rest of the Eastern city. Here, commercial and oil flows intertwine with heavily urbanized areas. However, this mosaic of different landscapes and relations also has great potentiality for redevelopment (next image). Both the Naples Municipality and the Central Tyrrhenian Sea Port System [1] are vying for this site. Their competing interests present an opportunity to rethink the port-city relationship, to redevelop the abandoned oil-related industrial areas, and to re-launch East Naples as a new place for urban living. The studio therefore asked the following question: How can port and city use the container port extension – beyond the presence of the oil sites – as an opportunity for an era beyond oil? @en

Since 1960, global pressures and functional needs pushed the ports to move away from the city. The technological revolution of maritime transport, the container traffic and the relocation of port activities outside urban centers, have radically transformed the relationship between city and port. However, the contemporary debate comes back on some unresolved issues and pushes forward to the possibility and necessity to use these areas in a different way, experimenting new hybridisms and creative processes, as a first step towards sustainable development of ports and port cities. This paper asks the following question: how does the process related to new port functions located at the edge of the city and the regeneration of the historic port, rewrite the relation between city and port? City and port need a paradigm shift. There is the need to establish new relationships between the large-scale of the infrastructure and future urban development dynamics. Next economy means an urban, local and green economy. It is a new economic paradigm. It represents a transition from a stable to a flexible economy. These areas, today, are living this transition and they need a new economy that means, a starting point for a new way of thinking. The example of Rotterdam highlights the great potential of some areas and their ability to create new economies, re-stablishing a connection with the local identity. Port Authority, Municipality and University are working together with the aim to improve the quality of those spaces, convinced that this can be an added value for both, city and port. @en

The relationship between a city and its port, is undoubtedly one of the most conflictual both because of its complexity and because of the diversity of laws, rules and actors involved in the cultures and planning logics of both, the city and the port. They are the result of different historic traditions and practices as well as different geographic and political contexts. These factors, which over the centuries have given shape to an urban puzzle1 and to a spatial and social separation, have become key elements in attempting to understand the delicate city-port relations. The concept of archipelago2, as used here is a planning and methodological instrument, that includes, on the one hand the idea of the difficulty of coexistence, the difficulty of keeping things together in their diversity and on the other hand the will to work on existing spaces, practices and logics to modify them and build, like in an archipelago, new geographies and systems of spatial relations. So working between the city and the port forces architects, city planners and legislators to rethink both their planning logics, which consider the city and port as two separate elements, and areas of competence, identifying the intersecting elements of the different scales, within which to imagine scenarios of change and possible hybrids. The case of Rotterdam can stand as an emblematic example. Rotterdam could be read as a large port attached to a city if one considers that some of the new expansion of the former is about 40 kilometres from the urban centre. So the city and the port are separated from both physical and spatial points of view. However, this separation has been compensated for over the years by close collaboration among the local and national institutions, private subjects and research institutions to define a shared planning agenda that looks on the port as a strategic element of the city’s infrastructure, but at the same time one that can recreate a contact in the collective memory of its inhabitants.@en

The relationship between a city and its port, is undoubtedly one of the most conflictual both because of its complexity and because of the diversity of laws, rules and actors involved in the cultures and planning logics of both, the city and the port. They are the result of different historic traditions and practices as well as different geographic and political contexts. These factors, which over the centuries have given shape to an urban puzzle1 and to a spatial and social separation, have become key elements in attempting to understand the delicate city-port relations. The concept of archipelago2, as used here is a planning and methodological instrument, that includes, on the one hand the idea of the difficulty of coexistence, the difficulty of keeping things together in their diversity and on the other hand the will to work on existing spaces, practices and logics to modify them and build, like in an archipelago, new geographies and systems of spatial relations. So working between the city and the port forces architects, city planners and legislators to rethink both their planning logics, which consider the city and port as two separate elements, and areas of competence, identifying the intersecting elements of the different scales, within which to imagine scenarios of change and possible hybrids. The case of Rotterdam can stand as an emblematic example. Rotterdam could be read as a large port attached to a city if one considers that some of the new expansion of the former is about 40 kilometres from the urban centre. So the city and the port are separated from both physical and spatial points of view. However, this separation has been compensated for over the years by close collaboration among the local and national institutions, private subjects and research institutions to define a shared planning agenda that looks on the port as a strategic element of the city’s infrastructure, but at the same time one that can recreate a contact in the collective memory of its inhabitants.@en

Petroleum flows have shaped landscapes, cities and buildings around the world in tangible and intangible ways. Industrial structures such as refineries and oil depots, as well as headquarters of oil companies, gas stations, and road infrastructures, are the tangible result of petroleum power. Their emergence has created new landscapes. Analysing them it will provide new insights to think about a post petroleumscape. Petroleumscape is an interesting concept from a design perspective, used to explain the relationship between production and management of industrial flows, and their impact on the urban settlement and the configuration of the space. Understanding the relation between production and space will allow to evaluate the state of the territory, its transformative potential, and finally, to identify strategies for the regeneration of the city, infrastructure, the environment, and landscape as a whole. At the beginning of the 20th century, the national government opted to make Naples into one of the most important industrial cities. East Naples, located at the edge of the city and on the only urban expansion axis toward a wider metropolitan area, has historically assumed the character of an industrial urban periphery. East Naples, part of a Region in the past defined as “felix”, is nowadays a place of waste, a brownfield. It is a place in transition, sad result of an obsolete economic and land use model that needs to be changed. The coexistence of industrial spaces and one of Europe’s densest urban settlement system gives rise to a landscape in which, nowadays, the interstitial spaces become available to the definition of new hybridisms and possibilities of interconnections. @en

Numerous actors have been involved in the planning of the port and city of Naples. National and local authorities—namely central government, the Region, the Municipality of Naples, and the Port Authority—act upon the port at different scales, according to diverging interest and by using different planning tools. Each entity has different spatial claims and contrastive views on what port city integration can be. Their diverse goals have led port and city to develop into separate entities, from a spatial, cultural, economic as well as administrative perspective. The different scopes of their planning are particularly visible in the areas at the intersection of land and water, where the relationship is characterized by waiting conditions across different dimensions and scales. The separation between port and city in Naples originates from history. This PhD thesis looks at the past as a resource, sometimes as a problem in the way it produces inertia, but certainly as a heritage made of signs, traces, and cultures, written and rewritten on the urban palimpsest. Using and challenging the concept of path dependence—defined here as a resistance by institutions and people to change patterns of behavior and to repeat previous decisions and experiences— this PhD thesis argues that in order to overcome inertia, it is important to recognize the interests and spatial claims of all the stakeholders involved port city planning and to identify shared goals and values as a foundation for future design. @en

Numerous actors have been involved in the planning of the port and city of Naples; actors who have different ideas and goals, different tools, and even time-frames. The European Union, the Italian nation, the Campania Region, the Municipality of Naples, and the Port Authority act upon the port at different levels of planning. Each entity has different spatialities and temporalities. Their diverse goals have led port and city to develop into separate entities, from a spatial, functional as well as administrative point of view. The different scopes of their planning are particularly visible in the zone between port and city. Using and challenging the theory of path dependency, this paper explores the diverging ways in which a range of different institutions have planned for port and city starting from nineteenth century until today. It studies how the introduction of different institutions and their evolution has influenced plan making over time. The case of Naples shows the challenges that arise from the palimpsest of plans and goals associated with port and city, and that are particularly visible in the port-city interface in Naples.@en